The Africa Projects
Barry and Shelley Bacon
2013
It all started when Barry was a kid about 6 years old. Barry would hear stories of missionaries going off into the developing areas of the world at his home church. At that young age, he wanted to do something for those people with a portion of his life.
Over the years, the commitment to becoming a physician and serving people who could never pay him back with part of his time grew. Immediately after finishing a family medicine residency, he and Shelley and their two oldest children traveled to Malawi, Africa, where Barry worked as a family doctor in Blantyre at a mission hospital, and took on the task of being medical director for 16 remote site clinics scattered over the country from 1987-90. Barry loved his work and returned with his family with mixed feelings.
Since moving to Colville in 1990, Barry has looked for ways to continue working with people abroad. Every year or two, Barry, Shelley, and three of their children (we adopted two children upon return from Malawi, bringing our total to four) have traveled somewhere in the world to help, either tagging along with another team or creating our own team. Now that the children are almost out of our home, we are looking for other ways to spend additional time overseas.
In the fall of 2011, Barry and Shelley spent four months in Rwanda. Barry taught family medicine at a residency there, and Shelley taught various subjects at a school for the deaf, a Christian school, and at Imbabazi Orphanage (see “Gorillas in the Mist,” Roz Carr’s story, Land of a Thousand Hills.) Both plan to return to Africa yearly, and in five years, to commit a longer portion of the year on an annual basis to teaching in Africa.
In addition to teaching in Africa, Barry and Shelley host an annual fundraiser to target some underfunded cause somewhere in the world. Past causes have included Mwami Hospital mattresses for pediatric ward; Somali Mam Fund for girls in Cambodia and Thailand taken into sexual slavery; Father Jean Bosco’s orphanage in Rwanda. This year will likely be for the Imbabazi Orphanage. Barry also sells purses made in Cambodia at his workplace in order to help women at risk for being pulled into sexual slavery.
This year, 2012, Shelley will be traveling back to the Imbabazi in Rwanda to teach the orphans there. Barry will be traveling to Kenya to help develop a family medicine residency, and to visit two development projects he is working on. The development projects are located in Nginyang among the Pokot tribe- including water, education, agriculture and medicine; and in Gekongo among the Luo, a water catchment project using rainwater runoff and community sharing. You can read more about the peace project in Kenya at www.pokotturkanapeaceinitiative.com.
We hope that what we are doing resonates with some of you. We hope that the kindness we have tried to show you in opening our place for your comfort and rest might help you to recognize with gratitude the things that we have, and move you to help someone else where you can. We can tell you that it is a great way to live your life. Some have wondered about our work overseas because they wanted to help in some way. Of course we are happy to receive gifts from people for our Africa projects. You can write a check or leave cash in the donation box marked for Africa, or ask us if you would like to make a tax deductible donation and we can give you information about the not-for-profit organizations we are affiliated with.
We wish you a safe and fulfilling journey,
Barry and Shelley Bacon
Barry and Shelley Bacon
2013
It all started when Barry was a kid about 6 years old. Barry would hear stories of missionaries going off into the developing areas of the world at his home church. At that young age, he wanted to do something for those people with a portion of his life.
Over the years, the commitment to becoming a physician and serving people who could never pay him back with part of his time grew. Immediately after finishing a family medicine residency, he and Shelley and their two oldest children traveled to Malawi, Africa, where Barry worked as a family doctor in Blantyre at a mission hospital, and took on the task of being medical director for 16 remote site clinics scattered over the country from 1987-90. Barry loved his work and returned with his family with mixed feelings.
Since moving to Colville in 1990, Barry has looked for ways to continue working with people abroad. Every year or two, Barry, Shelley, and three of their children (we adopted two children upon return from Malawi, bringing our total to four) have traveled somewhere in the world to help, either tagging along with another team or creating our own team. Now that the children are almost out of our home, we are looking for other ways to spend additional time overseas.
In the fall of 2011, Barry and Shelley spent four months in Rwanda. Barry taught family medicine at a residency there, and Shelley taught various subjects at a school for the deaf, a Christian school, and at Imbabazi Orphanage (see “Gorillas in the Mist,” Roz Carr’s story, Land of a Thousand Hills.) Both plan to return to Africa yearly, and in five years, to commit a longer portion of the year on an annual basis to teaching in Africa.
In addition to teaching in Africa, Barry and Shelley host an annual fundraiser to target some underfunded cause somewhere in the world. Past causes have included Mwami Hospital mattresses for pediatric ward; Somali Mam Fund for girls in Cambodia and Thailand taken into sexual slavery; Father Jean Bosco’s orphanage in Rwanda. This year will likely be for the Imbabazi Orphanage. Barry also sells purses made in Cambodia at his workplace in order to help women at risk for being pulled into sexual slavery.
This year, 2012, Shelley will be traveling back to the Imbabazi in Rwanda to teach the orphans there. Barry will be traveling to Kenya to help develop a family medicine residency, and to visit two development projects he is working on. The development projects are located in Nginyang among the Pokot tribe- including water, education, agriculture and medicine; and in Gekongo among the Luo, a water catchment project using rainwater runoff and community sharing. You can read more about the peace project in Kenya at www.pokotturkanapeaceinitiative.com.
We hope that what we are doing resonates with some of you. We hope that the kindness we have tried to show you in opening our place for your comfort and rest might help you to recognize with gratitude the things that we have, and move you to help someone else where you can. We can tell you that it is a great way to live your life. Some have wondered about our work overseas because they wanted to help in some way. Of course we are happy to receive gifts from people for our Africa projects. You can write a check or leave cash in the donation box marked for Africa, or ask us if you would like to make a tax deductible donation and we can give you information about the not-for-profit organizations we are affiliated with.
We wish you a safe and fulfilling journey,
Barry and Shelley Bacon