Congo Nursing School Dream Coming True

For the past ten years, the Nursing and Lab Technology School of the Christian Medical Institute (IMCK) in DR Congo has had a dream: to establish a computer skills training classroom and provide internet access for both student education and faculty research. Now, in God’s perfect timing, several factors have come together to help this dream come true.

First, because of the severe and frequent lightning storms in this area of Congo, fiber-optic cable, rather than wire, must be used. Funds for the cable came through First Presbyterian Church of Yuma, AZ, the home church of Dr. John and Gwenda Fletcher, PC(USA) co-workers at IMCK. Yuma Regional Medical Center where Dr. Fletcher previously worked, sent used network equipment and computers.

Then, writes Dr. Fletcher, “the Medical Benevolence Foundation generously stepped up to provide the absolutely critical funds needed to ship this equipment from Yuma, AZ all the way to the village of Tshikaji in the interior of the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

When the equipment arrived, a half-mile of three-foot trenches needed to be dug to bury the fiber-optic cable. At that point, the students—both boys and girls—grabbed shovels and dug the trenches themselves. Dr. Fletcher noted that even the Principal of the school helped pull the cable through the holding pipes.  And “when the system was powered up, the school had internet access for the first time ever.”

Again, Gods timing proved perfect, as the Ministry of Health of DR Congo chose IMCK’s nursing school as one of three sites to receive funds and computers in a pilot project evaluating the use of computers in curriculum.

“This project demonstrates not only that we can accomplish great things working together,” said Dr. Fletcher, “but also that there is a real need for technical expertise even in the mission field in DR Congo.”

IMCK needs volunteers with skills in IT or network and server administration, especially those fluent in French. If interested, please contact MBF at info@MBFoundation.org or 800-547-7627 for more information.