Congo Son – Paul Carlson Partnership

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Congo Son
By Liripa Floribert (Flory) Buki as told to Linda Sladkey
(Flory Buki is a Paul Carlson Partnership board member)

Flory Buki

It was never the plan to live in the United States. It was never the plan, but God has a way of redirecting the plans.

My father was a security guard at a gold mine in a small town in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My mother ran a small business, selling tomatoes, onions, and bananas in a local market near our home in Bunia. In Congo people often go to work but don’t get paid. And so it was with my father—I don’t ever remember him being paid. But we did have a house that was provided by the company.

Although my parents were very dedicated to our education, they couldn’t afford school for all thirteen of us children. Even though I am the seventh child, I was the first one to get an education. My mother was able to pay for most of my first two years of school, but then the money ran out.

I still tried to attend school. Every day I would wake up at 4 a.m. and walk seven miles to the school, but the teachers would kick me out of class because my parents could not pay the “minerval,” the monthly fee of $2. Instead of going home, I would stop and play soccer with friends until it was time to go home. My siblings and I were very discouraged and felt we had no hope.

Continue reading Flory's story

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Medical Ambassador Program

Are you a nurse, doctor, health administrator, or currently in training to become one?
Do you have a passion to serve?
Are you interesting in learning from other cultures?

If so, consider volunteering as a PCP Medical Ambassador! PCP Medical Ambassadors are compassionate, dedicated medical professionals investing their skills in US-based service to Congo. We have developed an innovative structure to allow medical and healthcare professionals to work alongside their counterparts in DR-Congo. Our “training of the trainers” approach equips local personnel throughout the healthcare system of hospitals and clinics. The Medical Ambassadors are a critical link to transformed and saved lives. Contact Craig Anderson, our Director of Medical and Health Programs for more information about how to partner with us!

Visiting Anne Marie
by Dr. Jim Walker, PCP Medical Ambassador

Last year, we learned about Anne Marie Magolo Zuku, a nurse at the IPOK Clinic near Gemena. She had attended a Medical Ambassador course called Bleeding After Birth which trains doctors and nurses how to manage bleeding complications after delivery. A PCP video told this story.

Helping Mothers Survive

On Sunday, April 19, 2016, a Medical Ambassadors team visited Anne Marie at IPOK again. As we toured her medical center, we met a young mother and her two day old boy. The woman's husband is a nurse at a NGO clinic that provides care for albinos. Anne Marie told us how she had to manage each of the three main complications that can cause bleeding after birth (the uterine muscle not contracting adequately, the placenta needing to be manually removed, and lacerations that need to be repaired) during this woman’s delivery. Anne Marie had involved the patient's husband for help. As a team they gave the woman medications and administered intravenous fluid. Anne Marie manually removed the placenta and repaired lacerations. The husband was so impressed that he asked for a photocopy of her instruction book so he could learn the techniques Anne Marie had used to save his wife's life.

Anne Marie is an excellent nurse who loves God and applied the Medical Ambassador training she received to save lives. She loves to teach the training to others, and we hope sharing this technique with the patient’s husband will lead to more lives saved. I am honored to call her my friend and to have taught the Helping Mothers Survive course she attended two years ago. It is great that our family is able to support a clinic like Anne Marie's through the Congo Clinic Initiative.

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