Local missionaries to travel to Africa despite Ebola outbreak
JACKSON, Tenn. — A Baptist organization in West Tennessee will send mission teams to Africa despite the Ebola outbreak. “It’s a work that needs to be done,” Carl Teel said. Teel recently returned from doing missionary work in East Africa. Despite the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, he plans to go back. “We will be very cautious in going,” he said. “We always are.” The Madison-Chester-Crockett Association of Baptists sends multiple mission teams to Kenya every year. They start churches, pray with people and sponsor medical clinics. Executive Director of Missions Larry Murphy said so far the potentially fatal virus will not stop them. “When there are 1.6 billion people in the world who have never even heard the name of Jesus,” Murphy said. “Someone needs to be going.” Murphy said they plan to take every precaution possible. He said they will get information from the local health department and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Obviously, when we get there we won’t have the hazmat and the other things, so we have to be very, very careful not to put them in any kind of danger,” Murphy said. Teel said the Ebola outbreak will not affect his return trip unless it breaks out in Kenya. “It bothers us, but I don’t think, it doesn’t scare me because it’s something, what we’re doing is something that needs to be done.” he said. The organization plans to send four mission teams to Kenya in 2015.
