Container of Hope

Sometimes all it takes is a picture. . . Aira Hospital ministry team

Good Shepherd members visited the hospital in Aira, Ethiopia, one of only a few full-service hospitals between Khartoum and Addis Ababa. Its staff serves an area of 600,000 people in western Ethiopia with dated equipment that often functioned only with jerry-rigging and prayers.

The travelers began working with Global Health Ministries, a local non-profit that collects good, used equipment from hospitals or purchases new medical equipment. With Aira Hospital staff, they assembled a list of equipment, which filled a 40-foot sea container. Costs for shipping and purchasing some key equipment added up to a considerable sum.

Their first stop was the Good Shepherd Foundation with a grant request of $9700.00 specifically for some crucial equipment: two operating tables and overhead lights, an autoclave, and a power supply.

When we saw the pictures of their current equipment, we saw the great need! We granted their request. When the sea container arrived in Aira in March, the operating tables and lights went right from the truck into the operating room.

What Good Shepherd means to me:

The surgeon at the hospital writes: “This generous donation will improve the quality of our service tremendously to the benefit of our many patients.” They are the hands of Christ in western Ethiopia.