With Sadness and Remembrance

This past week we learned of the death of one of our volunteers, one of our friends.



Outside the clinic in Kabo

Dr. Roger Styles came to Burkina Faso last January with a team of ten people from West Pines Community Church in South Florida.

This was a diverse team with vastly different experience and gifts to bring and use on the mission field. Roger took part in all that we presented him with enthusiasm, but it was at a huge, pediatric medical clinic where he shined.

This clinic was held in a small church, in a small village where thousand of people came because they knew we would be there. Hundreds of children were treated, mostly for simple illnesses or infections that would have been left untreated had we not shown up. It is the untreated infections that can become serious and even lead to death in many cases.

Roger was able to slip right into the role of health provider, working alongside a team that consisted of three American nurses and two Burkinabe nurses and a few volunteers to grab medicines and keep waiting children occupied. I believe this was a tremendously successful, life changing afternoon for all of the volunteers as well as the families who received help.

Roger will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him. He will be remembered in what he gave of himself. We know that he certainly left his mark in Burkina Faso and we are so glad that we got to know him.