On World Volunteer Day, December 5th, two doctors with international missions group SIM are heading to Africa to serve in hospitals treating patients with Ebola.
International Volunteer Day was established by the United Nations in 1985 as a way to encourage volunteerism around the globe. SIM International focuses on helping people around the world and Dr. Dan Crawford of SIM said he’s excited to help those in need in Africa.
“We feel like we are well prepared,” Dr. Crawford told USA Headline News. “You can’t be completely prepared until you are there, but we don’t really feel any great anxiety about the disease itself. We know we are in God’s hands wherever we are and there are dangers wherever you work. There is, however, anxiety about going to a new place.”
Dr. Crawford has spent 15 years volunteering monthly at a low-cost clinic in Portland, Oregon.
Dr. John Fankhauser will also be volunteering with SIM’s Ebola mission. Dr. Fankhauser had been practicing family medicine at the SIM ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia when the Ebola outbreak started.
He has personally been quarantined twice because of possible exposure to Ebola. He said it’s God’s call on our lives to help those in need and so he has no problem going back after his second quarantine. He trusts the Lord will plan his days and he trusts in Him.
