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Kathy and her husband Mike.

Since 1998, a little known but devastating humanitarian disaster has been taking place in the war torn Democratic Republic of Congo. While a peace treaty signed in 2002 brought an end to major conflict, millions of innocent people continue to suffer the consequences of the war. The Congo health care system, school, roads, and economy are in shambles. According to a report in the British medical journal The Lancet, more than 3.9 million people have died in Congo since 1998, most from preventable disease.

“Congo is the deadliest crisis anywhere in the world over the past 60 years,” the report’s lead author, Richard Brennan, health director of the New York-based International Rescue Committee, told the BBC.

Despite nearly insurmountable hardships, the hospitals of the Covenant Church of Congo (CEUM) have remained open during the war and its aftermath. Run by Congolese doctors and nurses, the Covenant hospitals and those run by other churches provide the bulk of the country’s health care.

While her husband Mike is coaching the Seattle Seahawks in Superbowl XL, his wife Kathy, a nurse, and his daughter Calla, an OB-GYN, will join a team of US doctors and nurses traveling to Congo to assist in the hospital at Karawa. That hospital, located in a remote region of the country, is the only hospital for a region of 300,000 people.