Last Monday

[Ruth writes] I thought I would take a few moments to share with you some of the stories from the hospital over the past week.

Last Monday the very first patient I saw was a fifteen-year-old boy and his father. He had come in with a severely swollen abdomen, and was seen by one of our nurses over the weekend. A scan had been organised in the nearby Maradi Hospital, as we don’t have the facilities in our health centre. As I came in on Monday at 8am I was greeted by this young man and his father and handed the report of the scan.

The results showed that he had a hugely cancerous liver.

I asked them to wait in the waiting area and contacted a doctor in Galmi who confirmed my fears. Liver cancer in any setting is difficult to treat, and here in Niger we have no viable option for cure. After this conversation, I went and found one of our hospital pastors, who daily meet, share and offer counselling with patients. I explained what we knew to Pastor and together we took the family into the doctors’ office.

Through Pastor I explained that his condition was incurable and we could not say how long he would survive; however, we explained that we could give medicine to help with pain and sickness. Pastor, with compassion, shared the Gospel with this young man and his father, who both listened and asked questions about what they heard.

Later in the day I had two ladies come in one after the other; both with very advanced breast cancer, which had spread through their chest wall leaving a large ulcerated area. Both women had noticed the lump starting over a year before, but had not come until now to seek medical attention. Sadly they also both were beyond the means of surgical removal; however we provided them with basic wound care and pain relief.

In the hospital we have a supply of cassette tapes in Hausa, which are a recording of several Hausa people’s testimonies of how they came to faith and the difference God has made. Both the women were keen to receive these tapes, and a relative with one of the ladies asked for a second copy so she could give it to her family too.

Before I finished on Monday evening, I was still in the office when one of the hospital guards came to ask me to come and see one of the babies in the ward who had just died. I immediately knew which child it would be: a young two-year-old boy who had come in before the weekend, severely dehydrated with suspected typhoid fever.

I went quickly to his bed and found his mum packing up her things to take him home, but as I looked at him I saw that he was still making some feeble efforts to breath. I asked the mum to be patient and let us see her boy.

I quickly found one of our nurses, who got our small oxygen tank and put it on the baby. As we worked trying to get IV fluids into the boy and giving him a dose of stronger antibiotics, I prayed that God would give him strength. I left that evening, disheartened, expecting that he would not make it through the night.

As I trudged the 10 minute walk back to our house, I prayed that, if it was possible, God would heal this boy.

The following morning as I walked in I went cautiously towards the ward. I was so thankful to see him lying in his corner bed with his mother, still quite weak but alive and breathing. Both his mother and I couldn’t help smiling as we talked about his improvement.

On Wednesday morning I returned again to find this same child now sitting up, not needing the oxygen and trying to drink on his own. His mother thanked us for healing him, but we shared with her that it was God who had brought healing to her son. She agreed and praised God who brings healing. As I did my end of the day rounds on Wednesday evening I saw this boy sitting on his mother knee trying to suck on a tough piece of meat which he had been given! What a miracle.

As last Monday demonstrates, there are many needy people here, but in healing and in grief we have huge opportunities here to share with people the hope of the Gospel. I’ve also been reminded of how powerful God is, that even with my doubting prayer He chose to bring healing to that young baby. I was reminded by my mum recently; however, that if we provide physical healing only for these people it means little but if we can show them the way to spiritual healing in Jesus then they will be truly healed.

Please pray for these people. For the teenage boy and his father as they come to terms with his illness and reflect on what was shared with them. For the elderly ladies as they listen to the Gospel message on cassette and share it with their families. For the mum who is now at home with her son, that she would acknowledge the Lord who brought physical healing but longs to bring true life.

Have a Butchers

The first in an occasional series of posts for all the Meat Hygienists in the audience…

A couple of different people have asked about how we buy our food and supplies out here. Shopping is a bit lengthly sometimes,because for the most part there’s not really such a thing as a one-stop supermarket, such as we would be accustomed to at home.

As Niger’s second city (sorry, Zinder) Maradi has a wealth of choices compared to Galmi, and certainly there are at least three stores that would be considered Western – in that they have aisles and choice for some products! These are usually our destination for all long-life products, canned vegetables, cleaning supplies and so on.

Fruit and vegetables can come from any number of stalls and smaller shops across town, but  we usually hit one of the main market areas to try and get as much as possible in one place. This month, a lot of things are fairly scarce as hot season ends, and people focus on planting grain. However, there’s still fruit appearing from the coastal countries, or up from South Africa. If you’re lucky, you can find some reasonable stuff.

Meat is the one which seems probably least palatable to Western cultures. You can buy raw or cooked meat from a market stall, but you usually buy part (beef) or all (chicken) of the animal and do the cleanup work yourself! We usually get our beef from the market, and often will have it ground then and there for a few francs extra. Chicken’s harder to find, but can be picked up from some of the guys barbequeing meat at the side of the road.

At Galmi, meat purchasing was a bit more creative, but also more convenient. During the week, some regular traders bring meat to the compound. While we were there, we got all our beef from the meat man, who comes in on his motorbike on Wednesday mornings. Beef seems to be roughly the same price everywhere.

Galmi’s meat man – a little off the top?

We do have a bit of a treat sometimes if we happen to be driving out of Maradi in the evening. Near the city gate on the road towards Danja, there’s a guy who grills large hunks of lamb every day. We’ll maybe ask for two or four thousand francs’ worth, and he’s only too happy to whip out his cleaver and hack it up, straight off the coals.

Getting some lamb. The little bundle he throws in is powered spice – very hot!

More lamb on the barbeque. The stall in the background is a guy who makes fresh chips/fries every evening.

Food Aid Funny Business

At the end of each month, the time comes to distribute the grain earned by people participating in Danja’s Food Aid project (which has recently been featuring here on SIM UK’s homepage.)

Food aid, as we’ve mentioned before, is a simple method of distributing food to those genuinely in need. A person joins the program, takes part in a short piece of work, and receives payment in the form of a sack of grain.

Recently, we had an army of ladies spring up on the edge of our housing compound, as they made their way across a stretch of unused ground, digging and preparing it for sowing. Spirits seemed to generally be quite enthusiastic, and each of these women will no doubt be happy to receive their grain.

Very occasionally, someone might come to our house asking for charity. The food aid program is a good way of managing this need, and it was comforting to recently see a lady who had come to us taking part and having the dignity of earning her keep, rather than having to rely on begging.

Of course, not everyone is able to work. The grain distribution is also given freely to patients who are recovering from leprosy and their families, and to a selection of other’s identified by administrators. Supporting these patients remains a cornerstone of Danja’s work.

Last time around, Peter couldn’t help but go down and watch as people began to gather to collect their grain. It was exciting to see such tangible results for a project.

People gather to receive grain from the food aid program.

CSL workers begin to hand out some of the sacks.

More people gather as other begin to take their grain home.

Peter wasn’t the only one taking photos though – he was joined in the Danja ‘press pool’ by none other than Maradi’s No. 1 clown!

Maradi’s top clown brought his own gear for taking photographs…

…but he ended up being the subject!

The clown was entertaining the crowds with some slapstick pantomime, mucking around with an old Polaroid. He was pretty funny!

Seeds of Change

(Apologies to frequent readers and subscribers – prolonged electrical blackouts combined with poor internet connections have meant we’ve not been blogging at our usual rate during the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed presently!)

What imagery does the word ‘missionary’ conjure up in your mind?

I’m not sure who directly it relates to, but my preset thought seems to be of teaching. Bringing schools to places where they are lacking. Teaching language or numeracy. Bible teaching as well.

Translation work probably follows. Rewriting and teaching Christian scripture and literature in new languages for the first time.

Next comes health and humanitarian work. Bringing aid to areas hit by famine. Treating the ignored. Offering a helping hand.

These are all true representations of some of the mission work done, by different organisations, across the developing world. However, and particularly since coming to the field here in Niger,  the appreciation for the wide scope of and range of tasks and roles – particularly those which remain unfilled – in other areas of work has really hit home.

By my count, there’s upwards of 75 of these job descriptions for Niger at the moment. Many of them are what you would expect: teachers for schools; doctors for the SIM centres at Galmi and Danja; youth workers and evangelists; church planters in unreached areas.

But most are in other career areas, and there’s a disappointing realisation here.

Before we came to Niger this year, we had the privilege of visiting and speaking to several congregations across Northern Ireland. These church families encompassed just about every walk of life: from the rural communities of Tyrone and Armagh, through the working class families of the North Coast, to the city dwellers in east Belfast. Many groups of wonderful people, each coming together to support mission work. But the funny thing is, many of these same families might say to themselves, “But I could never do that…”

I reckon most of us think mission is the work of teachers and doctors, evangelists and planters. Not us, the folks who do normal jobs, behind a desk or on the farm. And yet I can guarantee you, if you took a look at the list of personnel SIM Niger currently wants the most, it IS we ‘normal’ folk. Farmers, accountants, secretaries, cooks, IT workers, office managers, youth and sports workers, guidance counsellors – all of these are on the list, and many more.

I can guarantee, if we could get a few Northern Irish farmers out to Niger, we could turn the food shortages around in huge swathes of the rural areas. Or what about Northern Ireland’s strong civil service? SIM Niger, like many missions, are desperate for more experienced admin staff, the thing that holds the development of so many projects back. And as for some builders or mechanics – these people are worth their weight in gold around here.

Here at Danja, we’ve got hundreds of acres of farmland which was once managed by the mission. Though local people keep it still, I have heard it used to produce crops which were able to fund the entire hospital and it’s projects. What a difference a knowledgeable arable farmer could make here.

During orientation in March, we spent time at the nearby Maza Tsaye site, where SIM have based agricultural education projects since the 1950s. It’s been independently estimated that the methods of regeneration and farm management taught by SIM projects have improved upwards of two million acres of land in the region – see this Wikipedia article for more! Just one demonstration of how successful horticulture and agriculture have been in mission.

An educator from SIM’s Sowing Seeds of Change in the Sahel, based at Maza Tsaye, demonstrates the successful reforestation technique FMNR. A little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

The desk at Maza Tsaye’s seed bank, which collects stores up seeds from common and rare varieties of trees and crops.

The tree nursery at Maza Tsaye, which is replicated at Danja. These seedlings could go on to help regenerate land, and themselves provide nutritional ingredients.

So next time you are thinking about these words “mission” and “missionaries”, just think – it’s not just for theologians and medics. SIM Niger’s history can testify that some of the biggest impacts have also been made by folks with experience in very different ministries, sowing literal, as well as figurative, “seeds of change”.