Sannu family friends and church family,
Well our time here in Nigeria is slowly starting to draw to a close. As such this will likely be our last blog. From here we will travel on to East Africa and then down to South Africa where we will meet our medical student friend Jessica. There we will have the opportunity to visit some of the refugee camps run by Doctors without Borders. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s recap the activities of the past two weeks.
In typical Rachel and Lisa fashion we have managed to keep ourselves busy…
-we did HIV testing in ante-natal clinic at Evangel
-went one home visits with Stephanie for Spring of Life patients
-visited Open Doors with Phil (a school for special needs students)
-took Lucky to the hospital to get his stitches removed and have his post surgery two-week follow up appointment
-had a couple invitations for dinner with our various Nigerian friends and fellow missionaries
-helped out as usual at Gidan Bege women’s clinic and Blind Town outreach
-spent time with the orphan boys at Gidan Bege playing games and drawing pictures
-immunized almost 100 orphaned children in one afternoon
-donated two stethoscopes and one blood pressure cuff to the pediatric and adult ICUs at Evangel Hospital as it is often impossible to find these devices there when you need them in a hurry
-helped to run kids club at Spring of Life by teaching the children a new Sunday school song about Peter and John healing the lame man, reading and discussing the corresponding bible story together and then playing several games
-and celebrated our birthdays
Rachel’s birthday was on May 31stand mine was on June 11th. We’d like to thank everyone again for their many birthday wishes and thank our families for calling us. Hearing your voices was a blessing and we felt very much encouraged. The night before Rachel’s birthday we made waffles with our roommates and played Clue while enjoying good conversation and drinking lots of tea. Then on the actual day, as it was Sunday, we went to church and then spent a lovely day reading in our sun-soaked backyard before we cooked up a storm of homemade samosas and cinnamon buns to share with Phil and Steph. For Rachel’s birthday I learned that if you stick wax birthday candles into hot muffins you’ve just pulled out of the oven…because you’re late for church and thus don’t have time to cool the muffins down….the candles will melt into the muffins. Fortunately Rachel didn’t mind and joyously eat every last crumb. For my birthday we played some games, got Rachel a bad hair cut which we later had to fix ourselves, and I was treated to a delicious dinner Rachel made of cheesy potatoes and teriyaki vegetables (thanks again Aunty Cathy for sending us those sauces). Then for desert we shared homemade chocolate pie with our roommates over more tea and good conversation. Somewhere in between our birthdays we went out for dinner with Phil and Steph and got to try the Nigerian version of Chinese food. Not bad over all…no Ginger beef…but still delicious.
Of the above list of activities I of course would like to expand on two of them.
Gyero (pronounced gar-oh) Immunizations
Rachel, Nikki, Salome and I went to an orphanage just outside Jos called Gyero. There are just over 90 children there, girls and boys, who are divided into family groups each headed by a Nigerian couple who the children refer to as Aunty and Uncle. The orphanage is run by City Ministries and every July the boys who have been living at Gidan Bege Jos for the past year graduate from their one year transition program and are moved out to the larger Gyero campus. The children at Gyero required immunizations for tetanus and polio and so we headed out there one stormy afternoon. The experience was…well…frustrating. The children were incredibly squirmy and hyper that day. They seemed to go out of their way to scare each other about the immunizations and wind each other up. The entire affair took about 3 hours and was total chaos due to children running everywhere and pouring rain that beat against the tin roofs with such severity that it was almost impossible to hear each other speak. We were exhausted afterwards but happy that we had somehow in the chaos managed to vaccinate all but one young man who was missing in action…probably hiding from us. Lol
Blind Town
We went to a different Blind Town this past week for outreach. In our previous blogs we had described Blind Town as stepping back into biblical history with its tiny mud brick houses and narrow passages ways. But this new blind town was on the other side of Jos and was something entirely different. This was the slums. Broken down houses, treacherous crumbling stairways, the distinct smell of untreated sewage and a dirty shallow river full of garbage snaking through it all in which several children were swimming and bathing. It was shocking. You see stuff like that on TV, in pictures and movies but to see such deplorable living conditions with our own eyes….to stand there while dozens of children grab at your hands with huge smiles and hope-filled eyes…to watch women scrub laundry in vain in the foul smelling water…well how does one even begin to describe what that feels like? We stayed for about two hours visiting various houses, assessing everything from mysterious skin conditions to cataracts and handing out medications where we could. Then with great reluctance we had to leave as the storm clouds crowded overhead and it begun to rain.
To end this blog, we would like to share with you an article that was written by a lovely Irish missionary named Jean Garland who has lived in Nigeria for many years. I wrote early about Jean and the eloquent, inspiring way in which she spoke of women in Africa during the ECWA conference at which we volunteered. The article she wrote has been posted on the right hand side of our blog site and we would encourage you to take the time to read it…its well worth it.
We’d also like to share an important prayer request with you. The prostitute outreach we were involved in suffered a tragedy this past week. Mama Love, the women on whom the entire ministry was built, suddenly past away due to heart complications. We have had the opportunity speak with Meredith, the young American women who worked with Mama Love and first introduced us to the ministry and have been able to discuss the repercussions of this event. As the brothel outreach was run almost singled handedly by Mama Love, the ministry’s future is uncertain. So we ask that our church family at home would pray for the friends, family and colleges of Mama Love, for the future of the ministry and for the prostitutes with whom she build some many relationships and who came to trust her only after so many hundreds of hours spent showing them love and compassion.
Until we see you again,
Love Lisa and Rachel
Friday, June 12, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Sannu da aiki to our church family at Living Hope,
Over the past two weeks we have once again been involved in a diverse range of activities.
We started a new rotation in the labour & delivery ward of the hospital and learned how to access labouring women by resting our hands on their stomachs and timing the contractions based on what we felt. Women are monitored completely manually here since they don’t have any of the technology we have at home (ie: fetal heart rate monitors). Then on Friday, we helped in the delivery of two beautiful and healthy baby boys to two women, one after another. Two days of no babies born and then we get two babies within 10 minutes.
We helped out at women’s clinic at Gidan Bege and Blind town as normal but also attended an afternoon of spiritual conference held at Gidan Bege. There we were privileged to hear several worship songs in Hausa by a small choir of women. Also at Gidan Bege our dear friend Lucky continues to do well following his surgery. He is healing nicely and up running around despite our encouragement that he take it easy…you just can’t reason with an energetic 10-year-old boy.
We got our hair braided African style – as you probably saw in our pictures. It was an all day affair that took an amazing 7 hours to complete. Despite the experience being rather painful because they pull hard and really dig-in to separate the hair, we are both enjoying not having to do our hair in the morning and our Nigerian friends love our braided styles. Several have said we now look like real Nigerians with our Nigerian clothes and braided hair.
And we had dinner with one of the mission families here, the Strydhorsts, who like Lisa are originally from Alberta (Yeehaw!) and Gary Bekker the director of Christian Reformed World Missions for Canada and the USA who is out here visiting and surveying the status of the mission’s work here in Nigeria. He’s an amiable chap and we had a good time.
Well that wraps up the smaller things, now to the main events.
Theological Education in Africa (TEA) Conference 2009
The TEA conference is a weeklong conference where Pastors, Christian post-secondary lectures and ministry personnel from around Africa come for a week of education and fellowship. The conferences included several addresses by prominent teachers in the area of Christian Theology as well as multiple workshops on missions, apologetics, systematic theology, biblical studies, current issues, pastoral formation, Islam, ethics and women’s issues. Phil asked us to assist with registration and always eager to help out, we gladly agreed. This meant that on Monday morning we spent a couple hours stapling booklets and putting conference packages together…Rachel got a paper cut for her efforts. Then in the afternoon we moved over to the conference centre and spent several hours registering about 100 participants and slotting them into the various workshops as per their interests. On Tuesday we continued to register latecomers, about another 30, helped direct people to their various workshops and were assigned to toilet patrol. Since none of the toilets had running water it was our job to make sure there were a couple buckets of water in each bathroom for flushing and that the toilets were stocked with toilet paper. This meant we had to collect water from rainwater bins and then haul it to the bathrooms. We have a whole new level of respect for Nigerian women carrying those huge buckets of water on their heads now that we’ve struggled to carry just medium sized buckets of water. Man was it heavy! Fortunately we teamed up and each put a hand on the bucket to carry it together since we are still novices at the head-carrying thing…much to the amusement of the Nigerians.
Our participation in the conference allowed us to met a whole new group of people within the mission field including the future director for East African CRWM missions who we must have made a positive impression upon because he insisted that we swap contact info so we might be involved in future Ethiopian missions. Haha don’t worry mom and dad, aunty and uncle, we are stilling planning to come home first. The conference then wrapped up nicely with a Friday night thank you meal for the speakers and conference planning committee to which we were graciously invited.
Gidan Bege at Makurdi and Lafia
Last weekend we joined Nikki from City Ministries and travelled three hours to Lafia and then another hour onto Makurdi where we spent the night. Both Lafia and Makurdi have Gidan Beges (Houses of Hope) that operate as orphanages for street boys just like the one in Jos. We went to both Gidan Beges to do health check-ups on the orphan boys, give immunizations and get updates from the orphanage managers on the status of the ministry. In Lafia we vaccinated about 15 boys and in Makurdi about 25. To our surprise and relief only one little boy cried…although he did go and hide under his bed afterwards. Poor little guy. But he brightened up when we pulled out the candy, jump ropes and balloon volleyball. J The weather in Makurdi was…..almost unbearable. Imagine the hottest, stickiest and sweatiest you have ever been, multiply it a couple of times and that was Makurdi. Now we were warned that it is the hottest place in Nigeria, but we still were not prepared for what it felt like to be so sticky and sweaty that dust cakes on you. It was impossible to sleep that night. Thank goodness for the relative ‘coolness’ of Jos since it’s on the Plateau.
Well that’s about all for now. We’d like to thank everyone for the cards they sent. Despite the woes of mailing things to Nigeria, we did eventually get them and we appreciate your encouraging words, love and your birthday wishes for Rachel. We also want to thank Aunty Cathy for the package she sent. We loved the droppies and Wilemmenia peppermints!
Until next time, we love you all!
Rachel and Lisa
PS: Today we rode in a taxi with 7 adults, one child and a CHICKEN!! It was our secret hope that we might get to take a taxi ride with a chicken since we’ve seen them in other people’s taxis. The lady told us the chicken was a wedding present. We were pretty excited and she even let us take a picture.
Over the past two weeks we have once again been involved in a diverse range of activities.
We started a new rotation in the labour & delivery ward of the hospital and learned how to access labouring women by resting our hands on their stomachs and timing the contractions based on what we felt. Women are monitored completely manually here since they don’t have any of the technology we have at home (ie: fetal heart rate monitors). Then on Friday, we helped in the delivery of two beautiful and healthy baby boys to two women, one after another. Two days of no babies born and then we get two babies within 10 minutes.
We helped out at women’s clinic at Gidan Bege and Blind town as normal but also attended an afternoon of spiritual conference held at Gidan Bege. There we were privileged to hear several worship songs in Hausa by a small choir of women. Also at Gidan Bege our dear friend Lucky continues to do well following his surgery. He is healing nicely and up running around despite our encouragement that he take it easy…you just can’t reason with an energetic 10-year-old boy.
We got our hair braided African style – as you probably saw in our pictures. It was an all day affair that took an amazing 7 hours to complete. Despite the experience being rather painful because they pull hard and really dig-in to separate the hair, we are both enjoying not having to do our hair in the morning and our Nigerian friends love our braided styles. Several have said we now look like real Nigerians with our Nigerian clothes and braided hair.
And we had dinner with one of the mission families here, the Strydhorsts, who like Lisa are originally from Alberta (Yeehaw!) and Gary Bekker the director of Christian Reformed World Missions for Canada and the USA who is out here visiting and surveying the status of the mission’s work here in Nigeria. He’s an amiable chap and we had a good time.
Well that wraps up the smaller things, now to the main events.
Theological Education in Africa (TEA) Conference 2009
The TEA conference is a weeklong conference where Pastors, Christian post-secondary lectures and ministry personnel from around Africa come for a week of education and fellowship. The conferences included several addresses by prominent teachers in the area of Christian Theology as well as multiple workshops on missions, apologetics, systematic theology, biblical studies, current issues, pastoral formation, Islam, ethics and women’s issues. Phil asked us to assist with registration and always eager to help out, we gladly agreed. This meant that on Monday morning we spent a couple hours stapling booklets and putting conference packages together…Rachel got a paper cut for her efforts. Then in the afternoon we moved over to the conference centre and spent several hours registering about 100 participants and slotting them into the various workshops as per their interests. On Tuesday we continued to register latecomers, about another 30, helped direct people to their various workshops and were assigned to toilet patrol. Since none of the toilets had running water it was our job to make sure there were a couple buckets of water in each bathroom for flushing and that the toilets were stocked with toilet paper. This meant we had to collect water from rainwater bins and then haul it to the bathrooms. We have a whole new level of respect for Nigerian women carrying those huge buckets of water on their heads now that we’ve struggled to carry just medium sized buckets of water. Man was it heavy! Fortunately we teamed up and each put a hand on the bucket to carry it together since we are still novices at the head-carrying thing…much to the amusement of the Nigerians.
Our participation in the conference allowed us to met a whole new group of people within the mission field including the future director for East African CRWM missions who we must have made a positive impression upon because he insisted that we swap contact info so we might be involved in future Ethiopian missions. Haha don’t worry mom and dad, aunty and uncle, we are stilling planning to come home first. The conference then wrapped up nicely with a Friday night thank you meal for the speakers and conference planning committee to which we were graciously invited.
Gidan Bege at Makurdi and Lafia
Last weekend we joined Nikki from City Ministries and travelled three hours to Lafia and then another hour onto Makurdi where we spent the night. Both Lafia and Makurdi have Gidan Beges (Houses of Hope) that operate as orphanages for street boys just like the one in Jos. We went to both Gidan Beges to do health check-ups on the orphan boys, give immunizations and get updates from the orphanage managers on the status of the ministry. In Lafia we vaccinated about 15 boys and in Makurdi about 25. To our surprise and relief only one little boy cried…although he did go and hide under his bed afterwards. Poor little guy. But he brightened up when we pulled out the candy, jump ropes and balloon volleyball. J The weather in Makurdi was…..almost unbearable. Imagine the hottest, stickiest and sweatiest you have ever been, multiply it a couple of times and that was Makurdi. Now we were warned that it is the hottest place in Nigeria, but we still were not prepared for what it felt like to be so sticky and sweaty that dust cakes on you. It was impossible to sleep that night. Thank goodness for the relative ‘coolness’ of Jos since it’s on the Plateau.
Well that’s about all for now. We’d like to thank everyone for the cards they sent. Despite the woes of mailing things to Nigeria, we did eventually get them and we appreciate your encouraging words, love and your birthday wishes for Rachel. We also want to thank Aunty Cathy for the package she sent. We loved the droppies and Wilemmenia peppermints!
Until next time, we love you all!
Rachel and Lisa
PS: Today we rode in a taxi with 7 adults, one child and a CHICKEN!! It was our secret hope that we might get to take a taxi ride with a chicken since we’ve seen them in other people’s taxis. The lady told us the chicken was a wedding present. We were pretty excited and she even let us take a picture.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Sannu family, friends and church family!
Sannu family, friends and church family,
Well another two weeks have flown by in a flurry of activity…hence the need to take a moment and update the blog before it becomes toooo long. Over the past two weeks we completed our time in general medicine, spent a day in the physiotherapy unit, toured the morgue, visited the hospital’s ProLife centre, spent a day with Spring of Life in ante-natal clinic, got involved in a Brothel ministry, facilitated the hospital admission and surgery of a young boy from Gidan Bege, went on a medical outreach to another rural village and pulled a night shift at the hospital doing nursing duty for a fellow missionary who had surgery (no worries it was elective not emergent). We also cooked up a nice meal for Phil and Stephanie to thank them for all their hard work on behalf of the church and for all of their assistance and kindness to us during our time here.
Now in the interest of trying to be somewhat concise, I will pick only three things from the above list to expand on in this blog…well maybe four…lol.
#1 - Spring of Life/Ante-Natal Clinic
On Thursday we joined Spring of Life for their regular HIV awareness session at ante-natal clinic (AN clinic is where pregnant women are assessed and followed during their pregnancies). During this session Spring of Life teaches expectant mothers about HIV and how HIV can be passed on to their infants either through the birthing process or breastfeeding. Of babies born to women who are not on medication for HIV and do breast feed, 3 in 10 are HIV positive. With medication and formula feeding this decreases to less than 1 in 10 babies. The problem is that although a government program called Pepfar gives women access to free HIV care and drugs, formula feeding remains very expensive. Plus the lack of clean water to make formula, lack of adequate facilities to sterilize the bottles and the cultural stigma against formula feeding makes it very difficult to sustain this practice safely.
After the session we helped do HIV testing for the women. Those who are HIV positive are immediately enrolled into the Pepfar program. Evangel hospital also then pays for all of their ante-natal care. It was good to see these programs in action and experience the difference they make. HIV is devastating…it rips apart families, leaves children orphans, affects people of all ages and backgrounds, and does not spare the innocent (ie: those who get it from unfaithful spouses, their parents or contaminated blood transfusions). This is why these programs are essential and why it is encouraging to see so many people like Stephanie and the women of Spring of Life committed to spreading awareness and helping those who truly need our compassion and help.
• An aside here – a couple of weeks ago we joined Phil and Steph in taking several children from Spring of Life to a wildlife park. This was a special treat for the children so many of them wore their best Sunday clothes. Just incase you were wondering what those pictures were from.
#2 - Brothel Outreach
Speaking of compassion, last week we encountered a new opportunity to be involved in an outreach to women in brothels. We met an American woman named Meredith who works for Urban Frontier Missions: a ministry that goes daily into the brothels to share the love of Jesus and offer women the opportunity to escape from that lifestyle. UFM runs a centre where they house women who have left the brothels and teaches them new skills such as cooking, catering, sewing, batik and computer so they can support themselves in a safer way. This past Thursday, Rachel, myself, our two roommates Ellie and Debbie, Meredith and a Nigerian woman named Mama Love who runs the ministry spent a couple hours during the day visiting the women. We asked them about their interests, hope and dreams, health, history, families and how they came to be in this situation. Although some women were there for want of this lifestyle, many were forced into prostitution by poverty or were tricked by supposed friends who lured them from the villages to the city with promises of ‘good’ jobs. We also spoke to the women about how much God loves them, offered to pray with them and presented them with the opportunity to leave and come directly to the UFM centre. Rachel and I also used our involvement with Spring of Life and the women’s clinic at Gidan Bege to encourage the women to get HIV tested and have their health concerns assessed as both of these services are free.
The outreach had mixed results as Mama Love had warned us. Some of the women were happy to talk to us while others just ignored us. Several were interested in UFM’s program and said they wanted to leave the brothel at some point but none accepted our offer to leave at that moment and move to the centre. Mama Love said these mixed results is what makes this ministry so difficult and often discouraging. She said this is why prayer is so important as clearly there is a spiritual battle going on for these beautiful and yet tragic women.
#3 - Lucky
In addition to the women’s clinic and widow ministry at Gidan Bege, City Ministries also operates a small orphanage for street boys. These boys come from tragic backgrounds and end up on the streets after running away or getting kicked out of horrible situations such as abuse, neglect and even cult involvement. Currently the tiny centre holds 13 boys ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old. Although their resources are limited Gidan Bege tries to provide the boys with a safe and stable environment, regular food, health check ups and vaccinations, education, Bible lessons, activity and most importantly love…something they’ve known very little of in their young lives. Over the past two months they boys have come to expect us every Wed for women’s clinic and as such every time we arrive they race across the compound yelling “Aunty! Aunty!” with giant smiles on their faces. Our involvement with the boys increased dramatically in the past two weeks due to one of the boys, named Lucky, needing abdominal surgery to repair a botched surgery he received last year due to a complication from Typhoid. As we are involved with both Evangel and Gidan Bege the Gidan Bege RN asked us to bring Lucky to the hospital for a surgical review. After that it followed naturally that we became involved in facilitating his admission and discharge and participated in his surgery and hospital care.
He was so brave. Lying on the operating table he told us that all of the boys at Gidan Bege had hugged him and cried when he was taken to the hospital. Holding our hands he tried so hard to control his fear and tears as the medical team began to set up around him. Graciously the anesthesiologist got him to sleep quickly. Overall the surgery went well despite the medical teams’ shocked as to the extent which the past surgery had been botched. The doctor repeated several times that his young lad was indeed a lucky boy. After the surgery Lucky asked, with a hope-filled face and big dark eyes full of pleading, if we would take him home with us. Our hearts broke! And despite every ounce of mothering and nursing instincts and every fiber of compassion and love for this little boy that screamed “YES!!”, we had to say no….for legal reasons since he is under the care and guardianship of Gidan Bege and not us. We did managed however to slightly brighten his crest fallen face by promising to visit him soon and telling his caregivers he could ring our cell if they had any problems or if he simply wanted to talk to us. The precious little soul called us as soon as he got back from the hospital just to let us know he had arrived safely.
#4 - Village Medical Outreach
This last Friday we joined a small team of medical personnel from Evangel to a remote village called Kiffir. When we arrived we all entered in the Chief’s house and sat quietly as greetings and prayers were exchanged…all in Hausa. We arrived at noon, had a quick lunch of Jollof rice and then ran clinic for 4.5 straight hours. Working at a speedy pace….in other words controlled chaos…we processed 150 or so patients through blood pressure screening, doctor consultations, counseling, an introduction to the gospel and pharmacy. I must note here that although our conversational Hausa is still quite basic, Rachel has become quite good at assessing health concerns in Hausa through a combination of key words and lots of actions. And as I often work Pharmacy, I have become good at giving out medication instructions in Hausa….despite the locals frequently laughing at my ever so slight tonal mispronunciations.
On our way back to Jos, we took as different route in an effort to decrease our travel time as the rains had made the dirt roads treacherous and we were an hour late leaving. In the end it was certainly not the shorter route but was by far the more scenic one. It’s hard to describe the beauty of nature and life around us as we travelled along that route. Words cannot accurately express the stunning beauty, quiet serenity or peaceful feeling of total contentment that enveloped us. Nevertheless, I will try to share with you what it was that inspired such joy in our hearts. Imagine with me a pale blue sky in the late afternoon with wispy white clouds strewn about. See the deep lush green of abundant bushes and trees growing up from vibrant red soil. Gaze for miles at land that stretches far into the distance before eventually rising up dramatically into rugged mountains. The colours all around us were that of the deep jungle and yet the view and land like that of the savannah. Behind me casting distinct beams of light upon the earth was the sun, partially hidden by the clouds and creating a warm glow and silver lining. In the fields, where new seedlings poked up their tiny green heads, there were little goats, pigs and children running about as their fathers tended the warm moist soil. Our van slowed as we waited for a herd of cows, sheep and a couple of donkeys to cross, herded expertly by Fulani boys no older than 12. And as we bumped along the winding muddy road, the cool breezes that follow afternoon rains refreshed us and we could feel the smell of pungent rich earth filling our whole beings.
Then all of a sudden, we could feel it. It’s been slowly growing but we did not notice until now. A warm fondness for this place….a swell of affection for its people….a love for its vibrant natural beauty and an appreciation for its rich culture and history. It is growing on us and in us. They said it would. Planting roots in our hearts so that forever we will feel drawn back here. After all, this is Africa.
Well another two weeks have flown by in a flurry of activity…hence the need to take a moment and update the blog before it becomes toooo long. Over the past two weeks we completed our time in general medicine, spent a day in the physiotherapy unit, toured the morgue, visited the hospital’s ProLife centre, spent a day with Spring of Life in ante-natal clinic, got involved in a Brothel ministry, facilitated the hospital admission and surgery of a young boy from Gidan Bege, went on a medical outreach to another rural village and pulled a night shift at the hospital doing nursing duty for a fellow missionary who had surgery (no worries it was elective not emergent). We also cooked up a nice meal for Phil and Stephanie to thank them for all their hard work on behalf of the church and for all of their assistance and kindness to us during our time here.
Now in the interest of trying to be somewhat concise, I will pick only three things from the above list to expand on in this blog…well maybe four…lol.
#1 - Spring of Life/Ante-Natal Clinic
On Thursday we joined Spring of Life for their regular HIV awareness session at ante-natal clinic (AN clinic is where pregnant women are assessed and followed during their pregnancies). During this session Spring of Life teaches expectant mothers about HIV and how HIV can be passed on to their infants either through the birthing process or breastfeeding. Of babies born to women who are not on medication for HIV and do breast feed, 3 in 10 are HIV positive. With medication and formula feeding this decreases to less than 1 in 10 babies. The problem is that although a government program called Pepfar gives women access to free HIV care and drugs, formula feeding remains very expensive. Plus the lack of clean water to make formula, lack of adequate facilities to sterilize the bottles and the cultural stigma against formula feeding makes it very difficult to sustain this practice safely.
After the session we helped do HIV testing for the women. Those who are HIV positive are immediately enrolled into the Pepfar program. Evangel hospital also then pays for all of their ante-natal care. It was good to see these programs in action and experience the difference they make. HIV is devastating…it rips apart families, leaves children orphans, affects people of all ages and backgrounds, and does not spare the innocent (ie: those who get it from unfaithful spouses, their parents or contaminated blood transfusions). This is why these programs are essential and why it is encouraging to see so many people like Stephanie and the women of Spring of Life committed to spreading awareness and helping those who truly need our compassion and help.
• An aside here – a couple of weeks ago we joined Phil and Steph in taking several children from Spring of Life to a wildlife park. This was a special treat for the children so many of them wore their best Sunday clothes. Just incase you were wondering what those pictures were from.
#2 - Brothel Outreach
Speaking of compassion, last week we encountered a new opportunity to be involved in an outreach to women in brothels. We met an American woman named Meredith who works for Urban Frontier Missions: a ministry that goes daily into the brothels to share the love of Jesus and offer women the opportunity to escape from that lifestyle. UFM runs a centre where they house women who have left the brothels and teaches them new skills such as cooking, catering, sewing, batik and computer so they can support themselves in a safer way. This past Thursday, Rachel, myself, our two roommates Ellie and Debbie, Meredith and a Nigerian woman named Mama Love who runs the ministry spent a couple hours during the day visiting the women. We asked them about their interests, hope and dreams, health, history, families and how they came to be in this situation. Although some women were there for want of this lifestyle, many were forced into prostitution by poverty or were tricked by supposed friends who lured them from the villages to the city with promises of ‘good’ jobs. We also spoke to the women about how much God loves them, offered to pray with them and presented them with the opportunity to leave and come directly to the UFM centre. Rachel and I also used our involvement with Spring of Life and the women’s clinic at Gidan Bege to encourage the women to get HIV tested and have their health concerns assessed as both of these services are free.
The outreach had mixed results as Mama Love had warned us. Some of the women were happy to talk to us while others just ignored us. Several were interested in UFM’s program and said they wanted to leave the brothel at some point but none accepted our offer to leave at that moment and move to the centre. Mama Love said these mixed results is what makes this ministry so difficult and often discouraging. She said this is why prayer is so important as clearly there is a spiritual battle going on for these beautiful and yet tragic women.
#3 - Lucky
In addition to the women’s clinic and widow ministry at Gidan Bege, City Ministries also operates a small orphanage for street boys. These boys come from tragic backgrounds and end up on the streets after running away or getting kicked out of horrible situations such as abuse, neglect and even cult involvement. Currently the tiny centre holds 13 boys ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old. Although their resources are limited Gidan Bege tries to provide the boys with a safe and stable environment, regular food, health check ups and vaccinations, education, Bible lessons, activity and most importantly love…something they’ve known very little of in their young lives. Over the past two months they boys have come to expect us every Wed for women’s clinic and as such every time we arrive they race across the compound yelling “Aunty! Aunty!” with giant smiles on their faces. Our involvement with the boys increased dramatically in the past two weeks due to one of the boys, named Lucky, needing abdominal surgery to repair a botched surgery he received last year due to a complication from Typhoid. As we are involved with both Evangel and Gidan Bege the Gidan Bege RN asked us to bring Lucky to the hospital for a surgical review. After that it followed naturally that we became involved in facilitating his admission and discharge and participated in his surgery and hospital care.
He was so brave. Lying on the operating table he told us that all of the boys at Gidan Bege had hugged him and cried when he was taken to the hospital. Holding our hands he tried so hard to control his fear and tears as the medical team began to set up around him. Graciously the anesthesiologist got him to sleep quickly. Overall the surgery went well despite the medical teams’ shocked as to the extent which the past surgery had been botched. The doctor repeated several times that his young lad was indeed a lucky boy. After the surgery Lucky asked, with a hope-filled face and big dark eyes full of pleading, if we would take him home with us. Our hearts broke! And despite every ounce of mothering and nursing instincts and every fiber of compassion and love for this little boy that screamed “YES!!”, we had to say no….for legal reasons since he is under the care and guardianship of Gidan Bege and not us. We did managed however to slightly brighten his crest fallen face by promising to visit him soon and telling his caregivers he could ring our cell if they had any problems or if he simply wanted to talk to us. The precious little soul called us as soon as he got back from the hospital just to let us know he had arrived safely.
#4 - Village Medical Outreach
This last Friday we joined a small team of medical personnel from Evangel to a remote village called Kiffir. When we arrived we all entered in the Chief’s house and sat quietly as greetings and prayers were exchanged…all in Hausa. We arrived at noon, had a quick lunch of Jollof rice and then ran clinic for 4.5 straight hours. Working at a speedy pace….in other words controlled chaos…we processed 150 or so patients through blood pressure screening, doctor consultations, counseling, an introduction to the gospel and pharmacy. I must note here that although our conversational Hausa is still quite basic, Rachel has become quite good at assessing health concerns in Hausa through a combination of key words and lots of actions. And as I often work Pharmacy, I have become good at giving out medication instructions in Hausa….despite the locals frequently laughing at my ever so slight tonal mispronunciations.
On our way back to Jos, we took as different route in an effort to decrease our travel time as the rains had made the dirt roads treacherous and we were an hour late leaving. In the end it was certainly not the shorter route but was by far the more scenic one. It’s hard to describe the beauty of nature and life around us as we travelled along that route. Words cannot accurately express the stunning beauty, quiet serenity or peaceful feeling of total contentment that enveloped us. Nevertheless, I will try to share with you what it was that inspired such joy in our hearts. Imagine with me a pale blue sky in the late afternoon with wispy white clouds strewn about. See the deep lush green of abundant bushes and trees growing up from vibrant red soil. Gaze for miles at land that stretches far into the distance before eventually rising up dramatically into rugged mountains. The colours all around us were that of the deep jungle and yet the view and land like that of the savannah. Behind me casting distinct beams of light upon the earth was the sun, partially hidden by the clouds and creating a warm glow and silver lining. In the fields, where new seedlings poked up their tiny green heads, there were little goats, pigs and children running about as their fathers tended the warm moist soil. Our van slowed as we waited for a herd of cows, sheep and a couple of donkeys to cross, herded expertly by Fulani boys no older than 12. And as we bumped along the winding muddy road, the cool breezes that follow afternoon rains refreshed us and we could feel the smell of pungent rich earth filling our whole beings.
Then all of a sudden, we could feel it. It’s been slowly growing but we did not notice until now. A warm fondness for this place….a swell of affection for its people….a love for its vibrant natural beauty and an appreciation for its rich culture and history. It is growing on us and in us. They said it would. Planting roots in our hearts so that forever we will feel drawn back here. After all, this is Africa.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Ina kwana family, friends and church family,
(Hausa for good morning)
It’s getting into the rainy season here in Jos. This means that in the morning it is hot and humid and in the afternoon the heavens open and it rains. The upside of the late afternoon rains is that they cause the temperature to drop several Celsius and bring about a cool breeze that helps to dry your sweaty damp clothes. The down side is that they also increase the number of creepy crawly critters that come into the house seeking shelter from the storm. This week we found a millipede about 3 inches long, a spider the size of my palm and a cockroach in our room. All sorts of gross!
Now rain comes in two forms here in the Plateau state: hard rain and torrential rain, which is usually accompanied by thunder and lightening. Being people who enjoy storm watching and feeling the deep rumblings of the thunder, we tend to find the experience of these storms relaxing….except for the other night. We were at Phil and Stephanie’s house having dinner when the heavens opened and it began to torrentially down pour. The sound of the rain was so loud that we had to almost yell to hear each other. All off a sudden there was a brilliant flash of light just outside the window as lightening struck the house beside us. This was immediately followed by an ear splitting CRACK!!! Rachel and I screamed in surprise and Phil jumped at least a foot off the ground…in a manly sort of way. All sorts of fun!
This past Wednesday we had our first opportunity to go to Blind town with the Nigerian community health workers and City Missions nurse who run the women’s clinic at Gidan Bege. Blind town is an area of Jos where the lepers and blind live, and entering it was like stepping back into Bible times. Mud brick house standing at most 8 feet tall all squished and built together with tiny narrow passages winding in between them like a maze. No plumbing, no electricity and no clear direction or orientation once you enter. Ducking through a small doorway, we sort of felt our way in the semi-darkness to a second back room. There we meet the chief of the lepers and his wife. Although the room received some light through a small window high in the wall, we used our cell phone lights to see the blood pressure gauges as we measured their blood pressures, assessed their health status and gave them some medications and vitamins. We then did the same for another ½ dozen lepers and a dozen or so locals who came to Blind town specifically to see us for medical attention. We also got mobbed by 10+ excited children all clamoring to touch us, hold our hands and learn our names. We did not enter very far into blind town though as we were told that City Missions has only begun to establish a relationship with the chief and thus has not yet received permission to enter further. Hopefully as the outreach continues to faithfully return and serve each Wednesday, the relationship will be become more established and the volunteers be allowed to venture further in to find and give medical attention to more lepers.
The experience as a whole was a sobering one. The health needs of the people in Blind town were so great, the living conditions so poor and our efforts so seemingly insufficient….like a single drop of rain in the desert. There is just no infrastructure here. No public health clinics, no access to clean water, no social support services. It was an overwhelming and discouraging thought. How does one possibly make a difference with so many obstacles to overcome? But we were gratefully reminded later that night that all of our efforts, no matter how small, are all intricately woven into God’s great redemption plan for humanity. So while we may not be able to bring public health care in Nigeria up to Canadian standards quite yet, we can still touch and change lives through compassion, simple service and love.
Well, lets end this blog with two funny stories.
The first is about taxi cabs in Jos, which are the size of Toyota Corollas but always pack 7 people into them: three in the front and four in the back. This has resulted in some interesting seating positions. Once I had to sit bent over on Rachel’s lap with my head touching my knees, once I sat with half a leg on the bench and half on the door handle and recently I sat on my heels behind the driver’s seat with one 1/8 on my bottom on the seat. This last one happened because a very large man squeezed himself into the back seat with Rachel, myself and this other guy. The driver turned around and told me to “Sit properly”. I stared at him incredulously. “Sit properly?” I said. “Sit where? I cannot fit. There is no room.” He apparently did not believe me cause he got out of the front of the cab to try and physically push me into the 2 inch space that was left between Rachel and the door. Predictably he failed and eventually conceded to my assertion that there was indeed no room to “Sit properly!”
The second funny story occurred at the hospital while we were doing a shadow shift in the ICU. We had been told the name of the head of the medical division that morning so when he came into the ICU that afternoon we thought we would introduce ourselves. Rachel leaned over to me and whispered “That’s Dr. Suya right?” In my head I could not remember his name exactly but that sounded familiar so I confidently answered “Yes!” So Rachel turned to the head of medicine and with confidence and grace said “Good morning Dr. Suya!” which unfortunately to our confusion caused the man to break out in laughter. He then corrected us that his name was actually Sule, not suya. It took us about a ½ hour after that to realize that ‘suya’ is actually the name for a type of BBQ meat they sell on the street here…that’s why it was familiar to us. This meant that we had pretty much called him, “Dr. Drumstick”. Oh we were mortified! But at least he thought it was funny and was not offended.
Anyways that’s all for now. It has begun to rain again and we still need to go grab a cucumber for dinner with Phil and Steph tonight. So we should get going before it really starts to pour…..opps….too late.
Love Lisa and Rachel
(Hausa for good morning)
It’s getting into the rainy season here in Jos. This means that in the morning it is hot and humid and in the afternoon the heavens open and it rains. The upside of the late afternoon rains is that they cause the temperature to drop several Celsius and bring about a cool breeze that helps to dry your sweaty damp clothes. The down side is that they also increase the number of creepy crawly critters that come into the house seeking shelter from the storm. This week we found a millipede about 3 inches long, a spider the size of my palm and a cockroach in our room. All sorts of gross!
Now rain comes in two forms here in the Plateau state: hard rain and torrential rain, which is usually accompanied by thunder and lightening. Being people who enjoy storm watching and feeling the deep rumblings of the thunder, we tend to find the experience of these storms relaxing….except for the other night. We were at Phil and Stephanie’s house having dinner when the heavens opened and it began to torrentially down pour. The sound of the rain was so loud that we had to almost yell to hear each other. All off a sudden there was a brilliant flash of light just outside the window as lightening struck the house beside us. This was immediately followed by an ear splitting CRACK!!! Rachel and I screamed in surprise and Phil jumped at least a foot off the ground…in a manly sort of way. All sorts of fun!
This past Wednesday we had our first opportunity to go to Blind town with the Nigerian community health workers and City Missions nurse who run the women’s clinic at Gidan Bege. Blind town is an area of Jos where the lepers and blind live, and entering it was like stepping back into Bible times. Mud brick house standing at most 8 feet tall all squished and built together with tiny narrow passages winding in between them like a maze. No plumbing, no electricity and no clear direction or orientation once you enter. Ducking through a small doorway, we sort of felt our way in the semi-darkness to a second back room. There we meet the chief of the lepers and his wife. Although the room received some light through a small window high in the wall, we used our cell phone lights to see the blood pressure gauges as we measured their blood pressures, assessed their health status and gave them some medications and vitamins. We then did the same for another ½ dozen lepers and a dozen or so locals who came to Blind town specifically to see us for medical attention. We also got mobbed by 10+ excited children all clamoring to touch us, hold our hands and learn our names. We did not enter very far into blind town though as we were told that City Missions has only begun to establish a relationship with the chief and thus has not yet received permission to enter further. Hopefully as the outreach continues to faithfully return and serve each Wednesday, the relationship will be become more established and the volunteers be allowed to venture further in to find and give medical attention to more lepers.
The experience as a whole was a sobering one. The health needs of the people in Blind town were so great, the living conditions so poor and our efforts so seemingly insufficient….like a single drop of rain in the desert. There is just no infrastructure here. No public health clinics, no access to clean water, no social support services. It was an overwhelming and discouraging thought. How does one possibly make a difference with so many obstacles to overcome? But we were gratefully reminded later that night that all of our efforts, no matter how small, are all intricately woven into God’s great redemption plan for humanity. So while we may not be able to bring public health care in Nigeria up to Canadian standards quite yet, we can still touch and change lives through compassion, simple service and love.
Well, lets end this blog with two funny stories.
The first is about taxi cabs in Jos, which are the size of Toyota Corollas but always pack 7 people into them: three in the front and four in the back. This has resulted in some interesting seating positions. Once I had to sit bent over on Rachel’s lap with my head touching my knees, once I sat with half a leg on the bench and half on the door handle and recently I sat on my heels behind the driver’s seat with one 1/8 on my bottom on the seat. This last one happened because a very large man squeezed himself into the back seat with Rachel, myself and this other guy. The driver turned around and told me to “Sit properly”. I stared at him incredulously. “Sit properly?” I said. “Sit where? I cannot fit. There is no room.” He apparently did not believe me cause he got out of the front of the cab to try and physically push me into the 2 inch space that was left between Rachel and the door. Predictably he failed and eventually conceded to my assertion that there was indeed no room to “Sit properly!”
The second funny story occurred at the hospital while we were doing a shadow shift in the ICU. We had been told the name of the head of the medical division that morning so when he came into the ICU that afternoon we thought we would introduce ourselves. Rachel leaned over to me and whispered “That’s Dr. Suya right?” In my head I could not remember his name exactly but that sounded familiar so I confidently answered “Yes!” So Rachel turned to the head of medicine and with confidence and grace said “Good morning Dr. Suya!” which unfortunately to our confusion caused the man to break out in laughter. He then corrected us that his name was actually Sule, not suya. It took us about a ½ hour after that to realize that ‘suya’ is actually the name for a type of BBQ meat they sell on the street here…that’s why it was familiar to us. This meant that we had pretty much called him, “Dr. Drumstick”. Oh we were mortified! But at least he thought it was funny and was not offended.
Anyways that’s all for now. It has begun to rain again and we still need to go grab a cucumber for dinner with Phil and Steph tonight. So we should get going before it really starts to pour…..opps….too late.
Love Lisa and Rachel
Saturday, April 18, 2009
One month down and two to go!
Sannu family, friends and church family,
We hope this update finds you well and that you all had a joyful Easter. We have been gone now from Canada over a month now and are enjoying our ministry here. It has been over two weeks since our last blog, due to a combo of infrequent electricity, terrible internet access and a busy schedule. So we will give you a couple of highlights.
1) We attended the three day SUM-CRC Annual Conference and were blessed with an excellent time of spiritual growth and teaching. There were about 50 missionaries/mission personnel there and it was nice to meet them all and fellowship with them. Rachel and I were in charge of planning a big Jeopardy like trivia game full of Nigerian history, culture, archaeology, statistics and geography. It was a tone of fun and we were even able to stump several of the seasoned missionaries.
2) Before Easter we rotated through the surgical division of the hospital. We attended surgical rounds, scrubbed in on several surgeries, shadowed nurses in the 4 bed recovery room/ICU and sat in on surgical clinic. There were several difficult situations we saw, many related to people going to traditional healers first with sicknesses or broken limbs. Then when the treatment fails and they are much worse, they finally come to the hospital. This of course increases the demand on the hospital and surgical team who are already maxed out on resources. The other hard case we saw was a victim of domestic violence. After seeing the patient, one of the Nigerian doctors explained to us the cultural issues involved in the case and how the hospital manages the situation and tries to help the couple. It was very informative though at times hard to hear. He also talked with us about medicine, political corruption, social issues and change in Nigeria. One cannot not help but feel humbled by how often we take things for granted at home…like consistent electricity, getting your pay check on time or at all, running clean water etc. He told us that one month the government decided not to pay him for his work at the hospital. He lost an entire month’s salary and there was nothing he could do about it but go home and pray that God would provide and that he would get paid next month.
3) On Good Friday Stephanie asked us to help her and Spring of Life do HIV testing. Not sure of what it entailed but eager to participate, we agreed. We ended up going to a facility… (well more of a wide open field in the middle of nowhere with several canopy tents up and zero bathroom facilities) where the Evangelical Church of West Africa’s National Women’s Conference was being held. There were around 10,000 women there all wearing beautiful bold and different colored clothing representing their tribes. Due to the lack of facilities, the groups of women all brought their own sleeping mattresses and cooking supplies and were sleeping and cooking wherever they could find room. Eight of us worked registering and testing women while one provided education and follow up resources for the women who tested positive. Out of the 6 hours of straight testing with only one 15 minute break, we were able to test 620 women. It was hectic but incredibly rewarding. To see all the women laughing, cooking and worshipping together was an incredible experience. One of the women we were working with captured the feeling perfectly when she said that “Women are the heart of Africa. It is through their resilience, love and efforts that life flourishes. They cook the food, work the fields, clean the houses, raise the children, often financially support the husbands, entertain the guests and keep the families together.” It truly was a blessing to have been there.
4) Last Saturday, we ran a sexual education day for young people ranging in age from 13 to 27. We put quite a bit of work into planning the day and organizing a lesson plan that would encourage the youth to participate in the discussions, get our information across and deal with the topics in a culturally sensitive manner. Overall the day went well, but the highlight was at the end when we had finished and told the youth that they could either take time to write their reflections on the day/write a letter to themselves, God or a friend, or they could go outside and play volleyball. To our great surprise and delight all of the youth took our offered paper and pens and began to write down all the things they had learned from us during the day.
5) This past week we rotated through the VVF ward which is a complication of prolonged childbirth and results in incontinence. There are many women who are affected by this issue here and thus the ward is always full and the doctors busy. We had the opportunity to sit in clinic, assess the women and view several surgeries. There is also a visiting doctor from Madagascar who is currently at Evangel learning about VVF. He is the only surgeon in his small rural hospital in Madagascar and thus responsible for every area of surgery. He is up here in Jos for 6 weeks to learn about how to perform and manage VVF patients so he can take back this knowledge to his hospital and staff. It was fascinating talking to him about his work in Madagascar and he graciously invited us to come visit his hospital and volunteer/work there if we are interested. Lol relax mom and dad, we still coming home…but there is a twinkle of interest in Rachel’s eyes every time Madagascar comes up…hehe.
6) For the past two Wednesdays we have attended women’s clinic at Gidan Bege (which means House of Hope in Hausa). During clinic we worked with the Nigerian translators to assess women, take their blood pressures and listen to their health concerns. Then they are prescribed appropriate medication and given a week’s worth supply. Rachel worked the assessment side of the clinic, using her finely tuned assessment skills while I worked pharmacy, dispensing meds. It was a bit of a zoo trying to assess the women in broken Hausa (Rachel ended up using lots of hand motions, facial expressions and pointing) and then trying to find all the different types of meds in the tiny closet that doubles as a pharmacy and somehow give instructions for use in Hausa.
Well that’s about it for now. Apologies for the length but again internet is scarce, lol as is regular electricity, so this is 2.5 weeks in one blog. We love you all and God bless.
Rachel and Lisa
We hope this update finds you well and that you all had a joyful Easter. We have been gone now from Canada over a month now and are enjoying our ministry here. It has been over two weeks since our last blog, due to a combo of infrequent electricity, terrible internet access and a busy schedule. So we will give you a couple of highlights.
1) We attended the three day SUM-CRC Annual Conference and were blessed with an excellent time of spiritual growth and teaching. There were about 50 missionaries/mission personnel there and it was nice to meet them all and fellowship with them. Rachel and I were in charge of planning a big Jeopardy like trivia game full of Nigerian history, culture, archaeology, statistics and geography. It was a tone of fun and we were even able to stump several of the seasoned missionaries.
2) Before Easter we rotated through the surgical division of the hospital. We attended surgical rounds, scrubbed in on several surgeries, shadowed nurses in the 4 bed recovery room/ICU and sat in on surgical clinic. There were several difficult situations we saw, many related to people going to traditional healers first with sicknesses or broken limbs. Then when the treatment fails and they are much worse, they finally come to the hospital. This of course increases the demand on the hospital and surgical team who are already maxed out on resources. The other hard case we saw was a victim of domestic violence. After seeing the patient, one of the Nigerian doctors explained to us the cultural issues involved in the case and how the hospital manages the situation and tries to help the couple. It was very informative though at times hard to hear. He also talked with us about medicine, political corruption, social issues and change in Nigeria. One cannot not help but feel humbled by how often we take things for granted at home…like consistent electricity, getting your pay check on time or at all, running clean water etc. He told us that one month the government decided not to pay him for his work at the hospital. He lost an entire month’s salary and there was nothing he could do about it but go home and pray that God would provide and that he would get paid next month.
3) On Good Friday Stephanie asked us to help her and Spring of Life do HIV testing. Not sure of what it entailed but eager to participate, we agreed. We ended up going to a facility… (well more of a wide open field in the middle of nowhere with several canopy tents up and zero bathroom facilities) where the Evangelical Church of West Africa’s National Women’s Conference was being held. There were around 10,000 women there all wearing beautiful bold and different colored clothing representing their tribes. Due to the lack of facilities, the groups of women all brought their own sleeping mattresses and cooking supplies and were sleeping and cooking wherever they could find room. Eight of us worked registering and testing women while one provided education and follow up resources for the women who tested positive. Out of the 6 hours of straight testing with only one 15 minute break, we were able to test 620 women. It was hectic but incredibly rewarding. To see all the women laughing, cooking and worshipping together was an incredible experience. One of the women we were working with captured the feeling perfectly when she said that “Women are the heart of Africa. It is through their resilience, love and efforts that life flourishes. They cook the food, work the fields, clean the houses, raise the children, often financially support the husbands, entertain the guests and keep the families together.” It truly was a blessing to have been there.
4) Last Saturday, we ran a sexual education day for young people ranging in age from 13 to 27. We put quite a bit of work into planning the day and organizing a lesson plan that would encourage the youth to participate in the discussions, get our information across and deal with the topics in a culturally sensitive manner. Overall the day went well, but the highlight was at the end when we had finished and told the youth that they could either take time to write their reflections on the day/write a letter to themselves, God or a friend, or they could go outside and play volleyball. To our great surprise and delight all of the youth took our offered paper and pens and began to write down all the things they had learned from us during the day.
5) This past week we rotated through the VVF ward which is a complication of prolonged childbirth and results in incontinence. There are many women who are affected by this issue here and thus the ward is always full and the doctors busy. We had the opportunity to sit in clinic, assess the women and view several surgeries. There is also a visiting doctor from Madagascar who is currently at Evangel learning about VVF. He is the only surgeon in his small rural hospital in Madagascar and thus responsible for every area of surgery. He is up here in Jos for 6 weeks to learn about how to perform and manage VVF patients so he can take back this knowledge to his hospital and staff. It was fascinating talking to him about his work in Madagascar and he graciously invited us to come visit his hospital and volunteer/work there if we are interested. Lol relax mom and dad, we still coming home…but there is a twinkle of interest in Rachel’s eyes every time Madagascar comes up…hehe.
6) For the past two Wednesdays we have attended women’s clinic at Gidan Bege (which means House of Hope in Hausa). During clinic we worked with the Nigerian translators to assess women, take their blood pressures and listen to their health concerns. Then they are prescribed appropriate medication and given a week’s worth supply. Rachel worked the assessment side of the clinic, using her finely tuned assessment skills while I worked pharmacy, dispensing meds. It was a bit of a zoo trying to assess the women in broken Hausa (Rachel ended up using lots of hand motions, facial expressions and pointing) and then trying to find all the different types of meds in the tiny closet that doubles as a pharmacy and somehow give instructions for use in Hausa.
Well that’s about it for now. Apologies for the length but again internet is scarce, lol as is regular electricity, so this is 2.5 weeks in one blog. We love you all and God bless.
Rachel and Lisa
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Ya ya yo?
Ya ya yo church, family and friends?
This is Hausa for 'How are you?'"
Last we went to Evangel Hospital and participated in rounds on the paediatric ward. Most kids here seem to have illness that we give regular immunizations for at home so it was a bit of an eye opener. Plus there were many children with malaria and typhoid. We plan to started our surgical rotation this week and also plan to be involved with Women's ministries every Wednesday by attending the women's clinic and lending our nursing skills to the nurse who overseas it. The clinic predominately sees street women and widows who have very little resources and support. Most of these women are Muslins. Despite the good work the clinic is doing in supporting these women, they are low on resources. We have been encouraged to buy our stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs so that we can do assessments on the women as there are not enough at the clinic. Then once we leave we can leave these supplies behind as a donation to the clinic. We were hoping that you our supporters might be interested in helping us with this financial need.
We also recently returned from a medical/spiritual outreach to a small remote town called Kafarma 3 hours away from Jos with an mission organization called City Missions. As many of the mission organizations here work closely together, we meet a rep from City Missions who offered us to oppertunity to participate in this outreach. We left early Monday morning, camped overnight in the village, ran two days of medical clinic and spiritual counselling and then returned Tuesday night. Although the team we worked with were amazing and the villagers incredible kind and engaging, overall the spiritual needs in this village are still very great. Though many of the villagers attend church most still continue to practice their pagan traditional beliefs. As such there is much confusion about the gospel, limited understanding about Jesus or the Christian life and thus much conflict between the villagers. The resources to reach out to the town are limited and the team that went is only able to go once a year for two days of outreach. As such the town is in spiritual turmoil. Again we would ask our supporters at home to commit to praying for this village.
Other than that, we are in good health....except for being in a permanent state of sweatiness and often covered with a fine layer of dirt due the harmatten winds that blow the soil all over the place (its the dry season). Although we've only been here a short time, we feel we have already grown in our understanding of different cultures, our dependence on the Father and our appreciation for the wonderful heart and generosity of the Nigerian people.
Love Lisa and Rachel
This is Hausa for 'How are you?'"
Last we went to Evangel Hospital and participated in rounds on the paediatric ward. Most kids here seem to have illness that we give regular immunizations for at home so it was a bit of an eye opener. Plus there were many children with malaria and typhoid. We plan to started our surgical rotation this week and also plan to be involved with Women's ministries every Wednesday by attending the women's clinic and lending our nursing skills to the nurse who overseas it. The clinic predominately sees street women and widows who have very little resources and support. Most of these women are Muslins. Despite the good work the clinic is doing in supporting these women, they are low on resources. We have been encouraged to buy our stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs so that we can do assessments on the women as there are not enough at the clinic. Then once we leave we can leave these supplies behind as a donation to the clinic. We were hoping that you our supporters might be interested in helping us with this financial need.
We also recently returned from a medical/spiritual outreach to a small remote town called Kafarma 3 hours away from Jos with an mission organization called City Missions. As many of the mission organizations here work closely together, we meet a rep from City Missions who offered us to oppertunity to participate in this outreach. We left early Monday morning, camped overnight in the village, ran two days of medical clinic and spiritual counselling and then returned Tuesday night. Although the team we worked with were amazing and the villagers incredible kind and engaging, overall the spiritual needs in this village are still very great. Though many of the villagers attend church most still continue to practice their pagan traditional beliefs. As such there is much confusion about the gospel, limited understanding about Jesus or the Christian life and thus much conflict between the villagers. The resources to reach out to the town are limited and the team that went is only able to go once a year for two days of outreach. As such the town is in spiritual turmoil. Again we would ask our supporters at home to commit to praying for this village.
Other than that, we are in good health....except for being in a permanent state of sweatiness and often covered with a fine layer of dirt due the harmatten winds that blow the soil all over the place (its the dry season). Although we've only been here a short time, we feel we have already grown in our understanding of different cultures, our dependence on the Father and our appreciation for the wonderful heart and generosity of the Nigerian people.
Love Lisa and Rachel
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Sannu!
Sannu church, family and friends, (this means 'hello' in Hausa)
Rachel and I have now settled into the CRC compound, been orientated to the city of Jos, met most of the missionaries and CRC staff on our compound, started to adjust to the heat (its about 32'C) and recovered from our jet lag. In our typical fashion we've also already done a once over clean on the house including the bathroom, kitchen cabinets, fridge, our rooms and the hall cupboards. It must be our role as eldest daugthers and training as nurses which comples us to obsessively clean everything! lol
Our compound is called Mountain View and is located a short walk from the Hillcrest campus (which the the center for many ministries here at the CRC compound). Hillcrest is a school (K-12) that was originally set up for missionary kids but now teaches Nigerian children as well. Many of the people living on the two CRC compounds teach at Hillcrest and send their children to the school.
So far we have learned that there are many different organizations working together here in Jos. Although it has been a bit confusing meeting so many people and trying to sort out where they all work, it is a really testament to the idea of cross demonination partnerships. It helps encourage the idea that we are all one in the body of Christ working together for a common goal. A couple examples of this team approach are...
1) both Hillcrest and the two theological seminary schools here are managed by several different demoninations in Jos and the organizations
2) although we are living on a CRC compound our three female house mates are all from Mission Africa but live here as Mission Africa does not have their own compound
3) on Friday night our house mates invited us to the City Mission weekly group meal where we meet a ton of people from around the world working and volunteering in Jos under the City Missions umbrella
Some of the highlights of the things we've seen or expereinced so far....
1) Saw a taxi packed with people and chickens who were all pressed up against the windows
2) Learned how to make home made yoghurt from a couple of ladies on our compound
3) We've had two wonderful lunches with Phil and Stephaine Beck where we got to try local Nigerian food (masi - rice padies and suma ;- grilled beef) and some Lebanese food (lots of Lebanese people here in Jos...not sure why). Oh and by the way, thanks again Melinda and Patricia for the donated nursing textbooks as they are a much needed addition to the 1970s textbooks they currently have.
4) We went to a village church planted by the CRC of Nigeria with the missionary family the Van Der Dyks. The service was almost entirely in Hausa except for the sermon which the Pastor graciously did in English because of us. :) The church building was about the size of an average North Amercian bedroom and there were about 15 people there. But the power of their voices filled the entire space and their natural rhythm and melody made instruments unnecessary. Two men gave their testimonies, one through song and then the pastor offered (with a giant grin on his face) for Rachel and I to give our testimonies through song...lol...which we politely declined as to not subject their ears to our singing.
This coming up week our orientation to Evangel hospital begins. We've also become aware of a couple of medical outreach and teaching oppertunties which are in the process of being sorted out. We will of course update you on these events in our future blogs.
Until that time, thank you again for your support and prayers.
Love,
Lisa and Rachel
Rachel and I have now settled into the CRC compound, been orientated to the city of Jos, met most of the missionaries and CRC staff on our compound, started to adjust to the heat (its about 32'C) and recovered from our jet lag. In our typical fashion we've also already done a once over clean on the house including the bathroom, kitchen cabinets, fridge, our rooms and the hall cupboards. It must be our role as eldest daugthers and training as nurses which comples us to obsessively clean everything! lol
Our compound is called Mountain View and is located a short walk from the Hillcrest campus (which the the center for many ministries here at the CRC compound). Hillcrest is a school (K-12) that was originally set up for missionary kids but now teaches Nigerian children as well. Many of the people living on the two CRC compounds teach at Hillcrest and send their children to the school.
So far we have learned that there are many different organizations working together here in Jos. Although it has been a bit confusing meeting so many people and trying to sort out where they all work, it is a really testament to the idea of cross demonination partnerships. It helps encourage the idea that we are all one in the body of Christ working together for a common goal. A couple examples of this team approach are...
1) both Hillcrest and the two theological seminary schools here are managed by several different demoninations in Jos and the organizations
2) although we are living on a CRC compound our three female house mates are all from Mission Africa but live here as Mission Africa does not have their own compound
3) on Friday night our house mates invited us to the City Mission weekly group meal where we meet a ton of people from around the world working and volunteering in Jos under the City Missions umbrella
Some of the highlights of the things we've seen or expereinced so far....
1) Saw a taxi packed with people and chickens who were all pressed up against the windows
2) Learned how to make home made yoghurt from a couple of ladies on our compound
3) We've had two wonderful lunches with Phil and Stephaine Beck where we got to try local Nigerian food (masi - rice padies and suma ;- grilled beef) and some Lebanese food (lots of Lebanese people here in Jos...not sure why). Oh and by the way, thanks again Melinda and Patricia for the donated nursing textbooks as they are a much needed addition to the 1970s textbooks they currently have.
4) We went to a village church planted by the CRC of Nigeria with the missionary family the Van Der Dyks. The service was almost entirely in Hausa except for the sermon which the Pastor graciously did in English because of us. :) The church building was about the size of an average North Amercian bedroom and there were about 15 people there. But the power of their voices filled the entire space and their natural rhythm and melody made instruments unnecessary. Two men gave their testimonies, one through song and then the pastor offered (with a giant grin on his face) for Rachel and I to give our testimonies through song...lol...which we politely declined as to not subject their ears to our singing.
This coming up week our orientation to Evangel hospital begins. We've also become aware of a couple of medical outreach and teaching oppertunties which are in the process of being sorted out. We will of course update you on these events in our future blogs.
Until that time, thank you again for your support and prayers.
Love,
Lisa and Rachel
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