Rev. John Lunn 
   Zion's Missionary

Monthly News from John Monthly news from John More about Liberia More about Phebe Hospital Photos of Liberia

Zion is now supporting Rev. John Lunn as our missionary. He is a member of Zion and is serving the ELCA's Global Missions as administrator of Phebe Hospital in Liberia. John's training as a registered nurse helps him in this work as he understands the working of a hospital and the needs of the staff. John is the son of the late Rev. Frank and Ione Lunn and grew up at Zion. John left in September 2006 to begin this work. Phebe Hospital is located near the town of Gbarnga in the Bong Province of Liberia which is inland in the hilly rain forest area of the country. Phebe is one of two Lutheran hospitals in Liberia - the other is Curran Hospital which is north of Phebe in the town of Zorzor. (Check the map)  Liberia went through 14 years of civil war between 1990 and 2004 and although recovery has begun, there is much work remaining. The country has been without electricity since 1990 - Phebe Hospital has a generator to supply their needed power but only essential area have electricity during the daylight hour. The rest only have power at night. Much of the infrastructure was destroyed. Phebe Hospital was invaded and occupied and looted and mostly destroyed. A lot of rehabilitation has been completed but there is still a lot more to do. John's job is to keep the hospital going, get it back to where it was before the war damage, and help train Liberian personnel to take over the administration of the hospital. For a recent video of Liberia, visit Cuttington University's web site and look for the video made by Trinity Church of NY. This university is about a mile from Phebe Hospital. One of the first priorities - right after fixing the big generator and the only X-ray machine - was establishing a reliable and affordable connection to the Internet which allows the doctors to consult with other doctors around the world and makes getting supplies faster and easier and allows long distance learning opportunities for students in nursing and lab programs. It also allows John a more reliable email connection with us here! Read his monthly reports. Read more about Phebe Hospital on the ELCA  Liberia Support page. Please consider giving $20 for a week's worth of support for John's work. When he comes home on leave (which will be after 22 months in Liberia - summer 2008) he will visit Zion and tell us about his work there. In the meantime, the web site will try to keep you up to date on his activities. He does email the web master (his sister Jan Brown) regularly! See photos of Global Health Ministries loading a shipping container of supplies for Liberia and those supplies being unloaded in Monrovia.