Grace weighed less than 8 pounds at 8 months of age when a seven-member missionary team from Christian Fellowship Church of Columbia arrived in Yako, Burkina Faso, in January.

Photo courtesy of  Christian Fellowship Church of Columbia

Jack Curtis, 63, retired director of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Missouri-Columbia, examines a young boy in a village outside of Yako, Burkina Faso. The doctor and six others traveled to the West African country in January to visit Sheltering Wings, a school, orphanage and sponsorship program. Curtis provided medical care to children in the area, including this boy, whose heart, Curtis said, was so enlarged that it filled his chest cavity.

The tiny baby grabbed the hearts of the group instantly and hasn’t let go.

Diagnosed with a vague condition, failure to thrive, it was believed orphan Grace just needed a nurturing family environment to turn her health around.

After spending Jan. 2-14 in Yako, a town in the northwest part of the arid West African country, the group brought Grace back to the United States on a six-month medical visa.

"I’m sure she would have died without getting the attention she’s getting," said Jack Curtis, retired director of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"The medical task there is so daunting … it almost paralyzes you with inaction," he said of the country. "But we must not turn away."

The retired doctor has visited Guatemala for the past four years on medical missions.

"I didn’t think conditions could be worse than in Guatemala, but they clearly are," the doctor said. "The medical situation is desperate. There are 230,000 people in Yako with access to only two physicians."

The seven-member team traveled to a school, orphanage and sponsorship program in Yako sponsored by St. Louis-based Sheltering Wings, hoping to ease the overwhelming situation.

Mary Moe, owner of Mary’s Christian Day Care, couldn’t leave Grace behind. She wants to make a permanent difference in the orphan’s life. Moe, 47, and her husband, Jeff, want to adopt Grace.

Moe said she hadn’t known what role she would play in the mission alongside doctors and expert educators until she met Grace. Her child-care skills were exactly what Grace needed.

Moe spent the second week working the dehydrated baby up from an eyedropper of formula to 4-to-6-ounce bottles.

"I was really attached to her in Burkina Faso," she said.

Since coming to the United States, doctors have discovered that Grace’s failure to thrive was because of an intolerance to her formula. She’s gained three pounds and is thriving, Moe said.

The Moe family is still in the preliminary stages of trying to adopt her.

The rest of the missionaries are also still dealing with the trip’s huge impact on their own lives.

Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to the CIA World Factbook.

"I saw stuff that reminded me of the early Iron Age," said Howard Jones, a retired school superintendent. "People live in huts with grass roofs. There are animals wandering in and out of courtyards - pigs, goats, donkeys. Nothing is mechanized. There is no running water, no electricity."

Jones, 63, said he’ll never be the same after going to Burkina Faso.

Originally there to see how education services could be improved, Jones’ mission has narrowed to helping 5-year-old Therese, a shy girl with a life-threatening heart condition.

Curtis, 63, examined Therese and discovered she had an enlarged heart - a condition that, if not treated by transplant, would severely limit her life and result in her early death.

Just as the group brought back Grace, now Sheltering Wings and the missionaries are trying to find funds to fly Therese and an escort to Boston for medical treatment.

"She’s got some infections, and unless she gets to the United States, she’s not going to make it," said Deb Schaefer, mission leader.

The $25 Jones pledged to send each month for Therese’s care is dwarfed by the $2,000 needed for plane tickets. Jones is considering taking out a loan to fund her flight, he said, and is considering other fundraising ideas.

Educational needs daunting

Jones toured both Sheltering Wings’ school and the public schools of Yako.

Sheltering Wings models its classes after U.S. schools, with smaller class sizes and hands-on learning, he said. The organization has 25 students in each first, third and fifth-grade class.

Jones was stunned by the first-grade class he visited at a public Yako school that had 107 first-graders. "Burkina is a different world of education," he said.

The most veteran member of the group, and one of its youngest members, was Ami Galaske, 23. It was the MU senior’s third trip to the country, and a decisive one.

"It’s hard to put words to, but it solidified something in my heart that this is what God called me to do," she said.

Ami Galaske said the trip helped her commit a year of her life to working at Sheltering Wings, possibly more. The human development and family studies major plans to move to Burkina Faso in June to complete an internship requirement for her degree. After that, she plans to start a preschool at Sheltering Wings.

Ami Galaske has raised about one-third of the funds she needs to live in Africa for a year, she said.

Her father, Marc Galaske, youth pastor at Christian Fellowship, said he’s torn about his daughter’s decision. He knows it’s what she feels God has asked her to do, he said, but she is also his only daughter.

His cousin, Lynn Peters, who started the primary school at Sheltering Wings, committed herself to a lifetime of missionary work and never started a family. The possibility that his only daughter might choose the same path lurks in the back of his mind, he said.

Marc Galaske, 45, is also planning to return to Yako in December with another missionary group to continue helping to develop the youth ministry at Sheltering Wings.

"Their way of educating is to cram 120 kids in a classroom and lecture at them the whole time," he said.

Sheltering Wings’ youth minister follows that cultural example, he said. Marc Galaske wants to get Rodrique, the youth minister, interacting with kids.

"Youth ministry is not known over there," he said. "Teenagers are not given a lot of attention."

He plans to return with youth workers and host events for Yako teens to show Rodrique how to get their attention on God through interaction such as games and entertainment, he said.

Schaefer, who oversees the women’s ministry at Christian Fellowship, said missionary work is becoming the church’s heart. Groups work in Guatemala, China, Thailand, Brazil and in Columbia.

The highlight of the Burkina Faso trip for her was meeting 8-year-old Germaine Sankara, who she and her husband have sponsored for about a year and a half, she said, by sending $25 a month to Sheltering Wings.

Anyone wanting to sponsor a child can visit www.sheltering-wings.org or call Christian Fellowship Church at 445-8561. Call the church to support Ami Galaske’s or Therese’s journey.

Advertisement