Despite their own losses and devastation in the wake of the recent mudslide, more than 500 members of the Freetown Stake (group of congregations) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embarked on a large-scale cleaning project at the Connaught Hospital on August 19 as part of the previously scheduled Church’s All Africa Helping Hands Service Project.
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The intervention by Latter-day Saints was timely as the entire hospital – overwhelmed by the disaster – needed to be clean and habitable in order to adequately treat badly injured survivors of the mudslide and receive the corpses of hundreds of victims at its mortuary before burial.
Every participating member of the Church was actively involved in mopping, sweeping, supplying water, collecting garbage, weeding and depositing the collected garbage collected into the dump site. This cleaning also improved the overall condition and appearance of the hospital.
In her opening remarks, Sister Grace Mary Bangura of the Action for Development Project expressed her feelings and appreciation for the unique services rendered by the Church.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” she said. We seem to be having a good smell in the hospital now and we are grateful for your service.”
Mr. Ibrahim Sesay, the medical equipment technician for Connaught Hospital’s engineering department, said “I am so glad to see a church doing such massive and selfless service.”
President Kevin Clawson of the Church’s Freetown Sierra Leone Mission also participated in the exercise and remarked, “The cooperation of members was great. There was an impressive show of strength.”
Seeing the participants dressed in Mormon Helping Hands vests, passersby were curious to know which organization was involved in the project.
A variety of other cleaning projects were completed at other locations in the vicinity.