Healing in a Wounded World
Existing lab equipment in DRC clinic at Kifuma Ngimbi
Birthing table made of wood in pilot health center at Kifuma Ngimbi
Distraught at the rate of women and babies dying, a group of Lutheran lay men looked for a solution. These lay men lived in remote jungle villages in the west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They resolved to challenge every family in their churches to bring one “jerry can” (5-gallon container) of palm oil to church so that it could be sold as a special offering. The faithful responded, and today 21 Lutheran health centers and 2 nursing schools exist in the DRC as a result, bringing health and healing to remote locations, in the name of Jesus Christ!
Brick making for Kifuma Ngimbi
Scott Lien (GHM Dir. of Operations) and I visited a half a dozen of these centers and both nursing schools in May 2025. We were invited and accompanied by the national Lutheran Bishop of the Confessional Lutheran Church of the Congo (CELCCO), Rev. Albert Khonde Ngoma, and Rev. Dr. Diedone Panzo, a missionary of World Mission Prayer League who was born in Angola but has lived most of his life in the DRC.
Patient injured in fall from a palm tree
In the DRC, the Lutheran Church is asking GHM for partnership to improve one remote medical center as a pilot. After an assessment by GHM and Dr. Panzo the most critical needs to strengthen this pilot center include: 1) modest new construction to allow separation of patients with different diagnoses, 2) new and sanitary toilets, 3) basic items for the operating room (OR), lab (like an improved microscope), and a handheld ultrasound for diagnostics. Already, the local community is hard at work making bricks to donate along with their physical labor throughout the project. With the help of hundreds of GHM volunteers, we also hope to send a sea container in 2026 to “test” the shipping routes and offer some basic supplies requested for all 21 Lutheran health centers.
This story of God’s people rising up to bring health and healing to a world wounded by injustice and inequities, this is the story of God’s people in many countries. Partnering with such love and witnesses to God’s love is the reason Global Health Ministries exists. Wherever we work, we strive to partner with such local heroes of faith and service.
GHM’s strategy is to strengthen local efforts through our focus on system strengthening (improved patient care and sustainability), community-based efforts to promote health, and benevolent gifts to help the hands that heal. Your gifts of volunteer hours (tens of thousands of hours!) and donations of medical items and dollars — all these make it possible to partner in remote jungle villages in the DRC and in over a dozen other countries where Lutherans are rising up to address health and inequities around the world.
Thank you for this partnership! We hope to gather with many of you in-person this fall to celebrate and learn together in our Symposium. “Healing in a Wounded World” is our theme on Saturday September 27. We will explore how health and healing are related to shalom, human rights, and peace. With guest speakers from Nigeria, and Kenya, we are sure to have an incredible opportunity for inspiration together!
