As I sit here to write my last blog, I must admit to you that I have been putting it off. Subconsciously I feel that when I write this, my time spent in Nigeria is officially over. The truth is, my time spent physically in Nigeria is over and there is no changing that; however, the things that I have learned will never be over because they have morphed my life and my heart into something that I hope is more beautiful and pleasing to God.
The last week in Nigeria was a good time for reflection, preparation, fun, and fellowship. I spent the first two days in bed recovering from being ill. Let me give you a brief update on my health. That Sunday, the 10th of August, because I was feeling worse instead of better after a week of being ill I was put on anti-malarial medication and within 24 hours I was feeling better. Dr. Truxton, the OB-GYN missionary doctor who has been working at Evangel for the last 30 years or so said she thought it was malaria and gave me the medicine. She said that so many times the tests show negative even though you actually might have malaria and she felt it was best to treat it as malaria and if I recovered quickly on the medication then we would know. I praise the Lord for modern medicine and bodies that were made to heal! God is good and kept me in bed for 10 days to teach me a few things and then allowed me to begin the healing process. I am now fully recovered and getting my energy and stamina back day by day and I’m almost to 100 percent!! I realize that having malaria may keep me from donating blood and I have to watch for any reoccurring fevers, but I praise God that I didn’t get a severe case! Thank you all so much for your prayers, I am truly blessed to be surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses and so many who lift me up in prayer during my times of weakness.
Wednesday I went in to the hospital with Allison to the maternity ward. We walked around with the nurses and the doctors on ward rounds and checked on patients in labor. It being my first day really up and about in 10 days I had to sit every once in a while and rest. It made my slightly frustrated, but I was just happy to be out of bed and able to do something. Allison had an exciting opportunity when she was asked by a lady that she had helped in a difficult delivery the day before to name her son. After some thought and deliberation, the name Samuel was chosen because it means “Heard by God” and meaning is important in the Nigerian culture. We also got to assist a woman who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and I thought it was interesting to see the interactions between the patients and the nurses. Most of the nurses who work in maternity are also mid-wives and do almost all of the un-complicated deliveries on their own. But when it is a dangerous or complicated delivery then the doctors will do the delivery. The nurses are very harsh in the way they treat the laboring mothers and it’s almost as if it is the culture that says “Women are made to have babies. You should know how to birth, I did it, why are you having trouble?” There is no teaching prior to labor and while writhing in pain the nurse will ask, “Do you know how to push?” No is the answer in most cases and at least in most of the first time mothers. I cannot imagine giving birth to my first child with having no teaching, no coaching, no encouragement and worst of all no pain medication. There is some local anesthetic given but other than that the women simply cringe and bear the pain. They are so strong. It was a very good experience to be in the delivery room in Jos having had some experience here in America during my training at school and comparing differences of techniques and culture.
Wednesday was actually our last day working in the hospital. I felt sad as I walked away from the hospital because I realized that it meant the beginning of the end. So many things we learned and saw and did at the hospital I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I know how to pray for the nurses and the doctors and for the work they are doing and for the work the Lord is doing at Evangel and my heart will always ache for the patients.
Thursday was a really fun day because we got to hang out with our dear friends Nanfe, and Nimchit who are sisters who live on the Evangel compound and also Lyop who was one of the Aunties out at the ECYA camp. These three amazing Nigerian women are all about our age, Nimchit is 19, Nanfe is 21 and Lyop is 22. They are so fun to be with and so loving and became our best friends. We had all decided that we wanted to cook a Nigerian meal together so that Allison and I could learn how to cook something traditional, so we planned to all go to the market together and buy the groceries we needed for cooking Jolof rice on Thursday afternoon. We went to the market together and Allison and I got to go back into the heart of the market with them and into the meat market and it was so fun to walk around with them and gather all that we needed and listen to them barter and laugh about silly things and dodge puddles and pretend to yell at cars that would splash us and walk arm in arm down the road. We finally got everything and made it back to our apartment and started cooking and we learned how to make Jolof rice, a traditional Nigerian rice dish that has peas, carrots, green beans, beef, tomatoes, onions and all sorts of yummy spices in it. We also had tradition Nigerian salad (which is just like coleslaw) and chips (fried potatoes) and squares of deep fried beef. MMMMMMMM!!! It was so fun to learn how to cook everything and it was GREAT to eat it all after being so hungry! We all had so much fun together and danced and sang to Celine Dion songs (that was music of ours that they knew) all along the way.
The next day was just as much fun!! We got our hair braided by Nanfe and Lyop and Allison and I are now officially Nigerian! =) It took about 4 ½ hours and there were definitely some eating and resting breaks in there, but it was so worth every minute of the time because the four of us had time together that we will remember for our entire lives. These girls are crazy fun and have big personalities! They love to laugh and smile and tease and do silly things. They have so much joy in their lives despite things that are hard and maintain a happiness and presences about them that is so contagious! Their commitment to the Lord and to living the way the Lord desires is so obvious in every part of their lives, and they have the love of Christ pouring out of their hearts so abundantly and spilling onto all those they come in contact with. I know that I have only known these girls for a few short weeks, but I feel as if I have known these sisters in Christ for years and years and I am so grateful that I get to spend eternity praising God with them. We shared our last meal together on Sunday just before we got picked up to go to the airport and Nanfe said, “This is the last meal we will share together for a while...” in a somber voice. That struck a chord in my heart and tears began to swim down my face as we all sat silently poking at our food. I looked up and saw across the table the faces of my two dear friends stained with tears and their eyes cast low to their untouched plates. It was a sad moment as we all sat understanding that we would not get to share laughs and joys together for some while. But I said “It’s ok, the Lord has brought us together and surely we are united with His love forever. I am going to miss you guys so much, but we may be back! And if not in this life, we have all of eternity!” They smiled and agreed and we all began to eat again. We were leaving Gemma, our good friend from Northern Ireland also and I was so sad to leave her as well. She had become such a dear friend and sister in such a short time and her heart is so amazing. We had already said good bye to Dan and Tim who left Saturday, but it wasn’t quite as sad because it was more of a “see you later” since they are taking a holiday right now all over the world and will be coming to LA and we are all going to have dinner together in a few weeks!
It broke my heart to drive away. To leave people you love, to leave a piece of your heart in a place you know not when you will return, if ever, to leave your home that you have made and to leave a community that has learned to love you, it is a difficult task. And yet we were never called to an easy life but to a life full of obedience. I know that I was called to Nigeria for 6 weeks and out of obedience I trusted the Lord’s leading and followed His calling there. And now I must be obedient and be back in the United States because this is now where He has brought me and where He wants me to be. Yes I am sad, I miss all my friends and the work that I was doing there, but I am also excited. I am excited to be back because I know that I can be used for the glory of God no matter where I am on this earth if I am just willing to be obedient to the Lord’s call. My life has been changed. My perspective has been altered. I am no longer the same Alisha Gilbert that I was 7 weeks ago before I flew to Nigeria, and I am so thankful that the Lord has chosen me to be one of His children, one that he chooses to teach, admonish, reveal himself to in so many ways and best of all love. I know that the Lord has a huge heart and loves every single person on this earth, and my desire is to grow closer and closer to His heart every day, no matter what country I am in, so that I might reflect His love and glory more piercingly in this dark and dying world that is so desperate for love manifested.
Thank you all, my dear supporters and friends, who have supported me by reading my blog, by praying for me, by supporting me financially, by thinking of me and by praising the Lord with me for the things He has done!! I truly would not have been able to have such an experience without you all! I pray that the Lord would continue to work in each one of your lives, constantly revealing Himself and His heart to you, and that you would never be stagnant in your walk of faith but that you would always be stepping out in faith asking God, what can I do next? How can I be used today? Who do you want me to love right now? Our God deserves so much praise and honor and we can only bring Him a small part of what He deserves by surrendering our entire life to Him. May you be surrendered today and for the rest of the days of your life, remembering that life can only be lived in the present, death was conquered in the past by the grace that Christ extended to us on the cross and the return of our King is in the future.
I pray for each on of you, that you are blessed 10 fold for the way you have blessed me.
Grace and Peace to you,
Alisha
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Week 5:A week of hard lessons
In all my previous blogs, I have been able to come to you with stories of amazing things that the Lord has been doing here in Nigeria and tell of ways in which the Lord has shown me more of Himself and His heart through activities that I have been involved in. But today, I cannot write such a blog. I say this not because God has in some way ceased to do such things or work in such amazing ways, but because I have had a very different lesson to learn this week in a very different way than before.
As I mentioned before, Allison and I went out to the ECYA camp to be the camp nurses on Saturday morning and our week started out fun! It was great to see the staff that we had grown close to over the staff training days last week and it made us really excited for the camp. We had our own table at the registration and we were to ask the kids if they had any medical problems we needed to know about or concerns we should be aware of as they came through the line of registration. It was fun to get to see all of the about-60 kids file past us and greet them and ask them questions and write down their names and see the faces of those we were to love and care for the needs of the rest of the week. That night and Sunday morning was full of taking care of peoples headaches, coughs, and other little things as well as joining in with the amazing singing, meetings, prayer times and our duties of inspecting each “hut” (cement buildings) in the morning and then teaching piano lessons (on the one keyboard we were provided with) for the activity we were asked to teach that they titled “Learn ‘D piano”. It was challenging but so much fun.
I had been feeling tired all day Sunday and felt that I was getting a headache, which was actually the first headache I have had since arriving on the African continent (Praise the Lord!). So at rest hour I lay down to take a nap and realized that my headache was rapidly turning into a migraine. “Oh no” I said to Allison, “I am an idiot. I think I pushed myself too much and it’s at migraine status...” I mumbled as I buried my head in my jacket to block out all noise and light. For the next 24 hours I was pretty much just that: buried away from the world. I had no idea what was going on except that Allison would come and gently wake me up and tell me that she was coming or going but that I should just sleep. I heard her but I couldn’t ever quite understand what was going on except I knew that my head was still hurting really bad and I felt exhausted. Monday afternoon I finally woke up a little. I felt so guilty that I had been sleeping so long and was so “weak” as to be in bed from a migraine for 24 hours that I forced myself to dress and insisted that I go up to the afternoon activities. For about 4 hours I was up and helped around with as much as I could here and there and sitting most of the time. But by the time dinner was served I was exhausted and could barely stand. I sat on the floor and Allison insisted on taking my temperature—low grade fever. Allison held me up as we shuffled through the darkness of the Nigerian night back to the staff house and I heard the kids begin singing back in the main hall. I started to cry. “What’s so fair about me being sick and not even being able to stand up and walk on my own right now God?” I thought to myself. But it was back to bed for me again. That night and the rest of Tuesday I was in bed, sleeping mostly, with no energy to do anything else. Renee came in Tuesday afternoon and sat down on the bed next to me and said “Ok here’s the deal cutie. There has been an executive decision made that you need to come back to town with us tonight when I take the STAMP team” (a team from Moody Bible Institute) .. “I know you don’t want to and wouldn’t if we didn’t make you, so we are going to make you. We think you need to be tested for malaria.” WHAT! I DON’T HAVE MALARIA AND I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME! YOU CANT SEND ME HOME! I AM SUPPOSED TO BE THE NURSE! I CANT BE SICK! Everything inside me was screaming... but logically I knew they were right in their decision to at least get me tested, rule it out and send me home to rest. “You’re right I wouldn’t go if you didn’t make me, but I understand why you are making me, so I will go.” I said yieldingly, peering out at her from my cave of darkness I had made myself to shield my eyes from the light that caused so much pain and discomfort. “Good, we will come and get you tonight..” She said with a smile, knowing how hard it was for me to give in and feeling for me but wanting the best for my health at the same time. A growing feeling of frustration and anger closed even stronger over me, toward God and mostly toward myself.
The rest of the afternoon and evening I was sleeping and in the evening I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired that I slowly and carefully shuffled out of my “dungeon” and ventured into the living room area of the staff house. Although it was a little bright for my eyes, I was able to journal a little and process a few things through writing. I have to admit with you that I have an idea of what God is trying to teach me by allowing an illness during my time in Nigeria, but for some reason, every time I experience pain I feel the same anger and I ask the same questions. I hear the same answers and I respond the same way. Why so stubborn Alisha? Hahaha... good question. If you will, let me share with you a deep part of my heart. This is very difficult for me, to be vulnerable, to be broken, to show you my innermost thoughts, to show you a melancholy and heavy side of my heart, but I have been asked by God this week to trust Him more and more and so here is just another baby step of faith...
...perhaps you can relate to some of these thoughts...
...“I don’t think it’s malaria because I think I would have a much higher fever, but I do admit that my other symptoms are scarily similar. But the biggest one is the fever, and it would be higher, so I don’t know what’s going on. I hate this. I hate feeling bad. I hate being a wimp. I hate not knowing what’s wrong but feeling awful. I hate that people have to wait on me instead of my getting to wait on others. I don’t know what God is trying to teach me, but I hate the lesson. I know I am being stubborn and I’m probably not listening, but seriously, haven’t we been through this a million times? I feel like I’ve said ‘ok, I surrender, the pain is too much for me to handle God!’ thousands of times, is it that I just need to say it one more time? I hate being mad at God and it seems like I am when I need Him the most. So am I just mad till the point of breaking? ...to the point of using God like a lucky charm?... like a genii that’s going to fix my problems as soon as I call upon Him? NO!!! That’s not the way it works, and yet there seems to be some cycle. Some cycle I can’t break free of because every time I cringe with pain I become more stubborn, then I let go, then I’m fine again, then I’m in pain, I become stubborn, I let go then I’m fine again. WHY? Why can’t I just learn to let go the FIRST time? I’m so tired of being stubborn that now I’m too tired to let go...”
I realize that because journaling is more free writing, some of the thoughts do not make as much sense as perhaps if I would explain in eloquent language all my phrases of feelings and emotions that I have merely jotted roughly down on the pages of my journal, but I think it gives you a very clear idea of where my heart is, was, has been, (I’m not sure what tense to use). But before I continue to talk about the lessons God has been teaching me, first let me tell you about the rest of my week.
Tuesday night after I journaled and struggled through my thoughts, I was fed by and fellowshipped with a family from New Zealand, the Gills, who are helping with the ECYA camp this summer. I found their company very amusing (three kids ages 12,10 and 9) and encouraging. I was taken back to Evangel and made it in bed that night.
The next day it was planned for me to meet Dr. Sampson at the pediatric ward to get tested for Malaria. SO I woke up feeling slightly stronger and a little less headachy but with more nausea and dizziness. I made the slow trek down to the hospital and it took me about three times as long because I was walking so slowly, but I finally made it. The test was NEGATIVE!! =) So no malaria for me. Dr. Sampson said that it was probably just a nasty virus that mimics malaria and that will run its course and hopefully will be gone in a weeks time or so with rest. As I wrote to one friend... “So the good news is I don’t have little parasites running around blowing up my red blood cells.. and the bad news is there are no drugs for me to take to feel better so I have to just rest. REST? BORING. God would.” =)
But I’m stubborn still and think I am strong and did not want to be alone on my BIRTHDAY, (yes it was my 20th birthday...) and so I decided to go back to camp Wednesday afternoon and come back to Evangel to sleep again with the team in the evening. (*QUICK FUNNY* The real (wink wink) reason I wanted to go out to go back out to camp was that Allison had brought from the USA some peanut M&Ms for my birthday that we have been diligently saving for the last 5 weeks and practicing some REAL self control not eating the whole time.. and I couldn’t eat them by myself, and I couldn’t NOT eat them after all we had suffered in our waiting.. So I just had to go out and be with her so we could eat them together. =) ... and let me tell you, it was a glorious moment eating them together on my birthday!!!) I’m really glad I went back out because it was fun. It was good to see the staff and they were all really happy to see me and find out how I was feeling. They were really sweet and the whole camp sang happy birthday to me! I also got to sit in on the end-of-camp camp-fire where all the testimonies about the week are shared and it was a really sweet time of hearing how the Lord had been working in the kids lives that week. And then I got to say a final goodbye to all the staff. My heart was really sad when I had to say goodbye to these brothers and sister and felt that I had known them all for years. It struck me that I may not see these brothers and sisters again until we meet again in heaven.
Thursday and Friday were full of resting again. Naps, sitting around, writing, thinking, eating when I could and trying to drink lots of fluids (for you mom) =) The guys made dinner for us Thursday night and made a really yummy and cute birthday cake for me which was so fun! I was only bad once on Friday and convinced Allison I was strong enough to taxi with her to SIM headquarters to get money out of our accounts for our last week. I barely made it back, but it ended up good and I just rested the whole rest of the day. Saturday was fun too! A girl from N. Ireland arrived to stay with us for our last week because she is going to be living in this apartment for the next six weeks. Her name is Gemma and she is a doll! Allison and I love her already, she is so sweet! We also had Bobby and Joseph over for dinner so the 7 of us (including Tim and Dan) had a birthday dinner for me and ANOTHER birthday cake that Allison made! It was REALLY cute too! I guess when you turn 20 you get 2 birthday cakes, one for each decade you have successfully completed?? Well I don’t know about the successfully...=) but it was good cake and good fellowship with all so we had a good time. I was feeling a little stronger that morning but by dinner only had enough strength to help cook sitting down and eventually was kicked out of the kitchen. KAI! (a Nigerian phrase like “wow” or “geez”).. It’s tough sitting around while other people are working...
So back to talking about the lessons God is teaching me...
Weakness: it is one of the most frustrating things to me. When I cannot even walk 100 feet without feeling dizzy and getting tired or stand long enough to cook dinner I am so angry at myself. WHY? YOU ARE SICK SILLY ...you might be thinking. I know. But I don’t think this way. You see, I love having strength and need strength because I love to be doing things, doing things for people, doing things to keep myself busy, doing things for the Lord to bring him glory. I am a doer. I LOVE to be doing. I find that I can serve God when I am doing things, and in a sense I feel that I am more deserving of the love of God when I am ‘doing’ and serving Him. And here, my dear supporters, friends, I am utterly mistaken. There is NOTHING, wait.. let me say that again.. NOTHING, I can do that will make God love me more, nor is there anything I can do to make God love me less. Here is the lesson I have been learning this week... really I can summarize it much better in a poem I wrote this week...
Who is strong and what is strength?
Is it you oh man?
You who build towers so tall and
Command the strength of a beast.
You who sail the many seas in your strong vessels
You who conquer foreign lands to prove your power and strength
You who study your world to gain understanding
So that you might wield your strength over it.
But tell me, Oh man, where is your strength, then in
You whose towers topple and
Work of a hundred years is destroyed in seconds
And tell me of strength in
You who are overpowered, outwitted, out-sensed by the beasts you long to tame.
You who command a vessel of the sea but remain victims and captives to it’s whims.
You who destroy your own kind for pleasure and revel in the never ending blood bath.
You who have studied for thousands of years
But are still perplexed with the simplest of questions.
But listen to me, Oh man, Oh mortal, and I shall tell you of strength, for it was
I who built the heavens and the earth and
I who have the strength to maintain or destroy it.
It is I who created all beasts both great and small
And they bow at the sound of My voice.
I who, with one word, can calm the seas or enrage the heavens.
I who never act unjustly in my anger but carry out judgment with perfect severity.
I who created all things so intricate and so beautiful
Simply because it pleases Me and I find it good.
You are not strong, Man
But I do not love you for your strength.
I love you because I made you
And out of all the complexity, power, beauty and strength
I made your heart and soul to be free
To think and love and feel
Just like me.
This is why, Oh man, I love you.
Not for you strength, you see?
I am still working through my frustrations of pain and weakness, but I think it is exactly the lesson God wants me to keep learning, “Be still, and know that I AM GOD”. He does not want our strength or our actions, He wants our hearts, surrendered and soft to whatever He has each day of our lives. I want so much to give up my stubbornness and allow God to be the first one I run to as soon as pain or unexpected circumstances arise and not my pride or my own strength to be what keeps me going.
I realize that this may not be the blog that some of you may have been hoping for or expecting, and yet I had such a clear conviction that I needed to share with you my heart and my struggles. I do not know why the Lord put it so heavily on my heart to write this all to you: perhaps it is so that you might be able to pray for me more specifically or perhaps that the Holy Spirit might speak through something I have said that speaks to something in your life, maybe a struggle we share.
Whatever it may be that the Lord is doing in your life, know that He wants your heart first and not your actions. Know that He is a God that will not love you more or less for what you DO, but loves you fervently because you are YOU and He created you. Know that He is patient through our stubbornness and is always waiting for us to come back to say for the thousandth time “ok Lord, I know. I need you. I can’t do this on my own...I get it”
Don’t be stubborn. He might allow you to get a nasty virus to lay you flat, slow you down and teach you a few things... =)
Maranatha!!!!
Alisha
“In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps” Proverbs 16:9
ps. Quick update: I wrote my blog Saturday night and it is now Sunday night when I am posting my blog (due to internet connection) and I just wanted to ask you all to please PRAY for me, I am again feeling worse, fever again and they have put my on anti-malarials. Dr. Truxton had us all over for lunch and when she heard about my week and saw me she said she thought it was malaria because I wasn’t getting better and if it were a virus I would be getting better by now instead of worse again. She said many times the tests may not turn up positive but it may still be malaria. Thanks for your continued prayers, we will see of these medicines work!
PRAISES
-We checked in on Blessing and she is OFF oxygen and IV therapy and is looking healthy and is doing really well!!! Praise the Lord!!!
-Camp went really well and there were no serious injuries or illnesses and the Lord worked in the lives of many!
PRAYER
-Pray that I would begin regaining some strength and that I would get out of pain with my headaches and body aches.
-Pray for our last week here in Nigeria! Pray that we would have sweet fellowship saying goodbye to all our dear friends and really have a good last week.
As I mentioned before, Allison and I went out to the ECYA camp to be the camp nurses on Saturday morning and our week started out fun! It was great to see the staff that we had grown close to over the staff training days last week and it made us really excited for the camp. We had our own table at the registration and we were to ask the kids if they had any medical problems we needed to know about or concerns we should be aware of as they came through the line of registration. It was fun to get to see all of the about-60 kids file past us and greet them and ask them questions and write down their names and see the faces of those we were to love and care for the needs of the rest of the week. That night and Sunday morning was full of taking care of peoples headaches, coughs, and other little things as well as joining in with the amazing singing, meetings, prayer times and our duties of inspecting each “hut” (cement buildings) in the morning and then teaching piano lessons (on the one keyboard we were provided with) for the activity we were asked to teach that they titled “Learn ‘D piano”. It was challenging but so much fun.
I had been feeling tired all day Sunday and felt that I was getting a headache, which was actually the first headache I have had since arriving on the African continent (Praise the Lord!). So at rest hour I lay down to take a nap and realized that my headache was rapidly turning into a migraine. “Oh no” I said to Allison, “I am an idiot. I think I pushed myself too much and it’s at migraine status...” I mumbled as I buried my head in my jacket to block out all noise and light. For the next 24 hours I was pretty much just that: buried away from the world. I had no idea what was going on except that Allison would come and gently wake me up and tell me that she was coming or going but that I should just sleep. I heard her but I couldn’t ever quite understand what was going on except I knew that my head was still hurting really bad and I felt exhausted. Monday afternoon I finally woke up a little. I felt so guilty that I had been sleeping so long and was so “weak” as to be in bed from a migraine for 24 hours that I forced myself to dress and insisted that I go up to the afternoon activities. For about 4 hours I was up and helped around with as much as I could here and there and sitting most of the time. But by the time dinner was served I was exhausted and could barely stand. I sat on the floor and Allison insisted on taking my temperature—low grade fever. Allison held me up as we shuffled through the darkness of the Nigerian night back to the staff house and I heard the kids begin singing back in the main hall. I started to cry. “What’s so fair about me being sick and not even being able to stand up and walk on my own right now God?” I thought to myself. But it was back to bed for me again. That night and the rest of Tuesday I was in bed, sleeping mostly, with no energy to do anything else. Renee came in Tuesday afternoon and sat down on the bed next to me and said “Ok here’s the deal cutie. There has been an executive decision made that you need to come back to town with us tonight when I take the STAMP team” (a team from Moody Bible Institute) .. “I know you don’t want to and wouldn’t if we didn’t make you, so we are going to make you. We think you need to be tested for malaria.” WHAT! I DON’T HAVE MALARIA AND I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME! YOU CANT SEND ME HOME! I AM SUPPOSED TO BE THE NURSE! I CANT BE SICK! Everything inside me was screaming... but logically I knew they were right in their decision to at least get me tested, rule it out and send me home to rest. “You’re right I wouldn’t go if you didn’t make me, but I understand why you are making me, so I will go.” I said yieldingly, peering out at her from my cave of darkness I had made myself to shield my eyes from the light that caused so much pain and discomfort. “Good, we will come and get you tonight..” She said with a smile, knowing how hard it was for me to give in and feeling for me but wanting the best for my health at the same time. A growing feeling of frustration and anger closed even stronger over me, toward God and mostly toward myself.
The rest of the afternoon and evening I was sleeping and in the evening I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired that I slowly and carefully shuffled out of my “dungeon” and ventured into the living room area of the staff house. Although it was a little bright for my eyes, I was able to journal a little and process a few things through writing. I have to admit with you that I have an idea of what God is trying to teach me by allowing an illness during my time in Nigeria, but for some reason, every time I experience pain I feel the same anger and I ask the same questions. I hear the same answers and I respond the same way. Why so stubborn Alisha? Hahaha... good question. If you will, let me share with you a deep part of my heart. This is very difficult for me, to be vulnerable, to be broken, to show you my innermost thoughts, to show you a melancholy and heavy side of my heart, but I have been asked by God this week to trust Him more and more and so here is just another baby step of faith...
...perhaps you can relate to some of these thoughts...
...“I don’t think it’s malaria because I think I would have a much higher fever, but I do admit that my other symptoms are scarily similar. But the biggest one is the fever, and it would be higher, so I don’t know what’s going on. I hate this. I hate feeling bad. I hate being a wimp. I hate not knowing what’s wrong but feeling awful. I hate that people have to wait on me instead of my getting to wait on others. I don’t know what God is trying to teach me, but I hate the lesson. I know I am being stubborn and I’m probably not listening, but seriously, haven’t we been through this a million times? I feel like I’ve said ‘ok, I surrender, the pain is too much for me to handle God!’ thousands of times, is it that I just need to say it one more time? I hate being mad at God and it seems like I am when I need Him the most. So am I just mad till the point of breaking? ...to the point of using God like a lucky charm?... like a genii that’s going to fix my problems as soon as I call upon Him? NO!!! That’s not the way it works, and yet there seems to be some cycle. Some cycle I can’t break free of because every time I cringe with pain I become more stubborn, then I let go, then I’m fine again, then I’m in pain, I become stubborn, I let go then I’m fine again. WHY? Why can’t I just learn to let go the FIRST time? I’m so tired of being stubborn that now I’m too tired to let go...”
I realize that because journaling is more free writing, some of the thoughts do not make as much sense as perhaps if I would explain in eloquent language all my phrases of feelings and emotions that I have merely jotted roughly down on the pages of my journal, but I think it gives you a very clear idea of where my heart is, was, has been, (I’m not sure what tense to use). But before I continue to talk about the lessons God has been teaching me, first let me tell you about the rest of my week.
Tuesday night after I journaled and struggled through my thoughts, I was fed by and fellowshipped with a family from New Zealand, the Gills, who are helping with the ECYA camp this summer. I found their company very amusing (three kids ages 12,10 and 9) and encouraging. I was taken back to Evangel and made it in bed that night.
The next day it was planned for me to meet Dr. Sampson at the pediatric ward to get tested for Malaria. SO I woke up feeling slightly stronger and a little less headachy but with more nausea and dizziness. I made the slow trek down to the hospital and it took me about three times as long because I was walking so slowly, but I finally made it. The test was NEGATIVE!! =) So no malaria for me. Dr. Sampson said that it was probably just a nasty virus that mimics malaria and that will run its course and hopefully will be gone in a weeks time or so with rest. As I wrote to one friend... “So the good news is I don’t have little parasites running around blowing up my red blood cells.. and the bad news is there are no drugs for me to take to feel better so I have to just rest. REST? BORING. God would.” =)
But I’m stubborn still and think I am strong and did not want to be alone on my BIRTHDAY, (yes it was my 20th birthday...) and so I decided to go back to camp Wednesday afternoon and come back to Evangel to sleep again with the team in the evening. (*QUICK FUNNY* The real (wink wink) reason I wanted to go out to go back out to camp was that Allison had brought from the USA some peanut M&Ms for my birthday that we have been diligently saving for the last 5 weeks and practicing some REAL self control not eating the whole time.. and I couldn’t eat them by myself, and I couldn’t NOT eat them after all we had suffered in our waiting.. So I just had to go out and be with her so we could eat them together. =) ... and let me tell you, it was a glorious moment eating them together on my birthday!!!) I’m really glad I went back out because it was fun. It was good to see the staff and they were all really happy to see me and find out how I was feeling. They were really sweet and the whole camp sang happy birthday to me! I also got to sit in on the end-of-camp camp-fire where all the testimonies about the week are shared and it was a really sweet time of hearing how the Lord had been working in the kids lives that week. And then I got to say a final goodbye to all the staff. My heart was really sad when I had to say goodbye to these brothers and sister and felt that I had known them all for years. It struck me that I may not see these brothers and sisters again until we meet again in heaven.
Thursday and Friday were full of resting again. Naps, sitting around, writing, thinking, eating when I could and trying to drink lots of fluids (for you mom) =) The guys made dinner for us Thursday night and made a really yummy and cute birthday cake for me which was so fun! I was only bad once on Friday and convinced Allison I was strong enough to taxi with her to SIM headquarters to get money out of our accounts for our last week. I barely made it back, but it ended up good and I just rested the whole rest of the day. Saturday was fun too! A girl from N. Ireland arrived to stay with us for our last week because she is going to be living in this apartment for the next six weeks. Her name is Gemma and she is a doll! Allison and I love her already, she is so sweet! We also had Bobby and Joseph over for dinner so the 7 of us (including Tim and Dan) had a birthday dinner for me and ANOTHER birthday cake that Allison made! It was REALLY cute too! I guess when you turn 20 you get 2 birthday cakes, one for each decade you have successfully completed?? Well I don’t know about the successfully...=) but it was good cake and good fellowship with all so we had a good time. I was feeling a little stronger that morning but by dinner only had enough strength to help cook sitting down and eventually was kicked out of the kitchen. KAI! (a Nigerian phrase like “wow” or “geez”).. It’s tough sitting around while other people are working...
So back to talking about the lessons God is teaching me...
Weakness: it is one of the most frustrating things to me. When I cannot even walk 100 feet without feeling dizzy and getting tired or stand long enough to cook dinner I am so angry at myself. WHY? YOU ARE SICK SILLY ...you might be thinking. I know. But I don’t think this way. You see, I love having strength and need strength because I love to be doing things, doing things for people, doing things to keep myself busy, doing things for the Lord to bring him glory. I am a doer. I LOVE to be doing. I find that I can serve God when I am doing things, and in a sense I feel that I am more deserving of the love of God when I am ‘doing’ and serving Him. And here, my dear supporters, friends, I am utterly mistaken. There is NOTHING, wait.. let me say that again.. NOTHING, I can do that will make God love me more, nor is there anything I can do to make God love me less. Here is the lesson I have been learning this week... really I can summarize it much better in a poem I wrote this week...
Who is strong and what is strength?
Is it you oh man?
You who build towers so tall and
Command the strength of a beast.
You who sail the many seas in your strong vessels
You who conquer foreign lands to prove your power and strength
You who study your world to gain understanding
So that you might wield your strength over it.
But tell me, Oh man, where is your strength, then in
You whose towers topple and
Work of a hundred years is destroyed in seconds
And tell me of strength in
You who are overpowered, outwitted, out-sensed by the beasts you long to tame.
You who command a vessel of the sea but remain victims and captives to it’s whims.
You who destroy your own kind for pleasure and revel in the never ending blood bath.
You who have studied for thousands of years
But are still perplexed with the simplest of questions.
But listen to me, Oh man, Oh mortal, and I shall tell you of strength, for it was
I who built the heavens and the earth and
I who have the strength to maintain or destroy it.
It is I who created all beasts both great and small
And they bow at the sound of My voice.
I who, with one word, can calm the seas or enrage the heavens.
I who never act unjustly in my anger but carry out judgment with perfect severity.
I who created all things so intricate and so beautiful
Simply because it pleases Me and I find it good.
You are not strong, Man
But I do not love you for your strength.
I love you because I made you
And out of all the complexity, power, beauty and strength
I made your heart and soul to be free
To think and love and feel
Just like me.
This is why, Oh man, I love you.
Not for you strength, you see?
I am still working through my frustrations of pain and weakness, but I think it is exactly the lesson God wants me to keep learning, “Be still, and know that I AM GOD”. He does not want our strength or our actions, He wants our hearts, surrendered and soft to whatever He has each day of our lives. I want so much to give up my stubbornness and allow God to be the first one I run to as soon as pain or unexpected circumstances arise and not my pride or my own strength to be what keeps me going.
I realize that this may not be the blog that some of you may have been hoping for or expecting, and yet I had such a clear conviction that I needed to share with you my heart and my struggles. I do not know why the Lord put it so heavily on my heart to write this all to you: perhaps it is so that you might be able to pray for me more specifically or perhaps that the Holy Spirit might speak through something I have said that speaks to something in your life, maybe a struggle we share.
Whatever it may be that the Lord is doing in your life, know that He wants your heart first and not your actions. Know that He is a God that will not love you more or less for what you DO, but loves you fervently because you are YOU and He created you. Know that He is patient through our stubbornness and is always waiting for us to come back to say for the thousandth time “ok Lord, I know. I need you. I can’t do this on my own...I get it”
Don’t be stubborn. He might allow you to get a nasty virus to lay you flat, slow you down and teach you a few things... =)
Maranatha!!!!
Alisha
“In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps” Proverbs 16:9
ps. Quick update: I wrote my blog Saturday night and it is now Sunday night when I am posting my blog (due to internet connection) and I just wanted to ask you all to please PRAY for me, I am again feeling worse, fever again and they have put my on anti-malarials. Dr. Truxton had us all over for lunch and when she heard about my week and saw me she said she thought it was malaria because I wasn’t getting better and if it were a virus I would be getting better by now instead of worse again. She said many times the tests may not turn up positive but it may still be malaria. Thanks for your continued prayers, we will see of these medicines work!
PRAISES
-We checked in on Blessing and she is OFF oxygen and IV therapy and is looking healthy and is doing really well!!! Praise the Lord!!!
-Camp went really well and there were no serious injuries or illnesses and the Lord worked in the lives of many!
PRAYER
-Pray that I would begin regaining some strength and that I would get out of pain with my headaches and body aches.
-Pray for our last week here in Nigeria! Pray that we would have sweet fellowship saying goodbye to all our dear friends and really have a good last week.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Week 4: A tender-hearted God
This week was a week that is hard to summarize because it was packed with many different challenges, ministries, blessings, fears, hardships and lessons. “How can 5 days be that hard to summarize?” you might ask... Well the truth is, this week was hard. I get to the end of this week and I admit, I am really tired.
I wanted to update my blog today because this morning Allison and I will be going to the ECWA Camp Youth Alive to be the camp nurses for about sixty 12-15 years olds. We will be gone until Thursday evening. Please pray with us as we go on this adventure! I know the Lord has a lot of things he wants to teach us this week and we are looking forward to growing!
This week started out with Allison feeling a little under the weather and me starting the week of by myself in pediatrics. It was really neat to get to be in Peds this week. The pediatric ward is composed of a few different rooms: the new born ICU, the ICU, the general ward and then a few private rooms. I was introduced to the nurses and the head nurse of the Peds floor who then introduced me to the doctors who were just about to start making their rounds. There are two Nigerian doctors and then a missionary doctor and they are all so kind and compassionate. We started in the new born ICU where the tiny babies stay under incubators. There were three babies in the room and two were premature babies. One of the babies had just been born the day before and was weighing 800 grams!!! That is only 1.76 pounds!! This little baby had feet the size of half my little pinky finger! It was so tiny and I was in awe that the child was still breathing and its heart was still thumping and it was surviving on the cruel earth for a little while.
We continued with rounds and saw each child and talked with the mothers and discussed the drug regiments and the progress and any new findings. It was very interesting and I really find it fascinating how much time the doctors spend really pouring over their patients each day. After rounds one of the doctors took me up to the PEPFAR clinic, a clinic that is funded by President Bush that provides medicine and clinical care for children with HIV. I sat and watched mother and child after mother and child walk in and out of the clinic room door and listened to each story and my heart began to wonder. How did each of these mothers get HIV? Was by a careless mistake or was it by a choice not of their own? And why in the world would God allow innocent little children to be harmed by this deadly virus? My heart began to wonder, and yet I could find no answers as I searched their faces.
My day ended at the hospital and I returned to find Allison looking and feeling better. Later in the afternoon we had our first real Nigerian visit! The culture here is that when a friend is in the area they call on you, and one of the staff members for the camp this upcoming week that we had met at training came calling with two of her friends that live on the Evangel compound. It was really fun to have three Nigerian girls our age over and we served them food (you have to offer them snacks at least or else you are considered very very stingy). Just as they were about to leave we received a text message from our friend Joseph who is here working with City Ministries with SIM that said he was at Evangel because a guy who was with a team that had just arrived from Joseph’s home church had broken both of his legs. Tim, Dan, Allison and I got ourselves a bite of dinner and then hurried down to the “Injection Room” which is their ER. There on a stretcher we saw him: a boy of 15 years old with two fractures, we saw the x-rays later showing a compound fracture of the femur in his left leg and fracture of the right tibia. His sister was also on the team and they had a doctor on the team, so Joseph and the two of them were standing with him. They all looked worried, tired and unsure of what was to come. Although having bleeding legs and both broken in the middle of Africa may seem like a very terrible thing (and it is), God is good. God for-saw everything that was to take place that night and is to be glorified!! SO IT JUST SO HAPPENS (wink wink) that an Orthopedic Surgeon from the U.S.A is here this month!! WOW! So they called him up (he is living on the compound) and he came down and they were able to do the surgery. During the surgery Allison and I hosted Katie (the sister) Jospeh and the medical doctor from the team (Dr. Martin). It was really neat to get to all gather and debrief and pray together as the surgery took place. It was so obvious that the Lord had His hand throughout the entire night and the following few days. It ended up that Nathan (the boy) had to be evacuated (flown out of the country for further medical attention) because he would need furter surgery with tools that were unavailable here. However, the orthopedic surgeon here was able to do an excellent job and stabilized him without any complications. The entire community rallied around Nathan and he was a trooper. It was really neat to see how the body of believers is just like one big family: Nathan’s parents were not here with him, but he had people coming and providing care for him in the hospital from the organization and loving him as their own child.
*SIGH* and THAT was just Monday!!
Tuesday was the same with pediatrics and care and then helping take care of Nathan a bit. Wednesday felt like it was going to start out the same as Tuesday had, but it started out at the bedside of a very sick little girl. This four week old little girl had presented to the hospital with history of fever and severe abdominal distention. It seemed after examination and assessment that this child was in severe condition and if not treated soon with a surgical relief and cleansing of the abdomen, the respirations would get worse and the child would soon die. So they called in the surgeon and he agreed to do the surgery, but only under one condition: that the parents know the risk of the child dying on the table during surgery because of the small measure of health the little girl had left. The doctors began consulting the parents and the Uncle that was there about the surgery and the consequences of having the surgery and not having the surgery. The mother was crying and the family was allowed time to talk with each other. I was sure that when they came back in, because of the way the doctors presented the case, the family would chose to do the surgery. But when the came back in the Uncle said “We are not satisfied with the surgery” and they refused to have it done! As the words that seemed to dictate the life of this small and beautiful child rolled off of his lips, my heart felt like it had fallen out of my chest and broken into a million pieces onto the floor. I had to turn away from the family as a tear invaded my eye and I tried to fight the emotions that began to burn. I gazed at the precious face of the little one, struggling, gasping for breathe, for life, for a chance to become someone, to be loved on this earth. Allison and I were not able to stay around and watch how it ended but as we walked away to hitch a ride to Gidan Bege we heard the Doctors struggling to talk to the parents again about their decision. NO: you do not want to take your child back to the village, she will die before you reach the gate if she is not on oxygen. YES: we want to know things like why you gave your child a spicy concoction of chile pepper, when for a child of just a few weeks that is poison to the GI tract. As Allison and I walked in silence back to our apartment to change our clothes, tears finally began streaming down my face. “It’s just so unfair. I can understand adult death, but a child who does not chose her own life or death, WHY? Why would God allow such existence? He cannot take pleasure in such an existence? and How can the human soul be so twisted so as to in fact poison their own young?” These thoughts and so many others rushed through my head but none so clear as the one that I kept coming back to: “Be still, and know that I AM GOD” the Lord seemed to keep saying to me. We were headed off to Gidan Bege and I breathed a sigh of surrender and said allowed to Allison, “I have to giver her up”. What I meant by this statement was not that I had to leave hope that this child would live, but that I had to bring all my doubts and my questions and surrender them to the feet of Jesus and admit I cannot understand why things happen the way they do, but I am not God, and I do not see the way that the Lord is working in each person’s life for His glory. Allison reminded me that the Lord looks down on that little girl with far more love than we could ever have for her, and how much more does it pain Him to watch her suffer? So we tried to set the sadness aside so that we could continue on in our ministry to the widows at Gidan Bege and then the medical outreach at Blind Town, but we were both eager to find out what had happened. That evening a few minutes after we got home, our phone rang and it was the pediatrician from the United States. He said “Hi, I know you guys were concerned about the baby we were seeing today, I just wanted to let you know that the parents did end up consenting to the surgery and that they did not find anything definitive in the abdomen, but they found a lot of pus. So they cleaned out the abdomen and sewed her back up and she is doing pretty well. I just got to go down and pray over the baby and her mom with a few others, and I know you guys wanted to be praying as well. Some babies are just meant to make it through. Her name is Blessing...”
So with exceeding joy I thanked him for the update and told Allison the news. We were both so glad to hear that Blessing was stable and had gotten the surgery she needed! It was as if I almost heard God say to me “You see child, I love this little one as much as I love anyone, and I am listening to prayers, why don’t you trust me? Have I ever been unfaithful?” No. The answer is no, God has never been unfaithful. He may not answer our prayers the way we think they should be answered but that does not mean He does not answer them at all. He is a loving God, a merciful God, one that desires to give a weeping mother her child back from the graves edge, a God who has all healing power and is limited by nothing. Blessing is stable now and thanks to so many of your prayers is on the road to full recovery. We serve a BIG God, but He is also tender. He hears when His children weep, and He weeps with us. Let us never underestimate the tenderness of God’s heart and so shake our fist at him when we see pain in this world. How much more does pain and suffering of the little children make God cry? He must be so eager to restore the earth and in fact then make a new heaven and earth, where pain and suffering are no more. I learned about the tenderness of God’s heart this week.
The ministry of serving the widows in the clinic at Gidan Bege was really awesome! I wrote about it in my first blog, and it was similar to this week. Except this week there were not a lot of medial personnel, only Allison and I and then two other Nigerian Nurses who are trained in community health. It was really fun to be working in the clinic, to have the 41 women that we served walk through the door, for me to practice all my Hausa greetings, for Allison and I to take their blood pressure and then to discuss their problems that they complained of and give them medication. It was really neat to get to see face after face come through the door, knowing that they were there so that we could help them in the name of our Lord. What an honor it is to be the hands of Jesus! We then took the medical bags and Allison and I split up and one of us went with one of the Nurses and one with the other and there was a big team that split up and went with us also. I was really glad the Lord had allowed us to get a ride to Gidan Bege, because they were a little short staffed for Blind Town’s medical outreach since only one in the team was a doctor. I was able to go into the houses with Vicky, the nurse, and while she was talking with the people and translating I would take a few blood pressures and begin handing out medications. I learned how to say “once a day” or “twice a day” in Hausa and I even gave medication to the chief of blind town and told him “twice a day” by myself on the instruction of Vicky! Because the team was there with us, they attracted all the kids. There were so many children that gathered and it drew crowds of at least 40-50 kids. But when the houses are small and the alley ways even smaller, it made for a difficult time to even get around to the people we needed to see. It worked out well though because the team ended up staying in one place, playing with the kids and Vicky and I and only one or two of the other team members would actually go into the house, listen, assess, give the medication and then go to the next house. I was grateful for the team that they were so willing to jump right in and play with the kids, and I was in awe of how Vicky handled the chaos. The Lord is really doing a great work in Blind Town. So many want help and are open to healing. The Lord is using physical healing as a way of manifesting the kind of healing that only He can bring to a life of spiritual disease.
Thursday we went to Gyero which is a village about 10 miles outside of Jos that ECWA owns about 1/3rd of and runs an orphanage on the land. The orphanage is where boys from Gidan Bege who have been there for 6 months are transferred to and then the boys (and now they have about 12 girls) will live there for about 10 years, some more, many less, until they can go to school and learn a trade and be well set in their adulthood physically, emotionally and spiritually. The boys range in ages of 7 to 20 years old and the girls range in ages 6 to 16. It was really encouraging to get to see the ministry because I have heard so much about it with my friends Jaime and Joseph both working out at Gyero. I was really glad for the opportunity to go and play a little with the kids, sing songs with them and take a hike around the village. God is blessing that ministry and it is exciting to see how many lives they are impacting!
Yesterday was back in the Pediatric ward. There was a little baby of 6 weeks of age that we examined who was admitted with respiratory distress. This child is HIV exposed, meaning his mother has HIV but it cannot be confirmed or denied that the child is yet positive. Upon examination the child seemed to have Bronchial pneumonia and/or a condition that goes along with AIDS and the low CD4 count. Again, as I watched the child gasping for air, twitching because of hypoxia, vomiting into its oxygen facemask and receive an NG tube and a tiny catheter to monitor output, I could not help but wonder how it was right or fair that this child was suffering so much for a deadly disease that he did not chose to get or has the chance to fight. The doctors talked with the parents saying that the baby was in really bad condition and they should prepare themselves that he may go. The doctor gently reminded them that they would do anything they could to help the baby, but that the timing of the child’s life is in God’s hands and He is sovereign. These doctors see child after child die and it breaks their heart every time, but they must continue to do their work despite their pain because they save many more lives than they lose and they bring glory to God despite the circumstances. I pray that I never lose sight of the fact that every life is precious and that I continue to learn how to be tender-hearted because God is tender-hearted. But I also pray that I am able to have strength and understanding and a peace that passes all understanding because God is the giver and taker of life and only He knows the plans for each of our lives.
May you all continue to remember that life is precious and that God is tender-hearted. He weeps when you weep and longs to wrap you in his arms when you are hurting. Do not think we serve a cold-hearted God. He will be the first one standing at the gate of heaven to lovingly welcome the little baby into His arms and embrace Him in a place where there will be no more tears of sorrow or pain. Praise God, for He is worthy of all our admiration, adoration and reverence!
Maranatha!
Alisha
PRAISES
-Blessing is doing well and is stable!
-Nathan flew out and is in South Africa getting the second surgery on his legs and is doing well with no signs of infection or further complications
-Allison and I are staying healthy
PRAYER
-For camp this week, that the Lord would prepare the hearts of the campers to hear what He wants to teach them, for strength and health for all and especially wisdom and endurance for Allison and I
-For the little ones who are ill and dying and for the parents of all the little ones.
I wanted to update my blog today because this morning Allison and I will be going to the ECWA Camp Youth Alive to be the camp nurses for about sixty 12-15 years olds. We will be gone until Thursday evening. Please pray with us as we go on this adventure! I know the Lord has a lot of things he wants to teach us this week and we are looking forward to growing!
This week started out with Allison feeling a little under the weather and me starting the week of by myself in pediatrics. It was really neat to get to be in Peds this week. The pediatric ward is composed of a few different rooms: the new born ICU, the ICU, the general ward and then a few private rooms. I was introduced to the nurses and the head nurse of the Peds floor who then introduced me to the doctors who were just about to start making their rounds. There are two Nigerian doctors and then a missionary doctor and they are all so kind and compassionate. We started in the new born ICU where the tiny babies stay under incubators. There were three babies in the room and two were premature babies. One of the babies had just been born the day before and was weighing 800 grams!!! That is only 1.76 pounds!! This little baby had feet the size of half my little pinky finger! It was so tiny and I was in awe that the child was still breathing and its heart was still thumping and it was surviving on the cruel earth for a little while.
We continued with rounds and saw each child and talked with the mothers and discussed the drug regiments and the progress and any new findings. It was very interesting and I really find it fascinating how much time the doctors spend really pouring over their patients each day. After rounds one of the doctors took me up to the PEPFAR clinic, a clinic that is funded by President Bush that provides medicine and clinical care for children with HIV. I sat and watched mother and child after mother and child walk in and out of the clinic room door and listened to each story and my heart began to wonder. How did each of these mothers get HIV? Was by a careless mistake or was it by a choice not of their own? And why in the world would God allow innocent little children to be harmed by this deadly virus? My heart began to wonder, and yet I could find no answers as I searched their faces.
My day ended at the hospital and I returned to find Allison looking and feeling better. Later in the afternoon we had our first real Nigerian visit! The culture here is that when a friend is in the area they call on you, and one of the staff members for the camp this upcoming week that we had met at training came calling with two of her friends that live on the Evangel compound. It was really fun to have three Nigerian girls our age over and we served them food (you have to offer them snacks at least or else you are considered very very stingy). Just as they were about to leave we received a text message from our friend Joseph who is here working with City Ministries with SIM that said he was at Evangel because a guy who was with a team that had just arrived from Joseph’s home church had broken both of his legs. Tim, Dan, Allison and I got ourselves a bite of dinner and then hurried down to the “Injection Room” which is their ER. There on a stretcher we saw him: a boy of 15 years old with two fractures, we saw the x-rays later showing a compound fracture of the femur in his left leg and fracture of the right tibia. His sister was also on the team and they had a doctor on the team, so Joseph and the two of them were standing with him. They all looked worried, tired and unsure of what was to come. Although having bleeding legs and both broken in the middle of Africa may seem like a very terrible thing (and it is), God is good. God for-saw everything that was to take place that night and is to be glorified!! SO IT JUST SO HAPPENS (wink wink) that an Orthopedic Surgeon from the U.S.A is here this month!! WOW! So they called him up (he is living on the compound) and he came down and they were able to do the surgery. During the surgery Allison and I hosted Katie (the sister) Jospeh and the medical doctor from the team (Dr. Martin). It was really neat to get to all gather and debrief and pray together as the surgery took place. It was so obvious that the Lord had His hand throughout the entire night and the following few days. It ended up that Nathan (the boy) had to be evacuated (flown out of the country for further medical attention) because he would need furter surgery with tools that were unavailable here. However, the orthopedic surgeon here was able to do an excellent job and stabilized him without any complications. The entire community rallied around Nathan and he was a trooper. It was really neat to see how the body of believers is just like one big family: Nathan’s parents were not here with him, but he had people coming and providing care for him in the hospital from the organization and loving him as their own child.
*SIGH* and THAT was just Monday!!
Tuesday was the same with pediatrics and care and then helping take care of Nathan a bit. Wednesday felt like it was going to start out the same as Tuesday had, but it started out at the bedside of a very sick little girl. This four week old little girl had presented to the hospital with history of fever and severe abdominal distention. It seemed after examination and assessment that this child was in severe condition and if not treated soon with a surgical relief and cleansing of the abdomen, the respirations would get worse and the child would soon die. So they called in the surgeon and he agreed to do the surgery, but only under one condition: that the parents know the risk of the child dying on the table during surgery because of the small measure of health the little girl had left. The doctors began consulting the parents and the Uncle that was there about the surgery and the consequences of having the surgery and not having the surgery. The mother was crying and the family was allowed time to talk with each other. I was sure that when they came back in, because of the way the doctors presented the case, the family would chose to do the surgery. But when the came back in the Uncle said “We are not satisfied with the surgery” and they refused to have it done! As the words that seemed to dictate the life of this small and beautiful child rolled off of his lips, my heart felt like it had fallen out of my chest and broken into a million pieces onto the floor. I had to turn away from the family as a tear invaded my eye and I tried to fight the emotions that began to burn. I gazed at the precious face of the little one, struggling, gasping for breathe, for life, for a chance to become someone, to be loved on this earth. Allison and I were not able to stay around and watch how it ended but as we walked away to hitch a ride to Gidan Bege we heard the Doctors struggling to talk to the parents again about their decision. NO: you do not want to take your child back to the village, she will die before you reach the gate if she is not on oxygen. YES: we want to know things like why you gave your child a spicy concoction of chile pepper, when for a child of just a few weeks that is poison to the GI tract. As Allison and I walked in silence back to our apartment to change our clothes, tears finally began streaming down my face. “It’s just so unfair. I can understand adult death, but a child who does not chose her own life or death, WHY? Why would God allow such existence? He cannot take pleasure in such an existence? and How can the human soul be so twisted so as to in fact poison their own young?” These thoughts and so many others rushed through my head but none so clear as the one that I kept coming back to: “Be still, and know that I AM GOD” the Lord seemed to keep saying to me. We were headed off to Gidan Bege and I breathed a sigh of surrender and said allowed to Allison, “I have to giver her up”. What I meant by this statement was not that I had to leave hope that this child would live, but that I had to bring all my doubts and my questions and surrender them to the feet of Jesus and admit I cannot understand why things happen the way they do, but I am not God, and I do not see the way that the Lord is working in each person’s life for His glory. Allison reminded me that the Lord looks down on that little girl with far more love than we could ever have for her, and how much more does it pain Him to watch her suffer? So we tried to set the sadness aside so that we could continue on in our ministry to the widows at Gidan Bege and then the medical outreach at Blind Town, but we were both eager to find out what had happened. That evening a few minutes after we got home, our phone rang and it was the pediatrician from the United States. He said “Hi, I know you guys were concerned about the baby we were seeing today, I just wanted to let you know that the parents did end up consenting to the surgery and that they did not find anything definitive in the abdomen, but they found a lot of pus. So they cleaned out the abdomen and sewed her back up and she is doing pretty well. I just got to go down and pray over the baby and her mom with a few others, and I know you guys wanted to be praying as well. Some babies are just meant to make it through. Her name is Blessing...”
So with exceeding joy I thanked him for the update and told Allison the news. We were both so glad to hear that Blessing was stable and had gotten the surgery she needed! It was as if I almost heard God say to me “You see child, I love this little one as much as I love anyone, and I am listening to prayers, why don’t you trust me? Have I ever been unfaithful?” No. The answer is no, God has never been unfaithful. He may not answer our prayers the way we think they should be answered but that does not mean He does not answer them at all. He is a loving God, a merciful God, one that desires to give a weeping mother her child back from the graves edge, a God who has all healing power and is limited by nothing. Blessing is stable now and thanks to so many of your prayers is on the road to full recovery. We serve a BIG God, but He is also tender. He hears when His children weep, and He weeps with us. Let us never underestimate the tenderness of God’s heart and so shake our fist at him when we see pain in this world. How much more does pain and suffering of the little children make God cry? He must be so eager to restore the earth and in fact then make a new heaven and earth, where pain and suffering are no more. I learned about the tenderness of God’s heart this week.
The ministry of serving the widows in the clinic at Gidan Bege was really awesome! I wrote about it in my first blog, and it was similar to this week. Except this week there were not a lot of medial personnel, only Allison and I and then two other Nigerian Nurses who are trained in community health. It was really fun to be working in the clinic, to have the 41 women that we served walk through the door, for me to practice all my Hausa greetings, for Allison and I to take their blood pressure and then to discuss their problems that they complained of and give them medication. It was really neat to get to see face after face come through the door, knowing that they were there so that we could help them in the name of our Lord. What an honor it is to be the hands of Jesus! We then took the medical bags and Allison and I split up and one of us went with one of the Nurses and one with the other and there was a big team that split up and went with us also. I was really glad the Lord had allowed us to get a ride to Gidan Bege, because they were a little short staffed for Blind Town’s medical outreach since only one in the team was a doctor. I was able to go into the houses with Vicky, the nurse, and while she was talking with the people and translating I would take a few blood pressures and begin handing out medications. I learned how to say “once a day” or “twice a day” in Hausa and I even gave medication to the chief of blind town and told him “twice a day” by myself on the instruction of Vicky! Because the team was there with us, they attracted all the kids. There were so many children that gathered and it drew crowds of at least 40-50 kids. But when the houses are small and the alley ways even smaller, it made for a difficult time to even get around to the people we needed to see. It worked out well though because the team ended up staying in one place, playing with the kids and Vicky and I and only one or two of the other team members would actually go into the house, listen, assess, give the medication and then go to the next house. I was grateful for the team that they were so willing to jump right in and play with the kids, and I was in awe of how Vicky handled the chaos. The Lord is really doing a great work in Blind Town. So many want help and are open to healing. The Lord is using physical healing as a way of manifesting the kind of healing that only He can bring to a life of spiritual disease.
Thursday we went to Gyero which is a village about 10 miles outside of Jos that ECWA owns about 1/3rd of and runs an orphanage on the land. The orphanage is where boys from Gidan Bege who have been there for 6 months are transferred to and then the boys (and now they have about 12 girls) will live there for about 10 years, some more, many less, until they can go to school and learn a trade and be well set in their adulthood physically, emotionally and spiritually. The boys range in ages of 7 to 20 years old and the girls range in ages 6 to 16. It was really encouraging to get to see the ministry because I have heard so much about it with my friends Jaime and Joseph both working out at Gyero. I was really glad for the opportunity to go and play a little with the kids, sing songs with them and take a hike around the village. God is blessing that ministry and it is exciting to see how many lives they are impacting!
Yesterday was back in the Pediatric ward. There was a little baby of 6 weeks of age that we examined who was admitted with respiratory distress. This child is HIV exposed, meaning his mother has HIV but it cannot be confirmed or denied that the child is yet positive. Upon examination the child seemed to have Bronchial pneumonia and/or a condition that goes along with AIDS and the low CD4 count. Again, as I watched the child gasping for air, twitching because of hypoxia, vomiting into its oxygen facemask and receive an NG tube and a tiny catheter to monitor output, I could not help but wonder how it was right or fair that this child was suffering so much for a deadly disease that he did not chose to get or has the chance to fight. The doctors talked with the parents saying that the baby was in really bad condition and they should prepare themselves that he may go. The doctor gently reminded them that they would do anything they could to help the baby, but that the timing of the child’s life is in God’s hands and He is sovereign. These doctors see child after child die and it breaks their heart every time, but they must continue to do their work despite their pain because they save many more lives than they lose and they bring glory to God despite the circumstances. I pray that I never lose sight of the fact that every life is precious and that I continue to learn how to be tender-hearted because God is tender-hearted. But I also pray that I am able to have strength and understanding and a peace that passes all understanding because God is the giver and taker of life and only He knows the plans for each of our lives.
May you all continue to remember that life is precious and that God is tender-hearted. He weeps when you weep and longs to wrap you in his arms when you are hurting. Do not think we serve a cold-hearted God. He will be the first one standing at the gate of heaven to lovingly welcome the little baby into His arms and embrace Him in a place where there will be no more tears of sorrow or pain. Praise God, for He is worthy of all our admiration, adoration and reverence!
Maranatha!
Alisha
PRAISES
-Blessing is doing well and is stable!
-Nathan flew out and is in South Africa getting the second surgery on his legs and is doing well with no signs of infection or further complications
-Allison and I are staying healthy
PRAYER
-For camp this week, that the Lord would prepare the hearts of the campers to hear what He wants to teach them, for strength and health for all and especially wisdom and endurance for Allison and I
-For the little ones who are ill and dying and for the parents of all the little ones.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Week 3:The time is now
My heart is heavy with thoughts as I write to you today. This week was full of so many new things. Although this week has been full of so many joys, fun stories interesting cultural tid-bits and fascinating little anecdotes that I could write about for pages and pages, my heart is set on writing to you only a quick sketch of these so that I might spend the last part of my time with you pouring out my heart and trying to process through all that the Lord has been teaching me, that you also may be blessed by the things happening here in Nigeria.
The week started with really fun things. On Saturday of last week we (Allison, Tim, Dan, Rachel and two of the young singles from another compound Jaime and Joseph, and then our driver, Michael and his family of wife and three kids and then of course, me) took a day to a place called “Yankari Game Resort” which is a place about three hours drive outside of Jos where you can go and take a little safari and swim in the natural springs which is actually clean and void of any nasty living organism, unlike most of the water here in Nigeria. =) We all had a blast relaxing for the day and entertained ourselves (and most of the other Nigerians who were at the springs) with trying to climb up the face of the rock wall that the springs come from.
Another awesome part of our day was the safari. I was blessed with an elephant!! I know this seems like a large and somewhat dangerous blessing, but here is the short story. Because it is rainy season, there is a ton of shrubbery and over-grown trees so it makes it much more difficult to see animals. For some reason though, my heart was set on seeing elephants on the safari; everyone kept telling me we wouldn’t see them and to not get my hopes up. Well, my hopes were already up and so I began praying. I know it seems like a silly prayer, but God takes delights in our pleasures when they are pure, so I figured He might grant me my request. Well, I was so confident that God would not disappointment me, that I began telling everyone to keep a keen eye out for elephants. They were all making fun of me and teasing me, but I told them, “You just wait, God will bring me my elephant, you will see!” SURE ENOUGH, about an hour into our safari there on the road right in front of us stood an elephant!!!! I was so excited! There were also more off to the side of the road, so we got to see a total of about 5 elephants! Everyone was thrilled and even the safari guides were really happy we got to see them and said it was very rare for visitors to see elephants like that on the road this season. Then everyone began asking me to pray that we would see a lion. I had to just laugh and say, “No, no, God brought me my elephant and I am completely satisfied with that.” =)
The next day was church and we went to a traditional Hausa service with one of the SIM drivers. We all wore our traditional Nigerian outfits which was really fun and we felt like we fit in a little better, but I’m pretty sure everyone could have still been able to pick out the visitors even if we weren’t made to sit in the front row. =) The service was awesome. It was so fun to get to watch the people in their familiar tongue and style praise the Lord and listen to His word. The music was AMAZING! The preaching was intense, REALLY loud and emphatic. The tithing was confusing (they take about 5 different offerings and we never knew which was what). And the people were so welcoming. After the service, Audu, the man who took us, walked us over to his house and he encouraged us and thanked us for coming. With a little question asking on our part, we then all sat and listened as he unfolded the testimony of the church and how he had started it and how the Lord was blessing the church. It was an amazing story and I felt so privileged and encouraged to be able to be a part of that body of believers even for a short time.
Monday began with working in ICU. The nurses were really nice to be able to work with and welcomed the help we were offering. Nursing is different here. I have not quite figured out why except that I can only say that the nurse does not interact with the patient and the family as much as one might in the U.S.A. The only really specific thing that I can examine throughout my week is that the nurse here spends most of his or her time caring for the patient physically instead of socially, psychologically or spiritually. However, perhaps because of the ICU setting and the nature of the patient’s conditions the environment simply lent itself to this type of observation. And yet, from all that I have seen so far, and even now having a day in pediatrics, it seems as though nursing is much more to care physically for the patient and to make sure business is in order so that when the Doctor comes, he or she can talk with the patient and the family and have the interaction, the teaching and the relationship.
Regardless, nursing is not that much different when it comes to the physical aspect of patient care. The ICU nurses were very quick and accurate and excellent in their work. They are well equipped with technology that many would be surprised that a hospital in Nigeria would have, and yet there are many things that are lacking or broken that they all wish they had. We took vital signs every 2 hours on the patients because they were stable and measured urine output every hour. Allison and I learned how to document and took over performing this task as well as aiding with the bed baths and the routine care. We also learned their IV bag care and techniques and flow rates. There are 4 beds in ICU and most of the patients that were on the ward were CHI (Closed Head Injuries) and unconscious from RTAs (Road Traffic Accidents). The nurses enjoyed talking with us and asking us about nursing in the U.S. and wanted to know how things were here compared to there. There was also another student nurse in the ICU and it was really fun to get to know her and to talk to her about her training and her life.
We were in the ICU Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for half a day and then Friday. Wednesday afternoon we went out to a camp called ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) Camp Youth Alive (ECYA) (Everything is abbreviated here if you haven’t noticed yet. =) haha). Allison and I were last-minute asked to be the camp nurses for this ECYA camp that is going to take place the 2nd through the 7th of August. It is a camp for kids 12-15 and the leaders training was from Wednesday of this week to Sunday. WELL, since we had already scheduled to be in ICU at Evangel and it was last minute and we are not going to be counselors, we asked if we could just go out for a night and a day of the staff training, that way we would only miss one day at Evangel. The camp staff training was fun, but it was a little uncomfortable at first because we were not really sure what we were doing and felt like we did not know anything! BUT the Lord helped us work through some of our insecurities and really encouraged us through the relationships we began to build with the staff. They were so fun and so energetic to praise the Lord! Each had such a dear heart for the Lord and it was so neat to get to see brothers and sisters serving the Lord with their talents and their hearts for kids. They also sang beautifully! We would be sitting after dinner and all of a sudden someone would say “Let’s sing a song of praise!” and someone would start singing and they ALL know the song and they ALL sing really loud and really beautifully and start harmonizing and clapping to complex African rhythms. It made my heart so happy, but more importantly I know it made God’s heart happy as He sat and listened to the beautiful music coming from the hearts of His children.
Friday was a difficult day back at ICU. I do not know why it was difficult, either because it should have been or because I am still trying to understand what it is that I think and feel. I sat down Saturday morning to try and sort my thoughts and this is what I wrote:
“As I gently closed the eye lid, I began searching for answers on the man’s still face; hoping, wishing, that somehow his earthly corpse could give me an idea of what his spirit might now be encountering. I stood and watched as the doctor told the daughter and her mother in law that their loved one had passed away and listened to the wailing and the crying. The daughter began to shout to the sky, “Jehovah! Where shall I run? The Lord is my strength, to whom shall I run! I have no mother and now I have no father!”
We had just a half an hour before taken his vital signs and they were relatively normal. But the nurse had noticed his breathing was more like gasping and had asked us to take them again quickly to see if his status had changed. His blood pressure had dropped some, but other than that it was only that he was gasping. Then all of a sudden he went from 24 respirations a minute to gasping for air only every 10 seconds or so. The nurse was trying to get oxygen on him and the doctor who had been called was there as well. We were all running around getting things for the doctor and the other nurse, trying to maintain the oxygen supply for the man who had now stopped breathing. They tried for about 10 minutes everything they could, but it was over.
It was the first patient that I have seen die, but I am sure it will not be the last. I know that the profession I am going into, especially if I would want to work in an ER setting or overseas in this type of setting, requires me to be able to cope with death on a regular basis. I know that the Lord is the giver and taker of life and I am confident that He knew that it was this man’s time to be taken from this world. It does make you think though, “What will my death be like?” and more importantly, “How will I chose to live my life before I get to my death bed?”
I have chosen. I chose to live my life as an offering to Christ Jesus my Lord because He deserves any glory and honor that each breath or each step I take could bring Him. I only pray that my every breath and every step can bring Him enough, for He is a mighty God and deserves so much more than I can bring.”
We went back to the camp to stay one more night and to finish it out with the staff Saturday night because we felt that it would be best and we were asked to do so. I was dreading going back out because I was not sure if I had enough energy to be with so many people, but the Lord is so faithful and knows exactly what we need every day. Saturday night we were greeted by open arms and hugs and the staff saying “OH you are back! WE missed you!” which was so encouraging! I realized that it was exactly what I needed, to build relationships with them and to be lifted up by fellow believers. They were even more open with me when we were there the second time and I got to have really cool conversations and interactions with the girls. (And I have now definitely been asked multiple times if I want to marry a Nigerian man...=) haha...including by a 35 year old man at the hospital... GOSH I need to stop forgetting to wear my fake wedding ring! haha!)
Yesterday was awesome too! We had a Sunday morning service that the camp put on with a pastor they invited (who was actually one of the main chaplains from Evangel). It was SUCH a great sermon! He talked about the theme of the camp “maranatha” and how we should be eagerly awaiting the coming of our Lord Jesus. He said he was not going to debate when or how Christ would come again, but that we should be most focused on the fact that HE IS coming and that we should be living our lives with that promise in mind! It was so convicting! I want to live a life that manifests my eager anticipation for the return of Christ. I LONG for Christ to tell me “Well done good and faithful one” when I meet Him in the clouds! I don’t want to live a life that is complacent and satisfied with politically correct Christianity anymore. I’m convicted that I should not be quiet about the gospel just because I might offend someone. It is ETERNAL life we are talking about!!! My popularity and my own image is worth NOTHING and so why should I care what people think of me!? How convicted I was that I am not bold regarding the gospel of Christ.
In my study of Paul by Beth Moore called “To live is Christ” (Thank you Allison V. for introducing me to the study!!) I have been learning SOOOOOOO much! I have gained so much insight into the background of Paul and the surrounding early church. I read the story of Stephen yesterday and I was completely blown away. I want to be like Stephen; he was so Spirit filled that it was apparent in both his external and internal characteristics. I crave for a life that is so Spirit filled that I would be willing to DIE for the sake of Christ and that I would be even so Christ-focused that I would be able to forgive my murderers with my last breath! How awesome and how pleased was Christ that He even STOOD to welcome Stephen into the kingdom of heaven! It says “But he (Stephen) being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God..” (Acts 7:55). What an honor to get a standing ovation from the Lord Jesus Christ, and when Stephen was stoned to death and he finally entered the presence of the Lord in heaven I can only imagine Christ lifting Stephan up from his knees saying “Well done good and faithful one!!!”
The Lord has been revealing Himself to me in so many ways I am completely overwhelmed. I am so excited and burdened for my own people now. I love the Nigerian people. THEY ARE AMAZING! I would be happy living here the rest of my life and serving along side of them. And yet I know since the Lord is calling me back to the USA, back to California, back to Escondido and then back to school in Azusa, there is a huge ministry THERE for me to serve my own people, to tell my own people about the radical love of our radical Savior.
Time is short, friends. I have seen death as many of you have I’m sure. I went from watching a man breathing to searching for his pulse and finding nothing. I was also reminded that Christ’s return is soon, that it will come like a thief in the night, that it can come at any time. The question I have to continue to ask myself in light of these reflections and reminders is this: What am I doing with this moment that I have been given? and am I choosing to use every moment in order that Jesus Christ might get all the more glory and honor? The pastor that spoke on Sunday encouraged us to leave each other with the phrase “maranatha” which means something like “come, Jesus come!!” to remind ourselves that we are looking eagerly for the glorious return of our Savior and that it is coming soon! So let us not wait, let us be eager to use each moment we are given to glorify the name of Christ. Let us look forward to the promise that Christ WILL return and shall gather us and meet us in the clouds! The disciples lived with this promise in mind and the knowledge that life is but a vapor and it vanishes so quickly. They were BOLD in their talk and unashamed of the gospel of Christ and their numbers multiplied daily. Let us strive for the same boldness and eagerness so that we can have the biggest party in the clouds when Christ returns!
MARANATHA!
Alisha
PRAISES
-I have been healthy and feeling strong this week!!
-We made some really good relationships with the camp staff at camp
-The Lord has been teaching Allison and I so many things and has been so faithful in being our comfort and our strength through difficult times.
PRAYER
-Allison has a cold! I made her stay home from work today so she would feel better and not get the little babies sick... Pray she gets well quickly!
-Pray for the camp coming up: that the kids coming would be ready to hear the word of God and that we would have wisdom in how to treat the kids
-For the poor and sick of this world and specifically those in Nigeria and even more specifically those being served at Evangel.
The week started with really fun things. On Saturday of last week we (Allison, Tim, Dan, Rachel and two of the young singles from another compound Jaime and Joseph, and then our driver, Michael and his family of wife and three kids and then of course, me) took a day to a place called “Yankari Game Resort” which is a place about three hours drive outside of Jos where you can go and take a little safari and swim in the natural springs which is actually clean and void of any nasty living organism, unlike most of the water here in Nigeria. =) We all had a blast relaxing for the day and entertained ourselves (and most of the other Nigerians who were at the springs) with trying to climb up the face of the rock wall that the springs come from.
Another awesome part of our day was the safari. I was blessed with an elephant!! I know this seems like a large and somewhat dangerous blessing, but here is the short story. Because it is rainy season, there is a ton of shrubbery and over-grown trees so it makes it much more difficult to see animals. For some reason though, my heart was set on seeing elephants on the safari; everyone kept telling me we wouldn’t see them and to not get my hopes up. Well, my hopes were already up and so I began praying. I know it seems like a silly prayer, but God takes delights in our pleasures when they are pure, so I figured He might grant me my request. Well, I was so confident that God would not disappointment me, that I began telling everyone to keep a keen eye out for elephants. They were all making fun of me and teasing me, but I told them, “You just wait, God will bring me my elephant, you will see!” SURE ENOUGH, about an hour into our safari there on the road right in front of us stood an elephant!!!! I was so excited! There were also more off to the side of the road, so we got to see a total of about 5 elephants! Everyone was thrilled and even the safari guides were really happy we got to see them and said it was very rare for visitors to see elephants like that on the road this season. Then everyone began asking me to pray that we would see a lion. I had to just laugh and say, “No, no, God brought me my elephant and I am completely satisfied with that.” =)
The next day was church and we went to a traditional Hausa service with one of the SIM drivers. We all wore our traditional Nigerian outfits which was really fun and we felt like we fit in a little better, but I’m pretty sure everyone could have still been able to pick out the visitors even if we weren’t made to sit in the front row. =) The service was awesome. It was so fun to get to watch the people in their familiar tongue and style praise the Lord and listen to His word. The music was AMAZING! The preaching was intense, REALLY loud and emphatic. The tithing was confusing (they take about 5 different offerings and we never knew which was what). And the people were so welcoming. After the service, Audu, the man who took us, walked us over to his house and he encouraged us and thanked us for coming. With a little question asking on our part, we then all sat and listened as he unfolded the testimony of the church and how he had started it and how the Lord was blessing the church. It was an amazing story and I felt so privileged and encouraged to be able to be a part of that body of believers even for a short time.
Monday began with working in ICU. The nurses were really nice to be able to work with and welcomed the help we were offering. Nursing is different here. I have not quite figured out why except that I can only say that the nurse does not interact with the patient and the family as much as one might in the U.S.A. The only really specific thing that I can examine throughout my week is that the nurse here spends most of his or her time caring for the patient physically instead of socially, psychologically or spiritually. However, perhaps because of the ICU setting and the nature of the patient’s conditions the environment simply lent itself to this type of observation. And yet, from all that I have seen so far, and even now having a day in pediatrics, it seems as though nursing is much more to care physically for the patient and to make sure business is in order so that when the Doctor comes, he or she can talk with the patient and the family and have the interaction, the teaching and the relationship.
Regardless, nursing is not that much different when it comes to the physical aspect of patient care. The ICU nurses were very quick and accurate and excellent in their work. They are well equipped with technology that many would be surprised that a hospital in Nigeria would have, and yet there are many things that are lacking or broken that they all wish they had. We took vital signs every 2 hours on the patients because they were stable and measured urine output every hour. Allison and I learned how to document and took over performing this task as well as aiding with the bed baths and the routine care. We also learned their IV bag care and techniques and flow rates. There are 4 beds in ICU and most of the patients that were on the ward were CHI (Closed Head Injuries) and unconscious from RTAs (Road Traffic Accidents). The nurses enjoyed talking with us and asking us about nursing in the U.S. and wanted to know how things were here compared to there. There was also another student nurse in the ICU and it was really fun to get to know her and to talk to her about her training and her life.
We were in the ICU Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for half a day and then Friday. Wednesday afternoon we went out to a camp called ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) Camp Youth Alive (ECYA) (Everything is abbreviated here if you haven’t noticed yet. =) haha). Allison and I were last-minute asked to be the camp nurses for this ECYA camp that is going to take place the 2nd through the 7th of August. It is a camp for kids 12-15 and the leaders training was from Wednesday of this week to Sunday. WELL, since we had already scheduled to be in ICU at Evangel and it was last minute and we are not going to be counselors, we asked if we could just go out for a night and a day of the staff training, that way we would only miss one day at Evangel. The camp staff training was fun, but it was a little uncomfortable at first because we were not really sure what we were doing and felt like we did not know anything! BUT the Lord helped us work through some of our insecurities and really encouraged us through the relationships we began to build with the staff. They were so fun and so energetic to praise the Lord! Each had such a dear heart for the Lord and it was so neat to get to see brothers and sisters serving the Lord with their talents and their hearts for kids. They also sang beautifully! We would be sitting after dinner and all of a sudden someone would say “Let’s sing a song of praise!” and someone would start singing and they ALL know the song and they ALL sing really loud and really beautifully and start harmonizing and clapping to complex African rhythms. It made my heart so happy, but more importantly I know it made God’s heart happy as He sat and listened to the beautiful music coming from the hearts of His children.
Friday was a difficult day back at ICU. I do not know why it was difficult, either because it should have been or because I am still trying to understand what it is that I think and feel. I sat down Saturday morning to try and sort my thoughts and this is what I wrote:
“As I gently closed the eye lid, I began searching for answers on the man’s still face; hoping, wishing, that somehow his earthly corpse could give me an idea of what his spirit might now be encountering. I stood and watched as the doctor told the daughter and her mother in law that their loved one had passed away and listened to the wailing and the crying. The daughter began to shout to the sky, “Jehovah! Where shall I run? The Lord is my strength, to whom shall I run! I have no mother and now I have no father!”
We had just a half an hour before taken his vital signs and they were relatively normal. But the nurse had noticed his breathing was more like gasping and had asked us to take them again quickly to see if his status had changed. His blood pressure had dropped some, but other than that it was only that he was gasping. Then all of a sudden he went from 24 respirations a minute to gasping for air only every 10 seconds or so. The nurse was trying to get oxygen on him and the doctor who had been called was there as well. We were all running around getting things for the doctor and the other nurse, trying to maintain the oxygen supply for the man who had now stopped breathing. They tried for about 10 minutes everything they could, but it was over.
It was the first patient that I have seen die, but I am sure it will not be the last. I know that the profession I am going into, especially if I would want to work in an ER setting or overseas in this type of setting, requires me to be able to cope with death on a regular basis. I know that the Lord is the giver and taker of life and I am confident that He knew that it was this man’s time to be taken from this world. It does make you think though, “What will my death be like?” and more importantly, “How will I chose to live my life before I get to my death bed?”
I have chosen. I chose to live my life as an offering to Christ Jesus my Lord because He deserves any glory and honor that each breath or each step I take could bring Him. I only pray that my every breath and every step can bring Him enough, for He is a mighty God and deserves so much more than I can bring.”
We went back to the camp to stay one more night and to finish it out with the staff Saturday night because we felt that it would be best and we were asked to do so. I was dreading going back out because I was not sure if I had enough energy to be with so many people, but the Lord is so faithful and knows exactly what we need every day. Saturday night we were greeted by open arms and hugs and the staff saying “OH you are back! WE missed you!” which was so encouraging! I realized that it was exactly what I needed, to build relationships with them and to be lifted up by fellow believers. They were even more open with me when we were there the second time and I got to have really cool conversations and interactions with the girls. (And I have now definitely been asked multiple times if I want to marry a Nigerian man...=) haha...including by a 35 year old man at the hospital... GOSH I need to stop forgetting to wear my fake wedding ring! haha!)
Yesterday was awesome too! We had a Sunday morning service that the camp put on with a pastor they invited (who was actually one of the main chaplains from Evangel). It was SUCH a great sermon! He talked about the theme of the camp “maranatha” and how we should be eagerly awaiting the coming of our Lord Jesus. He said he was not going to debate when or how Christ would come again, but that we should be most focused on the fact that HE IS coming and that we should be living our lives with that promise in mind! It was so convicting! I want to live a life that manifests my eager anticipation for the return of Christ. I LONG for Christ to tell me “Well done good and faithful one” when I meet Him in the clouds! I don’t want to live a life that is complacent and satisfied with politically correct Christianity anymore. I’m convicted that I should not be quiet about the gospel just because I might offend someone. It is ETERNAL life we are talking about!!! My popularity and my own image is worth NOTHING and so why should I care what people think of me!? How convicted I was that I am not bold regarding the gospel of Christ.
In my study of Paul by Beth Moore called “To live is Christ” (Thank you Allison V. for introducing me to the study!!) I have been learning SOOOOOOO much! I have gained so much insight into the background of Paul and the surrounding early church. I read the story of Stephen yesterday and I was completely blown away. I want to be like Stephen; he was so Spirit filled that it was apparent in both his external and internal characteristics. I crave for a life that is so Spirit filled that I would be willing to DIE for the sake of Christ and that I would be even so Christ-focused that I would be able to forgive my murderers with my last breath! How awesome and how pleased was Christ that He even STOOD to welcome Stephen into the kingdom of heaven! It says “But he (Stephen) being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God..” (Acts 7:55). What an honor to get a standing ovation from the Lord Jesus Christ, and when Stephen was stoned to death and he finally entered the presence of the Lord in heaven I can only imagine Christ lifting Stephan up from his knees saying “Well done good and faithful one!!!”
The Lord has been revealing Himself to me in so many ways I am completely overwhelmed. I am so excited and burdened for my own people now. I love the Nigerian people. THEY ARE AMAZING! I would be happy living here the rest of my life and serving along side of them. And yet I know since the Lord is calling me back to the USA, back to California, back to Escondido and then back to school in Azusa, there is a huge ministry THERE for me to serve my own people, to tell my own people about the radical love of our radical Savior.
Time is short, friends. I have seen death as many of you have I’m sure. I went from watching a man breathing to searching for his pulse and finding nothing. I was also reminded that Christ’s return is soon, that it will come like a thief in the night, that it can come at any time. The question I have to continue to ask myself in light of these reflections and reminders is this: What am I doing with this moment that I have been given? and am I choosing to use every moment in order that Jesus Christ might get all the more glory and honor? The pastor that spoke on Sunday encouraged us to leave each other with the phrase “maranatha” which means something like “come, Jesus come!!” to remind ourselves that we are looking eagerly for the glorious return of our Savior and that it is coming soon! So let us not wait, let us be eager to use each moment we are given to glorify the name of Christ. Let us look forward to the promise that Christ WILL return and shall gather us and meet us in the clouds! The disciples lived with this promise in mind and the knowledge that life is but a vapor and it vanishes so quickly. They were BOLD in their talk and unashamed of the gospel of Christ and their numbers multiplied daily. Let us strive for the same boldness and eagerness so that we can have the biggest party in the clouds when Christ returns!
MARANATHA!
Alisha
PRAISES
-I have been healthy and feeling strong this week!!
-We made some really good relationships with the camp staff at camp
-The Lord has been teaching Allison and I so many things and has been so faithful in being our comfort and our strength through difficult times.
PRAYER
-Allison has a cold! I made her stay home from work today so she would feel better and not get the little babies sick... Pray she gets well quickly!
-Pray for the camp coming up: that the kids coming would be ready to hear the word of God and that we would have wisdom in how to treat the kids
-For the poor and sick of this world and specifically those in Nigeria and even more specifically those being served at Evangel.
Allison and I along our safari.. so fun!!
The elephant that I prayed for right in front of our car!! (There were better pictures of the actual elephant, but I like this one because it shows how close the elephant really was to our car!) =) Thanks Lord! 
The water was so nice and clear and beautiful and warm! (The girl on the right is Jaime) =)
Attempting to climb the wall.. and getting shown up oh so badly by the Nigerians! =) 
My traditional Nigerian outfit that I wore to church!
Audu and the whole group of us in front of the church.
A group of the girls from the camp! They were all such sweet hearts!!
Renee (the SIM missionary that asked Allison and I to be the camp nurses) and I infront of our "Hut" at camp. Renee is such a doll! 
Allison and I packed in the car with a few of the other staff leaders! At one point there were 18 of us in the van!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Week 2: Evangel
This week has been incredible; full of so many experiences, sights, thoughts, emotions, prayers and reflections. I feel as though I have not the skill to even begin to describe to you all that has gone on in these incredible full and short four first days working at Evangel! And yet the passion and burden to convey the experiences the Lord has given to me to all of you, my dear supporters, that I must try to calm my excited and racing heart just enough to put thoughts to words, and words to a page.
Let me begin with a few fun things that have been going on with Allison and I before I dive into what we have been doing at the hospital. Allison and I have been cooking!!! It has been really fun! Dan and Tim (the two med students from N. Ireland) and Allison and I have been trading off nights for dinners and Rachel has been helping both teams and joining us. I must say, the bar has been set high each night for both dinners and desserts and it has been fun to put on full meals. I DO have a MUCH greater respect however for you mothers and wives who cook every night all the time!! I am so tired after I work all day and then it takes so long here to cook that we have to start at least an hour and a half before we want to start eating! But we have all been having a ton of fun and Allison and I have been learning cooking creativity along the way! I think the Lord has also been teaching Allison and I the joys of the Nigerian way of putting people first before time and events because both of our watches all of a sudden broke within the first week of being here!! It has been a strange and somehow freeing phenomenon to never really know exactly what time it is. Thank God for a culture that puts people first. May we learn from them and implement that more into our lives from now on!
Ok, now on to hospital. The first day was short and full of getting introduced to the hospital and its way of operation. We met with the doctors for morning report at 7:30, where one of the residents or interns who has been on call all night lists the cases that have been admitted that night and the mortalities. Then all of the doctors, residents and interns begin to discuss the cases, with the consultants (who are the senior and residing doctors) and the consultants begin grilling the younger doctors about the cases and begin guiding them through critical thinking patterns. It seemed to me a harsh way of doing things, and yet I suppose public humiliation and public teaching allows one to remember what they learned much better and gives great incentive for wanting to know as much information and make informed and accurate decisions as possible. We then followed Dr. Ardill around on what they call ‘Ward Rounds’, which is when the doctors go around and visit each bedside of the patients whom they are interacting with (ie. Dr. Ardill as a surgeon goes around and sees all the surgical patients). We must have visited at least 30 patients and it took about 2 hours or so. It was really interesting to get to be introduced to each case and then to hear what they were doing or what they were going to do for each patient. The doctors work hard and are almost over worked but have an underlying passion and energy that is undeniable and that is so God-centered that it spills out into their words and their deeds.
Tuesday and Wednesday morning were busy days in the OR, or what they call the “Theatre”. We had some really good experiences!! Both Allison and I got to scrub into a surgery! I got to scrub in to a surgery on a 3 day old baby who had a myelomeningocele, which is birth defect where the back bone and spinal canal do not close before birth. I got to help hold instruments in place, clamp and even help Dr. Ardill with the stitching. It was amazing to watch Dr. Ardill at work and it is such a blessing to have him at Evangel because he is such a skilled surgeon and able to do almost anything that is set before him due to his many many years on the field and his gift of accuracy and critical thinking from the Lord. We watched a few other surgeries on both days, including a removal of a fat tumor (lipoma), an exploratory surgery on a man’s abdomen who was eventually believed to have Tuberculosis, and had the mycobacterium infectious in his abdomen. After we had watched a few surgeries and I got to help put an IV in, we helped with wound dressings. This was also held in the center room of the Theatre. I do not even know how to describe to you the intensity of these wounds that we were dressing! I am not going to describe the wounds because of the gruesomeness of the details I would have to include; however it was so mind altering for me to help bathe the wound or the burn of a small child or an adult. These people are so brave. Most get an IV pain medication just before we clean and dress their wounds, but some chose not to. The ones that do not are very brave and try to just bite their tongues and cringe but most have to scream because of the pain. Pain management is something I am still trying to figure out and some of the people I cannot comprehend how they cannot be unconscious with pain due to the severity of their wounds or the intensity of our cleaning them. As I was holding a screaming child’s hand today my heart broke for the pain this world must go through and how much more God’s heart must break when He watches his children suffer.
Thursday we did Ward Rounds again but it was similar to Monday. Thursday afternoon and Friday were similar with the wound cleanings and a few other skills including a few catheter insertions. Allison and I began to get a better feel for what to do during the cleanings and started to get more proficient at them. The two doctors really appreciated our help because they usually do the cleanings on their own, but it really is a two man job at least. So many of the wounds are from road traffic accidents or burns, and some are complications as a result of underlying disease, especially sickle cell anemia. It has been fun to get to see the same wound dressing patients for four days in a row. However, there is a part of me that feels sad each time the same child or a familiar face gets rolled through the door; it’s almost as if you have to wonder if these people will ever heal from these outrageous wounds. I suppose it has been only a short time and difficult wounds take a long time to heal.
Let me go back a little to Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday afternoon the five of us short term medical missionaries from this compound went with a team to a place in Jos called Gidan Bege (House of Hope). Gidan Bege is a ministry that takes in street boys and houses them for 6-9 months as a sort of transitional period to make sure the boys will stay in an institution. Many boys will run away from a place like an orphanage. The ministry has taken in so many boys and feeds them, gives them a place to stay and teaches them about the love of Jesus. One little boy that was there when we went on Wednesday had a scar on his neck, later I found out his story. At age 6 this little boy’s uncle had gotten ill and the family had blamed the little boy because of witch craft and other beliefs and so tried to kill him by hanging him. The grandmother had saved the little boy and taken him to Gidan Bege for fear of his life. These children are in desperate need of hope and they can find it here because of the dear people who have devoted their lives to sharing the gospel, love and their time to these boys. (In case you were wondering, there are not many street girls because girls in this society are very useful, girls can be used as another slave or servant in the house and so you do not see many street girls here, mostly boys)
Gidan Bege also has a ministry to widows in Jos. They have a free sewing area where the women can come and bring their cloth and sew either to make a living or to provide for their children or themselves. They provide a meal, a program sharing the gospel, and a free health clinic every Wednesday. Many of these women are in hopeless need of love, acceptance and community, not to mention health. We sat in the little clinic room and helped take blood pressures as the women filed in one by one to tell of their health problems and get their BP taken and then stood outside the window to get their bag of pills to last them till the next week. Over half of the women have high blood pressure and the clinic provides a basic diuretic to care for this seemingly uncontrolled health problem in this community. As a part of the clinic, the ministry also travels to another part of Jos called Blind town. Blind town is a part of Jos where a large community of (as you would guess) blind people have gathered. But there are not only blind people here but also all their children, many other poor people, all their kids and then also a community of non-infectious lepers and their kids. Blind town is actually a very large section of Jos and has its own chief and is its own sub-culture. The community is very poor and all the houses are very close to each other. Close and small houses, open sewage and narrow alleys create a maze you must make your way through in order to reach the house you wish to inquire upon. We played follow the leader through the maze in a team of 8 and visited about 6 or 7 different houses in one section of Blind town and another team did the same in a different part. Blind town is 99 percent Muslim and does not look on to intrusion with a friendly eye so only certain entrances are open to white people and to Gidan Bege’s medical ministry. The people are so grateful for the services and it was so mind changing to stand in the homes of these people and take their BP, talk with them, answer questions, hand them medication and then walk to another house and do a similar thing. There are children everywhere and they get so excited to see white people! They think it is the funniest thing ever and want to touch you, rub your skin, hold your hand, say “hello”, give you a high five, smile at you, laugh and have you smile back. Of course me, germaphobe Alisha, was at first slightly perturbed when I looked down at my sides and had 6 runny nosed and snotty kids with dirt and grime all over them and their hands rubbing my arms and holding on to my hand like no tomorrow. I realized that I had the potential to get annoyed with all the kids as well because as we would walk through the alleys they would make it almost impossible to walk at a normal pace in order to get done what we needed to on our medical mission, and on top of that, because the kids would slow us down and make large swarms around us other people would walk up to us and ask the Doctor in our group questions and ask for medication or for help with a problem. BUT, I was given a moment that I have never had before; I was given insight into the life of Jesus like I never have experienced before. As I was standing surrounded by kids and poor and hurting people limping up or walking blindly up to the mass of people along a dirty alley and asking for help I thought to myself “I bet you this is how Jesus felt a lot of the time; surrounded, smothered, needed desperately, heart aching, tired, incredibly in love with the people in front of him and longing to heal their hearts as well as their bodies.” It was so overwhelming. Praise God for sending His son Jesus Christ for man kind who was so frantically groping in the dark, and now blindly awaiting His touch of love and healing in their hearts that can come at anytime through the miraculous ways the Holy Spirit works in and through people’s lives. I pray that the Lord would use my hands and my feet to be those of Christ’s that I might bring love and healing in the name of Jesus to a world that is so desperately searching for healing.
Let me just close with what Jesus said, as I cannot summarize it any better. I was reminded of this passage today.
As Jesus was preaching to the people he said...
“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:46-49)
Let us be builders of solid houses as we follow the teachings of Jesus, the rock, no matter where we are or what we are doing in this life.
Blessings on each one of you! May you experience God in a new way today and feel His presence abundantly in your life!!
Thanks again for all your prayers!
Alisha
PRAISES
-The week at the hospital was very full and we were able to encourage the doctors as we worked along side them in their tasks.
-We have had really good fellowship with the other short term missionaries and other missionary families! Everyone is so loving and helpful!
-We have had safety on the roads, on the compound and in the markets!
PRAYERS
-Please pray for health for both Allison and I and me especially, I have been struggling a little but am currently feeling much stronger and I have been learning to depend fully on the strength of the Lord.
-Pray that the patients at Evangel will experience not only physical healing but also spiritual healing through the love of Christ shown to them by Allison and I and by the staff at Evangel.
This was the child that had the myelomeningocele and the surgery I got to scrub in on.
This is Dr. Ardill at work and me assisting him!
This is what the child's back looked like post-surgery! Praise the Lord for good surgeons like Dr. Ardill, the child did not lose any sensory or motor function!
Allison and I in the "Theatre".
Allison and I doing a little time in the kitchen and showing off our meal.. =)
Taking the BP in the entrance or uncovered part of the home of a patients in Blind Town.
The alleys of Blind town.
The the swarm of kids at Blind Town.
Helping dress a burn victims wound who had 20 percent of his body burned in a car fire.
Let me begin with a few fun things that have been going on with Allison and I before I dive into what we have been doing at the hospital. Allison and I have been cooking!!! It has been really fun! Dan and Tim (the two med students from N. Ireland) and Allison and I have been trading off nights for dinners and Rachel has been helping both teams and joining us. I must say, the bar has been set high each night for both dinners and desserts and it has been fun to put on full meals. I DO have a MUCH greater respect however for you mothers and wives who cook every night all the time!! I am so tired after I work all day and then it takes so long here to cook that we have to start at least an hour and a half before we want to start eating! But we have all been having a ton of fun and Allison and I have been learning cooking creativity along the way! I think the Lord has also been teaching Allison and I the joys of the Nigerian way of putting people first before time and events because both of our watches all of a sudden broke within the first week of being here!! It has been a strange and somehow freeing phenomenon to never really know exactly what time it is. Thank God for a culture that puts people first. May we learn from them and implement that more into our lives from now on!
Ok, now on to hospital. The first day was short and full of getting introduced to the hospital and its way of operation. We met with the doctors for morning report at 7:30, where one of the residents or interns who has been on call all night lists the cases that have been admitted that night and the mortalities. Then all of the doctors, residents and interns begin to discuss the cases, with the consultants (who are the senior and residing doctors) and the consultants begin grilling the younger doctors about the cases and begin guiding them through critical thinking patterns. It seemed to me a harsh way of doing things, and yet I suppose public humiliation and public teaching allows one to remember what they learned much better and gives great incentive for wanting to know as much information and make informed and accurate decisions as possible. We then followed Dr. Ardill around on what they call ‘Ward Rounds’, which is when the doctors go around and visit each bedside of the patients whom they are interacting with (ie. Dr. Ardill as a surgeon goes around and sees all the surgical patients). We must have visited at least 30 patients and it took about 2 hours or so. It was really interesting to get to be introduced to each case and then to hear what they were doing or what they were going to do for each patient. The doctors work hard and are almost over worked but have an underlying passion and energy that is undeniable and that is so God-centered that it spills out into their words and their deeds.
Tuesday and Wednesday morning were busy days in the OR, or what they call the “Theatre”. We had some really good experiences!! Both Allison and I got to scrub into a surgery! I got to scrub in to a surgery on a 3 day old baby who had a myelomeningocele, which is birth defect where the back bone and spinal canal do not close before birth. I got to help hold instruments in place, clamp and even help Dr. Ardill with the stitching. It was amazing to watch Dr. Ardill at work and it is such a blessing to have him at Evangel because he is such a skilled surgeon and able to do almost anything that is set before him due to his many many years on the field and his gift of accuracy and critical thinking from the Lord. We watched a few other surgeries on both days, including a removal of a fat tumor (lipoma), an exploratory surgery on a man’s abdomen who was eventually believed to have Tuberculosis, and had the mycobacterium infectious in his abdomen. After we had watched a few surgeries and I got to help put an IV in, we helped with wound dressings. This was also held in the center room of the Theatre. I do not even know how to describe to you the intensity of these wounds that we were dressing! I am not going to describe the wounds because of the gruesomeness of the details I would have to include; however it was so mind altering for me to help bathe the wound or the burn of a small child or an adult. These people are so brave. Most get an IV pain medication just before we clean and dress their wounds, but some chose not to. The ones that do not are very brave and try to just bite their tongues and cringe but most have to scream because of the pain. Pain management is something I am still trying to figure out and some of the people I cannot comprehend how they cannot be unconscious with pain due to the severity of their wounds or the intensity of our cleaning them. As I was holding a screaming child’s hand today my heart broke for the pain this world must go through and how much more God’s heart must break when He watches his children suffer.
Thursday we did Ward Rounds again but it was similar to Monday. Thursday afternoon and Friday were similar with the wound cleanings and a few other skills including a few catheter insertions. Allison and I began to get a better feel for what to do during the cleanings and started to get more proficient at them. The two doctors really appreciated our help because they usually do the cleanings on their own, but it really is a two man job at least. So many of the wounds are from road traffic accidents or burns, and some are complications as a result of underlying disease, especially sickle cell anemia. It has been fun to get to see the same wound dressing patients for four days in a row. However, there is a part of me that feels sad each time the same child or a familiar face gets rolled through the door; it’s almost as if you have to wonder if these people will ever heal from these outrageous wounds. I suppose it has been only a short time and difficult wounds take a long time to heal.
Let me go back a little to Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday afternoon the five of us short term medical missionaries from this compound went with a team to a place in Jos called Gidan Bege (House of Hope). Gidan Bege is a ministry that takes in street boys and houses them for 6-9 months as a sort of transitional period to make sure the boys will stay in an institution. Many boys will run away from a place like an orphanage. The ministry has taken in so many boys and feeds them, gives them a place to stay and teaches them about the love of Jesus. One little boy that was there when we went on Wednesday had a scar on his neck, later I found out his story. At age 6 this little boy’s uncle had gotten ill and the family had blamed the little boy because of witch craft and other beliefs and so tried to kill him by hanging him. The grandmother had saved the little boy and taken him to Gidan Bege for fear of his life. These children are in desperate need of hope and they can find it here because of the dear people who have devoted their lives to sharing the gospel, love and their time to these boys. (In case you were wondering, there are not many street girls because girls in this society are very useful, girls can be used as another slave or servant in the house and so you do not see many street girls here, mostly boys)
Gidan Bege also has a ministry to widows in Jos. They have a free sewing area where the women can come and bring their cloth and sew either to make a living or to provide for their children or themselves. They provide a meal, a program sharing the gospel, and a free health clinic every Wednesday. Many of these women are in hopeless need of love, acceptance and community, not to mention health. We sat in the little clinic room and helped take blood pressures as the women filed in one by one to tell of their health problems and get their BP taken and then stood outside the window to get their bag of pills to last them till the next week. Over half of the women have high blood pressure and the clinic provides a basic diuretic to care for this seemingly uncontrolled health problem in this community. As a part of the clinic, the ministry also travels to another part of Jos called Blind town. Blind town is a part of Jos where a large community of (as you would guess) blind people have gathered. But there are not only blind people here but also all their children, many other poor people, all their kids and then also a community of non-infectious lepers and their kids. Blind town is actually a very large section of Jos and has its own chief and is its own sub-culture. The community is very poor and all the houses are very close to each other. Close and small houses, open sewage and narrow alleys create a maze you must make your way through in order to reach the house you wish to inquire upon. We played follow the leader through the maze in a team of 8 and visited about 6 or 7 different houses in one section of Blind town and another team did the same in a different part. Blind town is 99 percent Muslim and does not look on to intrusion with a friendly eye so only certain entrances are open to white people and to Gidan Bege’s medical ministry. The people are so grateful for the services and it was so mind changing to stand in the homes of these people and take their BP, talk with them, answer questions, hand them medication and then walk to another house and do a similar thing. There are children everywhere and they get so excited to see white people! They think it is the funniest thing ever and want to touch you, rub your skin, hold your hand, say “hello”, give you a high five, smile at you, laugh and have you smile back. Of course me, germaphobe Alisha, was at first slightly perturbed when I looked down at my sides and had 6 runny nosed and snotty kids with dirt and grime all over them and their hands rubbing my arms and holding on to my hand like no tomorrow. I realized that I had the potential to get annoyed with all the kids as well because as we would walk through the alleys they would make it almost impossible to walk at a normal pace in order to get done what we needed to on our medical mission, and on top of that, because the kids would slow us down and make large swarms around us other people would walk up to us and ask the Doctor in our group questions and ask for medication or for help with a problem. BUT, I was given a moment that I have never had before; I was given insight into the life of Jesus like I never have experienced before. As I was standing surrounded by kids and poor and hurting people limping up or walking blindly up to the mass of people along a dirty alley and asking for help I thought to myself “I bet you this is how Jesus felt a lot of the time; surrounded, smothered, needed desperately, heart aching, tired, incredibly in love with the people in front of him and longing to heal their hearts as well as their bodies.” It was so overwhelming. Praise God for sending His son Jesus Christ for man kind who was so frantically groping in the dark, and now blindly awaiting His touch of love and healing in their hearts that can come at anytime through the miraculous ways the Holy Spirit works in and through people’s lives. I pray that the Lord would use my hands and my feet to be those of Christ’s that I might bring love and healing in the name of Jesus to a world that is so desperately searching for healing.
Let me just close with what Jesus said, as I cannot summarize it any better. I was reminded of this passage today.
As Jesus was preaching to the people he said...
“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:46-49)
Let us be builders of solid houses as we follow the teachings of Jesus, the rock, no matter where we are or what we are doing in this life.
Blessings on each one of you! May you experience God in a new way today and feel His presence abundantly in your life!!
Thanks again for all your prayers!
Alisha
PRAISES
-The week at the hospital was very full and we were able to encourage the doctors as we worked along side them in their tasks.
-We have had really good fellowship with the other short term missionaries and other missionary families! Everyone is so loving and helpful!
-We have had safety on the roads, on the compound and in the markets!
PRAYERS
-Please pray for health for both Allison and I and me especially, I have been struggling a little but am currently feeling much stronger and I have been learning to depend fully on the strength of the Lord.
-Pray that the patients at Evangel will experience not only physical healing but also spiritual healing through the love of Christ shown to them by Allison and I and by the staff at Evangel.
-Pray for the poor and desperate in Nigeria and especially those in Blind Town.
These are the white, nursing uniforms we wear when we are not wearing scrubs in the OR!
These are the white, nursing uniforms we wear when we are not wearing scrubs in the OR!
This was the child that had the myelomeningocele and the surgery I got to scrub in on.
This is Dr. Ardill at work and me assisting him!
This is what the child's back looked like post-surgery! Praise the Lord for good surgeons like Dr. Ardill, the child did not lose any sensory or motor function!
Allison and I in the "Theatre".
Allison and I doing a little time in the kitchen and showing off our meal.. =)
Taking the BP in the entrance or uncovered part of the home of a patients in Blind Town.
The alleys of Blind town.
The the swarm of kids at Blind Town.
Helping dress a burn victims wound who had 20 percent of his body burned in a car fire.Saturday, July 12, 2008
Week 1: Sannu! Greetings from Nigeria!
SANNU!!!!!!! (That means hello in Hausa!)
Wow, I do not even know where to begin. Let me start off by saying that words on a page are a cheap way of expressing my gratitude to the Lord and to all of you who are supporting Allison and I through prayer and encouragement and financial means. But, since it is the only way at this time of telling you how much I am thankful, let me say it the Nigerian way and say “Na gode”.
SO, to give a brief overview of the week, Monday and Tuesday we had safe and blessed travels with no problems at all. Thanks for all your prayers!! Our flights were comfortable and long, and we met fun people along our journey. *QUICK funny* Allison and I both took Nalgene bottles so that we could fill them up once we got through security. Well, after we got off the plane in Frankfurt and we were going through their security (which is MUCH less fast-paced and stressful than in America..) I was pulled aside. “Oh great.” I thought to myself. “Is dis your bag?” the security man asked in his German accent. “Yes it is.” I replied. “Open it”. So I opened it and he dug out the two water bottles that were half full of water!!! “Ooops! We forgot to dump them out on the plane!” I exclaimed. “Can you drink?” he asked. “Yes!” I said, “Or you can just pour them out...” “No, you must drink.” They wouldn’t let us pour them out!!! WE had to CHUG our bottles in front of security!!! hahahaha.. Allison and I were glad we were able to drink quickly so we didn’t hold up the line and they didn’t expect that we were trying to bring in poison or some other explosive chemical. BUT it was funny and they were all watching us as we chugged half a big bottle of water. =) Silly... we know not to do that again..
Anyway... everything else went really smoothly and customs and the airport in Abuja was really easy. We arrived with another family, who the man, Mr. Tait, is actually the SIM director of the country, so we sort of followed them because they knew what they were doing. We traveled to Jos on Wednesday morning on a four hour car ride and got to see the country just a little. IT was GREAT, especially riding with the Taits because they knew so much and were telling us so much information about the country and pointing out landmarks etc.
Now that we are in Jos, Allison and I have been bombarded with a million facts and lots of information in the last three days about SIM and the culture and what to do and what not to do etc. Its been kind of a crazy few days, but its been so good!
Yesterday we went to the market and got our cultural orientation. WOW talk about awesomely insane! Ok, so we bought some Nigerian material, some veggies, fruits and other groceries to get us started on our cooking. We also had to walk along the streets which are FULL of cars, people and motorcyle taxis.. and I mean FULL. You would not believe the number of people on the streets!! And NONE of the vehicles stop OR slow down for anyone or anything! so there takes on new meaning when you say, be careful crossing the streets. =) OH MY GOSH, I cant even explain how awesome it was to be right on the streets, crossing right in front of the cars, walking along all the market and being in the midst of the people. They are crazy drivers and especially the motorcycle taxi drivers. They are like ants EVERYWHERE and they have NO fear about diving in and out of people, cars and pot holes.
I definitely felt my color when I walked through the market. The people look at you when you walk by and some call you "Baturi" (Ba-too-ree) or "Oibo" (Oh-ee-bo). It is mostly in a friendly way and they are in general very nice and friendly people. They all want to greet you and say hello or “sannu”, in their language. There are only some men we have to ignore, but other than that Kauna, our orientator, said we could be friendly and should greet them back or else we would be considered rude. We have also been trying to learn other Hausa phrases so that we can greet people and respond back when they greet us. Most people speak Hausa and then the people who have been educated speak English and Hausa. There are many tribal languages though and so it ends up that many of the people here can speak three of four different languages.
We went to the tailor to get our dresses made and we should have our Nigerian dresses back in a week! =) I am so excited! On the way back, Kauna was running late so she decided to catch a taxi back to the headquarters and send us back to Evangel on our own. It was fun for Allison and I to be out on our own for the first time and we felt pretty confident as we darted across the streets between the cars and the motorcycles. Literally, they say if you wait for there to be a clear spot in the road, you will sleep there because the streets are never clear. So you just have to time it right and be smart about when to walk out in the middle of the road. We almost got the hang of it and we did well on our own.
The weather is really nice! It can get warm in the early to middle parts of the day but is just right in the later afternoon and evenings and has rained almost everyday for about an hour or so. When it rains, it rains HARD! It’s so nice! Sometimes we wake up to the rain during the night also. It is so green here and the plant life is beautiful this time of the year!
The missionary community is so welcoming and fun. We have been to many houses for dinners and lunches because they “take care of you” the first week you are here. Next week we will be on our own for cooking, but we are excited and nervous at the same time to take on that adventure. We played ultimate Frisbee today with a group of about 35 people at the high school for the missionary kids. It was a game organized by some Baptist girls who are here on 2 years terms and they were really sweet girls. There were families and young people from all over the city who are here for short or long term and who are here from all over the world. It was so fun to play and have fun with a community of believers who are here serving the Lord with a similar vision. (I’m proud to say my team won..) =). I am really looking forward to spending more time with the Baptist girls as they have now invited us to their functions such as worship on Wednesday nights etc. Allison and I have also been hanging out with Rachel, Dan and Tim in our spare time. Rachel is a medical student from New York who lives with a family here on the compound and Dan and Tim are two medical students from Northern Ireland who lived right next to us. It has been fun to get to know them. Last night we played cards with Dan and Tim and taught them Hand and Foot and had a great time enjoying their Northern-Irish ways: for example.... they say “It’s your go” instead of it’s your turn.... or they call chips “crisps” and things like that. =) The five of us will be hanging out quite a bit in our spare time I think because we are all medical so we are all here on the compound together and they are all really fun people.
Well I think that is it for now. I do not want to make these too long, then no one will read them and know how to be praying for us!! =) Thank you all for your constant support and prayers. Allison and I really do feel them and are so encouraged that you guys are behind us and supporting us here. WE could not do it without your support and we could DEFINITLY not do it without the strength of the Lord! I have been reminded time and time again that if I take my eyes off the Lord, I will sink into the waves, just as Peter did. The exciting thing is that I have stepped out of the boat and now I am in stormy waters and the only way I can stay afloat is by keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus. I KNOW I cannot do this and serve through my own strength, but I am clinging fast to the promise that “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness’ Therefore MOST GLADLY I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
Blessings on you all as you each serve wherever you have been placed.
Sai anjima!!! (See you later)
Alisha
PRAISES
-Safety in traveling and on the road
-Many welcoming missionaries and help from the many people here
-We got wireless internet finally set up in our apartment!!!! =)
PRAYERS
-Continued health
-Safety as we face the busy streets and the markets
-Wisdom and safety as we begin in the hospital on Monday
-Continued growth in relationships with other missionaries here
Allison and I in the plane.
Trying to entertain ourselves in the airport.
Finally we have arrived in Jos and this is the living room in our apartment!
Allison and I in our front yard.
Enjoying the scenery, its so green here!
The flowers are beautiful because it rains everyday!
The trash and compost pile is not so nice, but it works!
This is Kauna and I at the market. (Notice all the people and cars in the background!)
This was our first experience in a taxi, it gets really squished because they fit two people in the front and four in the back and then you have to tell them when you want to get out as they are driving!! It was pretty different!
This is the market! This is where we will be doing our shopping for the next 5 weeks.
Wow, I do not even know where to begin. Let me start off by saying that words on a page are a cheap way of expressing my gratitude to the Lord and to all of you who are supporting Allison and I through prayer and encouragement and financial means. But, since it is the only way at this time of telling you how much I am thankful, let me say it the Nigerian way and say “Na gode”.
SO, to give a brief overview of the week, Monday and Tuesday we had safe and blessed travels with no problems at all. Thanks for all your prayers!! Our flights were comfortable and long, and we met fun people along our journey. *QUICK funny* Allison and I both took Nalgene bottles so that we could fill them up once we got through security. Well, after we got off the plane in Frankfurt and we were going through their security (which is MUCH less fast-paced and stressful than in America..) I was pulled aside. “Oh great.” I thought to myself. “Is dis your bag?” the security man asked in his German accent. “Yes it is.” I replied. “Open it”. So I opened it and he dug out the two water bottles that were half full of water!!! “Ooops! We forgot to dump them out on the plane!” I exclaimed. “Can you drink?” he asked. “Yes!” I said, “Or you can just pour them out...” “No, you must drink.” They wouldn’t let us pour them out!!! WE had to CHUG our bottles in front of security!!! hahahaha.. Allison and I were glad we were able to drink quickly so we didn’t hold up the line and they didn’t expect that we were trying to bring in poison or some other explosive chemical. BUT it was funny and they were all watching us as we chugged half a big bottle of water. =) Silly... we know not to do that again..
Anyway... everything else went really smoothly and customs and the airport in Abuja was really easy. We arrived with another family, who the man, Mr. Tait, is actually the SIM director of the country, so we sort of followed them because they knew what they were doing. We traveled to Jos on Wednesday morning on a four hour car ride and got to see the country just a little. IT was GREAT, especially riding with the Taits because they knew so much and were telling us so much information about the country and pointing out landmarks etc.
Now that we are in Jos, Allison and I have been bombarded with a million facts and lots of information in the last three days about SIM and the culture and what to do and what not to do etc. Its been kind of a crazy few days, but its been so good!
Yesterday we went to the market and got our cultural orientation. WOW talk about awesomely insane! Ok, so we bought some Nigerian material, some veggies, fruits and other groceries to get us started on our cooking. We also had to walk along the streets which are FULL of cars, people and motorcyle taxis.. and I mean FULL. You would not believe the number of people on the streets!! And NONE of the vehicles stop OR slow down for anyone or anything! so there takes on new meaning when you say, be careful crossing the streets. =) OH MY GOSH, I cant even explain how awesome it was to be right on the streets, crossing right in front of the cars, walking along all the market and being in the midst of the people. They are crazy drivers and especially the motorcycle taxi drivers. They are like ants EVERYWHERE and they have NO fear about diving in and out of people, cars and pot holes.
I definitely felt my color when I walked through the market. The people look at you when you walk by and some call you "Baturi" (Ba-too-ree) or "Oibo" (Oh-ee-bo). It is mostly in a friendly way and they are in general very nice and friendly people. They all want to greet you and say hello or “sannu”, in their language. There are only some men we have to ignore, but other than that Kauna, our orientator, said we could be friendly and should greet them back or else we would be considered rude. We have also been trying to learn other Hausa phrases so that we can greet people and respond back when they greet us. Most people speak Hausa and then the people who have been educated speak English and Hausa. There are many tribal languages though and so it ends up that many of the people here can speak three of four different languages.
We went to the tailor to get our dresses made and we should have our Nigerian dresses back in a week! =) I am so excited! On the way back, Kauna was running late so she decided to catch a taxi back to the headquarters and send us back to Evangel on our own. It was fun for Allison and I to be out on our own for the first time and we felt pretty confident as we darted across the streets between the cars and the motorcycles. Literally, they say if you wait for there to be a clear spot in the road, you will sleep there because the streets are never clear. So you just have to time it right and be smart about when to walk out in the middle of the road. We almost got the hang of it and we did well on our own.
The weather is really nice! It can get warm in the early to middle parts of the day but is just right in the later afternoon and evenings and has rained almost everyday for about an hour or so. When it rains, it rains HARD! It’s so nice! Sometimes we wake up to the rain during the night also. It is so green here and the plant life is beautiful this time of the year!
The missionary community is so welcoming and fun. We have been to many houses for dinners and lunches because they “take care of you” the first week you are here. Next week we will be on our own for cooking, but we are excited and nervous at the same time to take on that adventure. We played ultimate Frisbee today with a group of about 35 people at the high school for the missionary kids. It was a game organized by some Baptist girls who are here on 2 years terms and they were really sweet girls. There were families and young people from all over the city who are here for short or long term and who are here from all over the world. It was so fun to play and have fun with a community of believers who are here serving the Lord with a similar vision. (I’m proud to say my team won..) =). I am really looking forward to spending more time with the Baptist girls as they have now invited us to their functions such as worship on Wednesday nights etc. Allison and I have also been hanging out with Rachel, Dan and Tim in our spare time. Rachel is a medical student from New York who lives with a family here on the compound and Dan and Tim are two medical students from Northern Ireland who lived right next to us. It has been fun to get to know them. Last night we played cards with Dan and Tim and taught them Hand and Foot and had a great time enjoying their Northern-Irish ways: for example.... they say “It’s your go” instead of it’s your turn.... or they call chips “crisps” and things like that. =) The five of us will be hanging out quite a bit in our spare time I think because we are all medical so we are all here on the compound together and they are all really fun people.
Well I think that is it for now. I do not want to make these too long, then no one will read them and know how to be praying for us!! =) Thank you all for your constant support and prayers. Allison and I really do feel them and are so encouraged that you guys are behind us and supporting us here. WE could not do it without your support and we could DEFINITLY not do it without the strength of the Lord! I have been reminded time and time again that if I take my eyes off the Lord, I will sink into the waves, just as Peter did. The exciting thing is that I have stepped out of the boat and now I am in stormy waters and the only way I can stay afloat is by keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus. I KNOW I cannot do this and serve through my own strength, but I am clinging fast to the promise that “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness’ Therefore MOST GLADLY I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
Blessings on you all as you each serve wherever you have been placed.
Sai anjima!!! (See you later)
Alisha
PRAISES
-Safety in traveling and on the road
-Many welcoming missionaries and help from the many people here
-We got wireless internet finally set up in our apartment!!!! =)
PRAYERS
-Continued health
-Safety as we face the busy streets and the markets
-Wisdom and safety as we begin in the hospital on Monday
-Continued growth in relationships with other missionaries here
Allison and I in the plane.
Trying to entertain ourselves in the airport.
Finally we have arrived in Jos and this is the living room in our apartment!
Allison and I in our front yard.
Enjoying the scenery, its so green here!
The flowers are beautiful because it rains everyday!
The trash and compost pile is not so nice, but it works!
This is Kauna and I at the market. (Notice all the people and cars in the background!)
This was our first experience in a taxi, it gets really squished because they fit two people in the front and four in the back and then you have to tell them when you want to get out as they are driving!! It was pretty different!
This is the market! This is where we will be doing our shopping for the next 5 weeks.
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