Greetings and God’s blessings to all!

By way of introduction, my name is Vinnie Rhodes. My wife Bet and I are blessed and grateful members of St. Philip’s, and we would like to share with you the exciting medical and evangelical mission work occurring in Liberia in West Africa. This is a new mission born of God’s providence and His redemptive nature.

Three Rivers Outreach Medical Mission is an outgrowth of Three Rivers Outreach, which was founded 10 years ago by Shawn and Sonny Dupre, who began visiting Liberia in 2007 as part of a St. Andrew’s Mt. Pleasant mission team and later moved there permanently. The name is drawn both from three rivers they’ve spent so much time boating, swimming and fishing in––the Wando, Cooper, and Ashley––and the three largest rivers in Liberia: St. Paul, St. John, and the Cestos. Their mission focus has been in educating and evangelizing marginalized persons in the post-civil war country of Liberia.

Three Rivers Outreach Medical clinic was first conceived in 2015, when God placed Sonny and me, who were childhood friends, together after years of separation and at a very low point in my life. Eight years later, after much discussion and discernment, we opened the doors (of Sonny and Shawn’s house!) to the people of Liberia to screen for and treat hypertension and diabetes.

The average person in Liberia has little to no ability to access medical care, and even if they did, they would have no ability to pay for care and treatment. After a weeklong fact-finding mission in February of 2023, we decided to focus on two conditions that we felt God called us to help His people with. While typhoid, malaria, and other infectious diseases account for most morbidity and mortality, we came to understand that hypertension, diabetes, and the resultant effects were killing and crippling huge numbers of people and that the concept of primary care and ongoing treatment was very foreign to the average person. What may seem simple and routine to you and me––blood pressure screening and diabetes screening––are, for the most part, inaccessible to our brothers and sisters in Liberia. For those who can be seen and evaluated, typically at a roadside clinic for an acute infection, very rarely are they able to afford medications beyond a few weeks.

Three Rivers Outreach Medical Mission has now held three clinics in Liberia. We provide free care and free medication for six months. We are blessed with friends “on the ground” there in Liberia, and a staff of Christian friends without whom we would be wholly ineffective, including Nurse Cecelia Woerter,  a deacon named Anastas Johnson, and his wife Linda, a nurse. Our last mission trip (September 2–October 4, 2024) was blessed with over 550 patients, over 220 of whom were returning for the second or third time.

The results after 18 months are encouraging both from a physical and spiritual perspective. Significant reductions in blood pressure as well as average blood sugars (A1C) are the norm, and more important than the objective findings are the reports from patients about how they feel. The concept of recurring and ongoing primary care is growing, and with God’s help, it can flourish. One can easily see the effects of a loving God in these dear people’s lives. He sent us to them and them to us!

In addition to the opportunity to lay hands on and treat our brothers and sisters is the awesome opportunity to spread God’s love to people who are marginalized and recovering from a war-torn era and a corrupt government. We have prayer before and during each clinic day with a deacon available to pray with and for those we are seeing. We often see as many as 15-20 persons of the Muslim faith each day. Many of those have prayed with Deacon Johnson and have accepted Christ.

We ask that you include Three Rivers Outreach Medical Mission in your prayers and that God would continue His work––through us and for His people in Liberia.