Work

Well, I think it's about time that we wrote about what we actually did in Nigeria. There were 11 of us from the US who got involved with the trip through Global Health Outreach, the part of CMDA that deals with planning these sorts of trips. When we got to Nigeria, we joined Pro-Health International, a Christian medical organization that seeks to reach the poor of Africa for Christ by providing free medical care. They've got a video up on their website that really provides a pretty good idea of what our trip was like. I'd recommend checking it out at http://www.prohealthinternational.info/

On the video, a doctor describes being surprised by the size of the whole undertaking, and I felt very much the same way. In Jalingo, there was a good-sized old hospital building that currently has a staff of one (a doctor named Folu who worked with us on the trip). We came in Monday morning with 2 busloads of people and a large truck filled with equipment and set up a clinic, pharmacy, lab, operating room, post-op ward, HIV-AIDS counseling unit, eye-care unit, and dental unit. During the first week, the doctors and pharmacy saw 1442 patients, 57 surgeries were performed, the eye care team saw 478 patients, lab and HIV counseling saw 478 patients, and 230 patients received counseling from the evangelism team (headed up by one local pastor). The next week in Wukari, doctors and pharmacy saw 2336 patients, there were 62 surgeries, the eyecare team saw 522 patients, the lab and HIV counseling groups saw 128, and 1180 patients received counseling from the evangelism team (this time headed by six or seven local pastors).

In other words, we saw a lot of people! But believe it or not, there were still many people who we were not able to help. To avoid general mayhem toward the end of the day, a predetermined number of cards are distributed at the start of the day to the first people in line. Everyone who didn't get a card was told to try coming back another day. I don't know how many people we turned away each day, but regardless of the number it was always hard to know that there were people whose needs we wouldn't get a chance to meet. One of our most frequent prayers during the trip was that God would allow those who most needed help to be seen, and that he would provide both physically and spiritually for those that we didn't see.

On the positive side, it was cool to see that God was using us in the places we went. I can't tell you how many people told us thank you or God bless you as we were walking through the hospital, and with a sincerity that you seldom see from someone that you've never met. I think it's interesting that during his ministry here, Jesus spent most of his time teaching and healing people. While we were not performing miracles, I do think in both cases that physical healing provides a powerful illustration of God's love for us, and for the way that he is at work in the human race.

Perhaps I'll end with a story from the operating room. A man came in with a tumor on the bridge of his nose. The tumor was the same size as his nose, giving the impression that he had two noses. As the surgeon worked on the tumor, he commented that the man probably could not even recognize himself in the mirror anymore. And whether or not he could recognize himself, I'm sure he had come to hate the way his face looked. After he had finished removing the tumor, he told the man, "God has given you your face back." And that is not unlike what God has done for the human race. We were created perfect, but by choosing ourselves over God we have become disfigured by sin. Our disfigurement is the hatred, discord, greed, and so on that so disheartens everyone who stops for a second and looks at the world in which we live. However, through Christ God has dealt with the source of this sin, and has begun to heal the human race. In effect, he is giving us our face back.

Travel

I think a good topic for the first post describing our trip is travel. Although travel is not the most important part of a mission trip, it certainly is a part of any Mission trip. In our case, four to six (depending on how you're counting) out of the 16 days that we were gone were spent traveling. That's at least 25% of the trip! Furthermore, problems while traveling can lead to problems like missing luggage (which is a problem when that luggage contains the general anesthesia machine), or missing people. However, God was certainly at work while we were traveling. Although there were five pieces of luggage filled with medical supplies that didn't arrive until Wednesday of the second week, and although one of the doctors from the states was in a car accident while traveling to visit her parents in Calabar, God kept all of us safe, and we had everything we needed to accomplish the work that He had given us to do.

The most interesting part of the travel were the bus trips. After a full 24 hours spent in planes and airports, the 11 of us from the states spent the night in a hotel in Abuja. The next morning, we met Vincent, our driver, boarded one of the Pro-health buses, and set out for Jalingo. It didn’t take too long to notice that there are several differences between driving in Nigeria and driving in Chicago. For starters, Nigeria must have as many motorcycles as Chicago has cars. For ex, there really aren’t lanes in Nigeria. You just move to the left of someone moving slower than you, being sure to honk so they know you’re there and hoping that you don’t hit anyone driving in the opposite direction. Also, in Chicago you generally don’t see herds of cows wandering on the road, or goats that dart in front of your bus. And while Chicago certainly does have potholes, Nigeria has "sinkholes," which are 20 yard sections of pavement that are missing.

With all these obstacles, you might get the impression that Nigeria is not the safest place to drive. Well, you'd probably be right. However, Vincent was simply an amazing driver, and never once did I worry about our safety. Laura has said at least several times that Vincent was the best driver she's ever met. God certainly used him to answer many of our (and your) prayers about travel safety. And that's a theme (God using Christians from Nigeria to provide for us) that you'll probably be seeing again in later posts.

We're back!

Well, we’ve made it back to the states! Before we begin to describe everything that went on, we’d like to thank you again for all your prayers. It is simply amazing to see how many of the different requests on the prayer list that we put up were answered. God was certainly at work on this trip.

Rather than putting up one giant post describing everything that went on while we were in Africa, we’re going to put up several posts over the next couple of weeks. We figure that should be a bit easier to read, and a little less daunting to write. We’ve put up some of our pictures up already, and we’ll be adding more as we get copies of our teammates’ pictures.