On a hot day in early August, F. Phillip Nushann Jr. took a short break from his internship working with refugees through Lutheran Social Services. He carefully packed a large parcel with bottles of hand sanitizer, eardrops, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, and then stopped at a local post office to mail the package to his home in Liberia, hoping that the desperately needed items would arrive within 10 days.
Nushann, 35, an M.A. junior at Luther, remains alert to each new media report from his homeland, currently experiencing the worst outbreak of the virus-borne disease Ebola in years. Ebola, which has a mortality rate of up to 90 percent, currently has no cure or effective treatment. In addition to Liberia, the West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria are also affected.
Nushann watches each newscast about the outbreak with special concern. His wife, Agnes, and 9-year-old son, Steven, remain in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia and the epicenter of the recent outbreak. More than 4,100 people in Liberia have died from Ebola so far, with countless others extremely ill. Over the past months, the beleaguered government has taken increasingly strict steps to halt the spread of the contagious disease, including quarantining nearly 50,000 people in one of the area’s most crowded and impoverished slums.
Nushann knows that his simple first-aid package won’t protect his family from the Ebola virus, but he says their request for the supplies points out a largely under-reported facet of the situation in his country.
“This is really serious right now in Liberia,” Nushann says. “Usually during this time, we have a lot of sickness, especially malaria, fever and colds. And the people are having problems because most of the health facilities are closed, so they can’t even find these first-aid drugs. People have already started dying from sicknesses that are not Ebola-related. I’ve sent supplies that can be shared among my family and other community members, and we can just be praying and asking God to keep them safe.”
Nushann says another challenge currently confronting residents of Liberia is an even more direct one–food.
“The government has instituted some really stringent measures to try to stop the spread of this virus,” Nushann says. “They have closed a lot of public places, like marketplaces and schools. In Liberia, the situation is such that we have to go out on a daily basis to find food. [Residents] are being asked to stay home when their basic necessities are not available, especially food.”
The U.N. World Food Program is currently delivering supplies to more than a million people in the affected areas who are under medical quarantine or receiving treatment. Luther Seminary has also been involved in sending much-needed supplies to the region, working with the Rev. John Karmo, ’14, and the secretary general of the Baptist Churches in Liberia.
If his plans had not been interrupted, Nushann would have returned to Liberia in mid-August to see his family after a year at Luther. He planned to use his time at home to conduct research for his thesis, which involves working with rural Liberian communities to identify ways in which the church can better serve them. (His father, now retired, was a pastor in rural Liberia for more than 40 years.)
“On the day I finally postponed my trip, it was really difficult,” Nushann says. “But I also realized that I have to be strong while I’m here so that I can help [my family] to be strong. I have to provide them with guidance. If I don’t compose myself, it will not help me to do the things I need to do here now, like get drugs and other things for them.”
While he waits and watches the situation develop in Liberia, Nushann says he is happy right now to be at Luther among friends, and for the scholarship from the ELCA International Scholarship Program that has allowed him to study at the seminary.
“Coming to Luther is something that I really could not believe happened for me,” Nushann says. “It was unbelievable. It all happened through the grace of God, and I’m really grateful for the opportunity.”
Nushann also says that a crisis of the magnitude of the one happening in West Africa right now has strengthened his faith, rather than making him question God’s plan.
“Those are some of the things that make God, God, you know?” he says. “There are things that are hard to understand why they happen. He works according to his own will, and as I was saying to my son, ‘This is a time for us to trust that God won’t let us down.’ That was also what I told my wife. She said, ‘Keep praying for us.’ Even in the midst of this outbreak, they know that God is able to bring the situation under control. It has just overwhelmed the capacity of the government, and we need to ask him to take us through this situation.”