If you have time, there’s a couple more blog posts which others based at Galmi have scribed in the past couple of days which would be worth your perusal. Marc, who is alongside Ruth in the under-5′s clinic everyday, has written a thorough overview (with lots of photos) explaining the CREN here at Galmi.

The CREN is the malnutrition and feeding centre, and if you received our prayer letter a couple of weeks ago, you’ll hopefully have read a short story from Ruth in which it featured. Marc has given a really clear walkthrough of how the CREN works; even though I’ve visited it quite a bit by now, reading some of the details really does show what a marvellous place it is. It also demonstrates how a small bit of education and an incredibly low cost can make such a difference. I heartily recommend his post to you, which you can read on their blog by clicking here.

Secondly, Deb – the hospital OT, whom we referred to in a previous post – has written another excellent article, with an incredibly uplifting story which just goes to show that even when it seems the chips are down, there are still ongoing stories of small miracles that make it all worthwhile. You can read about the girl who walked again by clicking here.

Before I get in to the following story, I’d also just like to thank everyone who has e-mailed over the past few weeks. We love hearing from folk, and it takes time and effort to sit down and ‘tell us yer scandal’ – so thanks for that, and keep them coming!

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So we were at market on Wednesday and had an interesting experience. If you’ve ever spent any time in the developing world, you’ve probably had the experience of gathering a little band of followers as you go about your business. For the most persistent new, elbow-high friends that I seem to make, they might score lucky and get some of my Sugar-Free Polo mint stash. (But they need to be very persistent, I don’t yield lightly on the precious mint front.)

There’s a Nigerien proverb, that more or less translate as ‘There’s no harm in asking.’ Now, I’ve had the experience in a different country where sticking out like a sore thumb as the rich westerner resulted in people literally tugging on my clothes and more or less demanding something. I don’t think it’s a common experience thankfully, but maybe you too have experienced more aggressive traders, or even those asking for money. It can be pretty intimidating if there’s only one or two of you.

Niger is the polar opposite. No matter what, people are friendly. If there’s no harm in asking, they might as well ask. Kids will be passing, and they’ll maybe say hello, show you their bit of French and ask ‘Akwai cadeaux?’ But even if you’re saying no, they’ll still smile and move on. Traders are the same; they’ll get your attention, greet you and do the formalities no matter how passing the contact, ask how you day is and wave goodbye when you leave.

Perhaps I’m being naive – we are only four weeks in – but the aggressive streak has not made it to Niger, thankfully. People are just asking – and hey, there’s no harm in asking! You might score yourself some sweets, after all…

However, of course in a part of the world ravaged by poverty there are people who have to beg for help. On Wednesday an elderly gentlemen on the arm of a younger man suddenly seemed roused as we passed by. In English with a thick Nigerian accent, he shouted out, “Excuse me! Excuse me! Is that a Christian?”

Hearing he clearly wasn’t local, I was immediately interested. We exchanged greetings, and then he burst into song – it sounded like a hymn in Hausa. He explained that he had grown up in Jos (in northern Nigeria) where he had attended a Christian secondary school – cue a little more singing – but in his old age he was now blind, and had to ask for help. He quickly ran through statements about Jesus… sorry, “Our Lord Jesus Christ” (proclaimed whilst throwing a hand in the air). Quite a crowd was gathering at this point, and I was also conscious of an impatient guy behind me trying to three-point-turn his donkey cart.

Now that’s normally the point where, if you’re as cripplingly self-conscious as I am, you make some excuses and shuffle off. So I did. Five minutes later, he caught up again. “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, “our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Ask and you shall receive. And I believe Him, and so I ask.”

He had me. Hoisted on our own petard, as it were. But it’s a good one to be hoisted on.

There’s a lot of good reasons why it’s general mission policy (for charities across the globe) not to give out actual money to people who ask in the street, but rather small presents or food, tools or clothes. But it seems to me that sometimes you maybe just have to cross that line – because Jesus did say, “Ask and you shall receive.” He was talking about Himself, of course. But even out of context, it’s still a fairly succinct and powerful line. Is Jesus in the simple act of giving? I think so.

It would be easy, and potentially correct, to be cynical and imagine that like some folk you will encounter, this gent had learnt a few lines and knew who to target. As the handful of internationals in their outpost of civilisation, we’re pretty easy to track down! But this meeting has really stuck in my mind over the past few days.

So for this week, I’m trying not to be as pessimistic as usual. Former US President Harry Truman said that a society is judged by how it treats its weakest members. If that’s the case, this worldwide fellowship of the church needs to think long and hard about what is, after all, surely a central purpose – the encouragement and safeguarding of other believers. Hopefully, we managed not to fluff the opportunity for once as I guilty palmed him a few coins and thanked him for sharing with us.

The worst case scenario is that on Wednesday afternoon, a Christian proved he really was too quick to give away a few coins to someone with less than him, right? I can live with that.

The home groups for Bloomfield Presbyterian, our church in east Belfast, meet on Wednesday nights – and by happy coincidence, so does the bible study group here at Galmi! And so, a thought occurred to us.

It would only be appropriate that before we head to bed tonight, we have a wee cup (or two) of some of the hot chocolate that we were able to bring. (A H/T – that is, a hat tip – to Lindsay for her thoughtfulness in providing lots of goodies that we smuggled in!)

We may not be with you in body, but we’ll be with you in chocolate!

Two quick things: firstly, thank you to everyone who responded to the prayer letter e-mail that went out last week. (And if you didn’t receive it and would like to, you can sign up for it using the e-mail link on the right of this page.) It makes us feel pretty wonderful to hear from people, let alone to know that folk are supporting us. Thanks in particular to Brian and the folks in Kildress for apparently hauling Dad up for a grilling last week – no better man for the job! Your support is a constant reminder that we’re part of something bigger, and your part in that is vital, so thank you.

Secondly, a couple of the pictures below allude to the CREN, which is an awesome project in its own right, within the Galmi site. You can read about it in this article from a couple of year’s ago on the Pulitzer Center’s website – and a tip of the hat to Deb, our one-woman Occupational Therapy unit, for that bit of linkage. When you’ve read that, go read through some of her blog articles for an amazing insight into working here at Galmi.

The entrance to to compound at the side of the hospital site. Our house is first one the right. How about those amazing green trees?

The week's new bread recipe: sixty minute baguettes. Chewy AND crusty. Nice.

Last Tuesday, Niger's Minister de Sante (in brown) came for a whistle-stop tour of the hospital.

Early in the day, one of the local evangelists takes the chance to share with mothers who are waiting at the Paediatrics ward.

Ruth, Kristine and some of the adult medical nurses.

This guy was fascinated with the picture of himself on the camera's screen!

A lady and her child at the CREN - the hospital's feeding centre, where families can stay whilst nursing infants suffering from malnutrition.

Kristine and some the mothers at the CREN. I have been obsessed with this picture all week, even though it's massively overexposed.

There’s a story I heard about an international meeting, where delegates were attending from across a charity’s global network.  A controversial proposal was announced, and it was decided to open the floor for queries or concerns, as it was expected that many of the delegates who came from “in the field”, so to speak, would have serious reservations.

One by one, some European and American delegates stood to say their piece.  Numerous members spoke of their concerns, but on the whole it seemed that the room was actually in favour of the proposal.  When the time came for an African concern, everyone held their breath.  But only one African delegate stood to speak.

The chair was confused.  He remarked to the room in general that he was surprised there had not been more African voices of disapproval.  There was little reaction.  He stalled for more time, urging those who disapproved to make their voices heard.

Eventually, another African delegate arose.  The thing was, she explained, the entire African bloc were against the proposal – but they came to an agreement and the man who had spoken did so for the entire group.

The point of the story is that there is much more of an assumption of group dynamic here.  It’s not uncommon to see lots of guys clustered around a problem at once!  Additionally, whereas in the West, there’s generally a shorter power distance – meaning less of a hierarchy, or that everyone will speak individually to express an opinion, for example – there’s much more a respect for the guy in charge.

All this goes to say that sometimes, it’s really impressive how smoothly everyone seems to know what to do and what their role is.  The example I’m thinking of was as I watched some of the construction crew lift the solid steel roofing trusses onto the top of the new toilet block for the hospital here at Galmi.  At home, I can only imagine this would have involved a crane and paperwork.  Here, the team seemed to know exactly how to work together, and were not at all fazed by the sheer physicality of the task.  The whole thing took less than a minute with each one.  (You can click each picture to see a bigger one.)

Here are some random pictures from last weekend, just to give you for some of the less obvious highlights so far.

We spent from Thursday last week until Monday in Niamey staying in SIM’s Guesthouse. It was such a nice time. We got to rest a bit and see around Niamey. We were also in the SIM office on Thursday and Friday to meet with the SIM coordinators here, and talked about plans for this year for both of us. We also went to church in Niamey on Sunday which was great: we met a couple I knew from Galmi before, who are now working in Niamey at Sahel Academy which was lovely. In the evening we went to the English-language church at Sahel which was brilliant. There were about 100 people there, mostly SIM missionaries and their children, who are based in Niamey.

Since we’ve arrived, both in Niamey and here at Galmi we have had someone have us at their house for dinner. Tonight’s [Thursday] the first night we are going to have to cook for ourselves. We got some meat off the back of a motorbike yesterday, so we’re going to make an attempt at tea with it! Funny story – yesterday I went to make scones for lunch and accidentally read the ingredients wrong. Instead of putting in 1 oz of sugar I put in 10 oz! Needless to say they were ridiculously sweet: we ate one each but ended up binning the rest for fear of making ourselves diabetic! Peter made a second batch today and they tasted pretty good, he’s getting good at the cooking. [Naturellement]

We took the SIMAir flight from Niamey to Galmi on Monday, and the same day we met with the staff and have talked about plans. We’re planning to learn some Hausa, because in Danja there aren’t that many French speakers so we need Hausa to communicate. Here in Galmi a lot more people can speak French, so we’re putting our French to good practice. I’ve been using it in the hospital and getting on ok.

The house we are in in Galmi is lovely. We’ve a nice living dining area, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. The weather at the moment is really pleasant, it cools down nicely in the evenings which means its easier to sleep. During the day it’s around 35′C, but there’s a breeze so its not too hot. It is very dusty at the moment though, I constantly feel like I’m coated in it!

I’ve been working with the children here in the hospital, mainly in the under-5s clinic and then in the ward as well. Tonight is my first night on-call. There are lots of doctors here at the moment which is great, in fact there are 10 of us in total. This means we don’t have to do on-call as frequently. I have really enjoyed meeting nurses again that I knew before and the translators. Before we left Northern Ireland, we received gifts of knitted hats to bring with us. I hope the ladies who worked so hard will be pleased to know that I spoke to the missionary doctor who works in obstetrics, and she said they had just run out of baby hats! They are delighted to get more to give to the new borns in this cooler weather, so they will all go to good use.

Peter has met with a lot of the different staff here to see what they want him to do first. One of his priorities is to redesign the website for SIM Niger, so he’s working away at that. They also have several priority projects which he hopes to produce briefs on in the next couple of weeks, two of which are based here at Galmi: one is to start a surgical training school; the other is for the building redevelopment work here. They have close to completing a new surgical unit, but need to rebuild the maternity wing next, and then possibly also the medical wards as a lot of the buildings are in disrepair.

This weekend we have an evening of prayer on Friday night for the hospital and work in Niger. Then on Saturday we are going to have a picnic in the evening up in the hills. Everyone from the compound is going – over 50 people? – so it will be lots of fun.

Missing everyone lots, and hope you are all well.

If you are interested in receiving the monthly update (by e-mail) you can sign up by clicking here (opens in your e-mail client) or e-mailing info @ simireland dot co dot uk. (Remove spaces and dots, obviously.)

We arrived safe and sound, if shattered, on Thursday morning. All our luggage came too! Overall, we’ve had a great start. Yesterday (Friday) was spent in the SIM Niamey office, mostly to bang out my role for the year. It looks like the challenge will be to oversee a complete overhaul of SIM Niger’s web presence (some people should expect a few e-mails for advice next week!)and to profile specific projects and jobs along the way. It’s a bit daunting but fun.

We’ve met quite a few staff and volunteers already which has been great. The guesthouse is very comfy. However, we’re only here for a few days in total before we move on.

Huge thanks in particular to all who were praying as we travelled – it went well. We should be able to avail of some healthy interweb connections next week, so hopefully there’ll be more then!

The service will be in Killowen Church of Ireland, Coleraine – a map is available here.

We’d love to see folk there, but realise for some it may clash with their own church commitments, and for others may be too far!  However, it should be quite informal, and we hope to also have some tea and buns afterwards.  We very much look forward to seeing everyone and anyone who comes.