October 06, 2014
Pastor George Mason had a message for his Dallas congregation amid images of health officials donning hazardous-materials suits and travelers fretting about sitting near Ebola-infected fliers: Compassion means suffering with someone.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins set an example by giving the girlfriend of U.S. Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan a ride to help her get resettled, out of the apartment where the sick man had become more and more ill for days. He used that example yesterday to encourage a homeless man who may also have had contact with Duncan to not be afraid to come forward -- and later in the day, the man was found.
“Our faith community is making the day a day of prayer for you,” Jenkins, speaking to anyone who had contact with Duncan, said during a teleconference yesterday with health officials. “You are in the thoughts and prayers of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.”
Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids. Those who had closest contact with Duncan are being monitored for three weeks to see if they come down with the deadly disease, which has no cure. Three, including his girlfriend, face weeks of quarantine as they wait to see if they, too, have the virus.
Reports of miscommunication between medical staff at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where Duncan was admitted Sept. 28 and is listed in critical condition, and worries about U.S.-bound flights from West Africa potentially carrying more Ebola-infected people have made efforts at reassurance for fearful Americans more challenging.
‘Down Low’
The Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has sickened more than 7,000 people, killing about half. Duncan so far is the only person diagnosed with the virus in the U.S.
Mason’s message to hundreds of Sunday worshipers at his Wilshire Baptist Church took on special meaning for the congregation where Louise Troh, Duncan’s girlfriend, was baptized in June. She is under quarantine at a home that health officials and Jenkins, who represents the county that has become the center of the U.S. Ebola scare, have said was provided by another church member.
Compassion “implies feeling the pain of another as if it is your own,” Mason, the church’s senior pastor, said in an interview by e-mail. “It comes from the idea that we might imagine ourselves in another person’s shoes and act according to the Golden Rule of Jesus, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
A Home
Mason said he doesn’t know who provided the home for Troh, or even for sure that it was offered by a member of his church.
“Wonderful if it was someone in our church,” Mason said in the e-mail. “Very glad about that. I’m sure they wanted to keep it on the down low for obvious reasons.”
Craig Keith ended his adult Sunday-school class at Wilshire Baptist, one Troh was part of, with a quote: “Love’s greatest glory is to be needed.”
“Ignorance creates fear and mistrust, and I’m glad that doesn’t happen here in our class and in our church,” said Keith, 59, an elementary school counselor.
Jenkins, in the teleconference yesterday, praised Dallas’s faith community for “stepping up,” saying the message of compassion was spread by synagogues, churches and mosques.
He addressed the man officials were hoping to track down, mentioning how he’d helped Troh and three others from her apartment to a new temporary home on Oct. 3.
“It’s a great place,” Jenkins said. “It’s the type of place we want to bring you, too. You have my word that your every need will be taken care of during that monitoring period.”
Communion Sunday
Hours after the plea yesterday, a spokeswoman for Jenkins told reporters that the man had been found and was being monitored.
Wilshire began an outreach program aimed specifically at helping Liberians in the area about two years ago, according to Connie Trevino, 80, a retired homemaker, who is another member of the Open Bible class led by Keith.
Judith Parker spoke to Troh on the phone Oct. 4 and said Troh is a resilient woman who seemed “remarkably calm” considering the week she’d had.
“She was extremely thankful for all the support George and everyone at the church had provided her,” according to Parker, 70, a retired software systems engineer.
Yesterday’s service coincided with World Communion Sunday, an annual event that celebrates unity and cooperation. In an interconnected world where risks in one country can affect another, problems can be resolved if communities stand together, Mason said.
“We are thinking about our connections all throughout the world,” Mason said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Harry R. Weber in Dallas at hweber14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Marino at dmarino4@bloomberg.net Bernard Kohn, Drew Armstrong
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