Summer 2026

Dear friends and partners with CEH in the Lord’s work,

When Christ looked out on the needs of people who were coming to Him, he told his disciples he saw them as ripe fields ready to be harvested. And he instructed them to pray to the “Lord of the harvest” to send out laborers to do the work (Matthew 9). In the very next verses he sent out his own disciples with instructions (Matthew 10). Are we seeing people as He saw people? Are we praying for laborers? Are we going where and when He commands us personally?

When I look at the harvest field in Guinea:

• I see the masses of children with half of the population under 18.3 years; very ripe for harvest. Though they are appropriately closely tied to their families they are not yet personally entrenched in the local rituals and practices of Islam to which 85 % of the population adheres. They have eager minds and hearts to learn and make their own way. They need to hear of Christ. But currently most Guineans will live and die and never hear the gospel presented.

• I see many people who are ill with a national life expectancy of only 61–63 years, twenty years less than in the USA. Infant mortality is 60/1000 births. Maternal mortality is 5.5/1000 births. They have many of the same illnesses as the USA but also poverty, malnutrition, parasites, tropical illnesses and limited access to good medical care. These are primary causes of earlier deaths. We are meeting some of these needs for access to care, to the education and the community health needs in the name and love of Christ!

National Staff

One of our top priorities this year was to provide access to full hospital services 24/7 at CEH, which was the highest concern of our local population. We are beginning to address the need by hiring younger doctors and nurses to cover night and weekend shifts which our limited staff could not previously cover. We are hiring two doctors and six nurses to meet these needs. We are grateful for each one and so excited! It is a big answer to prayer! These professionals will now also be our focus of training.

A recent internal survey showed concern about time spent waiting for completion of services in the clinic. We eliminated the triage step, refocused efforts of our doctors to continuity and comprehensive/compassionate service and to improve communicating laboratory results efficiently. This reduced patient’s “duration of care” time by 20–30%! With this, the volume of patients has increased by about 16% to 50 patients daily! The outpatient clinic is growing! 

We are reassigning one of our experienced receptionists, Lamarana, to guide patients waiting on the clinic veranda to expedite their flow through clinic, ER, laboratory, x-ray, pharmacy and hospitalization process. He is also gifted in evangelism to the local people and speaks six languages! We will hire a replacement for his intake and medical records area. New and better signs and patient education posters are also being developed. We believe these steps will further satisfy expressed needs.

Professional trainers in the last year

A second 2026 focus continues to be recruiting professionals to train our staff further. We are prayerfully seeking to recruit missionaries and to hire African residency trained professionals to serve with us and grow together toward excellence. As we share on our web site, we currently especially need Family Practice doctors, surgeons and nurse educators.This has been an arduous path. We had five Western and African residency trained doctors come visit the hospital from four different nations. So far none committed to the long term need of training our staff. Numerous others from Europe and USA visited briefly and saw our needs. Longer-term modeling and mentoring relationships are essential to producing long term improvement of medical practices. The same is true of spiritual growth beyond initial impact. As several potential candidates are in process, we ask you to pray with us for success in this to His glory.

Board members (*) personally participated in this process by making repeated visits.

Mindy Roduner* visited CEH last year for two weeks and again this year for three months. She gave administrative counsel to Etienne as she visited the hospital and shared from her extensive experience with government/NGO relationships. She was able to visit more government offices this year with Etienne and help the hospital and nursing school better prepare for government supervision and inspections. She is also doing French language acquisition to facilitate future ministry with CEH!

Dr. Dwight* and Debbie plan to visit CEH in September contributing to the global ministries of CEH, FR, CIHI and MIAPE as well as governmental and community relations. We will visit and encourage each department on site and spend hospitality time with each of the national leaders to hear their heart and vision and encourage them. Special emphasis will also be given to facilitate initial ministry of Hannah Webb, RN for a two-month nursing short term. Her primary role will be facilitating the nurses’ medical care of our hospitalized patients. Hannah is from Taccoa Falls, GA and had experience with her parents in short-term missions in Africa. Pray for an effective fruitful trip to God’s glory.

Last December, Dr. Shawn O’Driscoll and Dr. Duane Anderson contributed significantly to the orthopedic and surgical services to make them much more efficient and better equipped. Their verbal and written counsel specifically was heeded and applied. We desire to continually progress to become the regional referral hospital for these services. Comparing the second quarters of 2025 and 2026 we have a 50% increase in total surgeries. Pray for Dr. Paul (surgeon), for Lacina (OR coordinator/surgical tech) and for Nestor (nurse anesthetist) as they lead in this transformation with a total OR team of 10 staff including two new nurses. Additionally, Dr. Jean Paul does OBGYN surgeries and deliveries, and Dr. Cécé, part-time ophthalmologist, does cataract surgeries.

In dentistry, last December Dr. Joel Michaelson* helped train and support the hospital’s dental services. New-to-us, very attractive dental equipment was installed with the hope of future growth. Sadly, we are currently without a dentist as Dr. Bello moved on to serve with the Mercy Ship. For now, Felix, a dental tech/nurse, is doing basic cleaning and extractions.

Drs. Audrey and Greg Shank are two doctors with Family Practice-Urgent Care and General Surgery certifications, and numerous short term mission trips to Chad and Cameroon. They came for two weeks rather impromptu this May and blessed the hospital! Along with their medical contributions, their enthusiasm and passion were contagious, fruitful and mutually encouraging.

Chantal O’Driscoll* facilitates the Fresh Rosée Christian School which nearly doubled total enrollment to 799 students (K-12) last year by adding a second campus in town. Each year a comprehensive test for the first six years of education is administered nationally. The national passage rate for sixth grade testing was 45% this year, better than their normal of 35%. Our FR town campus graduation rate for sixth grade testing was 67 % while the CEH campus graduated 84%. For the town students this was their first year with us and we believe they will improve each year as we have longer input into their lives and education. Teacher training and administration are similar on the two campuses, and Bible lessons remain integrated in the curriculum.

Construction progress

A fourth professional residence is finished except for the solar electricity installation and final connection of the house to the hospital water system. (Additional need, $10,000)

CEH’s hospital entrance is completed and in use! New gates and parking buttresses will add to our “new look” and improved safety. (Additional need, $2,000)

Our current construction priority is an eight-room dorm structure to accommodate future nursing students and national staff until they find homes in the local community. Up to 20 new students should arrive in October. ($32,000)

We are resuming construction on bricking in our perimeter fence to better define our property to avoid potential squatter problems as the community continuously develops around the hospital. FYI, this will cost $77 per 15-foot section. ($17,000 total for north side fence, if you want to join in on this project.)

Spiritual Fruit 

All our medical and administrative staff are Christians, and we have two part-time chaplains on staff. The gospel continues to be shared faithfully. Prayers for patients are widely accepted. Reported conversions are few but happen both among the elderly and the children in FR School. The CEH ministries continue to spread and plant seeds in the Mamou community which remains 99.9% Muslim. I was pleased to see an emphasis on discipleship after Christ in the CEH/MIAPE Christian community as well as our sister evangelical churches with significant maturation and numerical growth. We also see a marked enthusiasm for worship!

The ultimate currency that advances spiritual work is our earnest, consistent prayer before the throne of God. Thank you so much for each of you who labor with us in this ministry for His glory. Keep praying!!!



Your fellow servant,

Dr. Dwight E. Slater, MD

CEO of CEH