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.