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Twins

Originally uploaded by beebbuzz

We now have a five year old in the house! Eliza had a great time celebrating last Wednesday with her friend who shares her birthday. Abigail decided to take her first step on Friday and now she’s practicing eating ice cream to prepare for her birthday next Tuesday!

Do you remember a boy named Adamou? He had an infection in his leg that his family felt was due to evil spirits. He finally got (substandard) medical care and seemed to be better. On Saturday his leg broke in 2 places spontaneously because of the infection continuing silently inside without other symptoms. The missionary family who has been looking out for him was at their wits’ end. The hospitals here in Niamey are full of people with malaria (we’re talking 3 kids to a bed). They said he would have to wait 2 weeks for surgery. I really didn’t know what to do so the other missionaries and I met together and discussed and prayed.

I finally decided to call Galmi Hospital, a mission hospital 5 hours east of here. I found out that an American orthopedic surgeon would be arriving in Niamey in about 3 hours. He comes each year to spend time at Galmi and thus knows what is possible and what isn’t. Within an hour of his arrival he was at Adamou’s house. He’s willing to operate and supervise his care for the month he (the doctor) will be at Galmi. Adamou will likely need to be admitted for several months. If it had been any other short termer who had never been to Galmi or if this had happened toward the end of this doctor’s time here, this would not have worked. We are hoping that this is God’s answer to our prayers. Please continue to pray for healing for Adamou and for spiritual healing for the hearts of everyone in his family. Many have been indifferent if not antagonistic to him getting medical care. All need to know the Good News of the True Healer.

First Day of School

Originally uploaded by beebbuzz

We had storms during the night and woke up to a beautiful, cool 80 degree morning. The alarm clock got us up at 5:30 to begin the long rush to get everyone out of the house by 7 for the first day of school! As we stood at the opening assembly singing Shout to the Lord, I couldn’t help but think of singing that song at our wedding 10 years ago. We often feel like we are wandering and wondering what we are supposed to be doing here but looking back it is encouraging to see how the Lord has led us. We are grateful to be where we are. We are also grateful for an excellent Christian school that within the last few weeks has become accredited with the Association of Christian Schools International. The accreditation plus several other factors have resulted in this years student body of around 130 (K-12) being one the biggest ever. Sahel Academy still needs a teacher for 3rd and 4th grade but otherwise has a great teaching staff in place. Please pray for the teachers, students, dorm parents and administrative staff.

Wild African Hunters

Originally uploaded by beebbuzz

As many of you know, Niger is experiencing a famine due to spotty rainfall last year. Even those who don’t rely directly on the land to feed themselves are affected due to high food prices in the market. One impact on us is that we are being asked even more frequently to help out friends and acquaintances whose families are hungry and pockets are empty. Sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. This week we were surprised by hidden blessings from two such exchanges.

At the clinic I’ve been following a man with uncontrolled hypertension, among other problems. Last week I prescribed atenolol, which should cost him less than $2 for a 3 week supply. He thanked me and then explained at length how difficult it would be for him to find the money to buy the medication. I said I understood, things are tough right now, etc. But I didn’t give him the money, preferring to let him find a way to get the medication as he will need it chronically. He left and then on Sunday showed up with a big melon from his garden for our family! He obviously could not afford to bless us this way but was truly grateful for the help I had given him. I was thankful to learn that he found a way to get the medication for free. Access to medications for chronic illness pose a major problem for this population and is one of the problems I hope to address with the health cooperative.

We have another friend, Boubé, who shows up at our door at least once a week to chat, get medical care for someone in his family, and, occasionally, ask for money. He always seems to show up when we have guests. This was the case last time he came and Jeremy finally asked him to come back a bit later (which is not a polite thing to do here). Well, he did come back later, with these 2 fully-functional bows for our girls! They had seen our guard’s bow and arrows and gotten interested so he made these for them. They are having a great time doing target practice.

Lessons learned? It’s not always a one way street. We need to be willing to be poured out but God is also blessing us back through these individuals we are serving.

Baby picnic

Originally uploaded by beebbuzz

Only read this if you have children. Either my children are getting faster or I’m getting slower. I really don’t remember finding a lot of non-digestible items in Lydia and Eliza’s diapers. With Abby, I’m frequently amazed by what I find. I did like the green playdough bits and green hair bead she put together in one diaper. But today’s plastic googly eye really was the best. A bit disconcerting to have something in the toilet looking back at you.

She’s also going to be our climber. Today she made it onto the bench on our terrace in about 0.2 seconds. As far as I know, it’s the first time she’s ever climbed it. She’s going to be the one to give me gray hair. She sure is cute though!

I currently am spending Thursday mornings in the clinic at our office.  As I keep our nanny and Abby there with us, she isn’t home to make lunch.  So today we had what is known at my inlaws as mustgo lunch…everything must go.  Jeremy has endearingly labeled my left-over concoctions killit-skillet.  I thought today’s leftovers were noteworthy.  We had left over chicken in peanut sauce with rice (a West African classic) with potato salad (real mom version) and Pad Thai.  Good but weird.  Last night I made potato pancakes with hibiscus flower syrup to replace the elderberry syrup we would have at home.  I am the least creative person I know…except in the kitchen.

Family Pic

Originally uploaded by beebbuzz

Summer vacation has brought some new fun activities to our family. It is wonderful to have the girls home all day. Although we still miss all the diversions Iowa City offered, we find our own way to have fun here. We still spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Eliza just helped me make banana muffins. In addition, Lydia is taking sewing lessons from a Nigerian friend. She is learning how to make dresses without a pattern and is really enjoying it. The library at the girls’ school is open one morning each week. We go to get new books, to play on the playground, and to let Eliza get excited about kindergarten! The girls beg to go to the pool every chance we get. It was only 90 degrees here yesterday and I wasn’t sure how the water would be but we went anyway and it turned out to be warm enough to swim! The girls still get excited each time it rains. Lydia likes to construct rivers and dams in the sand/mud that is our yard.

Jeremy says his new favorite summer activity is playing with the generator we brought back with us from Nigeria. I have to admit, when the power was off from 8-11pm yesterday it was awfully nice to have lights, fans and power for the refrigerator!

Enjoy this new family pic we took under a mango tree at our office this morning.

Late Friday afternoon we crossed back over the Nigeria border into Niger and were very thankful to be back in our ‘home’ country.  Here are a few ironies that we encountered during our stay there.  (FYI- Nigerian-from Nigeria, Nigerien-from Niger)

1.       Nigerians use gas (as Americans call it)- almost exclusively in their cars which is different than in Niger where diesel is often used.  This is partly what lead to the potentially disastrous event on our way to Jos when at the station they partially filled one of the tanks (fortunately we have a reserve!) of our diesel Landcruiser with gas!   After driving several miles out of town of course the motor ‘died’. After much praying and doing what I thought my dad would do in this situation we were able to restart the car without detecting any significant problem which I consider a miracle. Praise God! One irony that I learned through this  (although it wasn’t the reason for this incident) is that in Nigeria the word sometimes used for diesel is gas (in Niger we call is ‘gasoil’ and the word they use for gas is fuel.  Pay attention if you’re driving in Nigeria! J

2.      We went to Nigeria primarily so my wife could attend a medical training conference where she was invited to give one of the lectures.  There were about a dozen outside doctors and medical personnel in attendance and 75% of them came from our ‘hometown’ of Iowa City/Coralville.  This is explained by the fact that the conference was sponsored by the Nigerian Navigators ministry which friends of ours in Iowa City have been heavily involved in since before we were born!   We were able to reconnect with them and others that we knew, and many others that we met for the first time!

3.      From what we had heard from friends here in Niger and on the news we would not have been inclined to plan any sort of vacation in Nigeria and especially not Jos where there has been a significant amount of violence over the past years due to ethnic and spiritual conflicts.   We had planned to stay a week for the conferences and after that spend a day or two with a delegation of Nigerien colleagues who would come down to meet with leaders from the Nigerian ECWA church and then return to Niger together.   As it happened the delegation didn’t come because the Nigerian leaders weren’t available.  However we didn’t learn this until the second week. In the meantime we had found a nice CRC guesthouse to stay in and were invited to participate in some seminar sessions there for the mission community WITH child care.  Consequently we stayed there several days longer than planned and were blessed  with family  and fellowship time, and time to search for things to bring back with us!  All in all a nice time away with great people in a great place with a great climate! Our God is Great!

Just a quick note to say that we arrived in Jos and are enjoying both the conference and the weather.  Thanks for your prayers.  We had a rather stressful experience when gas was put in our diesel Landcruiser at a gas station 3 hours north of Jos.  Jeremy was able to get the car going again and we are hoping that no permanent damage was done.  We are otherwise well.  We have been able to meet many Nigerian doctors who work with the Navigators and have also enjoyed spending time with friends from Iowa City.  Thanks for your continued prayers for us during this voyage.  We will continue on to a retreat center tomorrow for a 3 day spiritual retreat.

Rainy season seems to be settling in but we are still getting a lot of dust-only storms.  When our nanny arrived the other morning we were chitchatting about the weather.  I said, “I thought it was going to rain during the night.”  She said, “Yes, me too, but all I got was dust in my nostrils.” That about sums things up.

My extended family is headed to Minnesota to spend a week fishing and celebrating my dad’s 70th birthday.  We, on the other hand, are headed to Jos, Nigeria for a medical conference and a spiritual retreat.  Please pray for us, as the roads in Nigeria can be dangerous and Jos has recently been unstable due to religious tensions.  Pray also that we would have a bit of an experience of “vacation”. We leave this morning and plan to come back to Niamey in about 3 weeks after spending some time in Maradi area working on our Hausa language skills.  Blessings to all who are able to get away for a bit of vacation as well!

I’d like to tell you about a recent (and somewhat typical) Saturday in our lives.  We woke up at 5 when the power went out.  Jeremy turned on a battery-operated fan and we tried to get a bit more sleep.  But we had to head out early to go to the naming ceremony of our friend Abigail’s daughter at 7:30.  That’s standard time for naming ceremonies, perhaps contributing to the coming greeting here, “How is your tiredness?”  The baby got her name and we got our doubla (really yummy fried cake batter soaked in sugar syrup) and continued on.

Our next stop was our office where the construction workers were waiting for cement to continue closing in the staircase that leads to the roof of the guesthouse.  The power was still off and the office was hot so I sat on a bench outside with the guard’s kids and watched Lydia get a crochet lesson from the oldest daughter.  After Jeremy got a couple of bags of cement, we continued on to a small shop to get a birthday boubou (long dress with pants for men) for Jeremy.  We’ve been here three years and each year he wants a new boubou!  I’ll have to post a picture.

We eventually made it back home, where we still had no power and also no water.  I actually took a nap on our patio as we were blessed with a cool (93 degree) day.  Then we headed out to the end-of-the-year performance for Eliza’s school.  Guess what we found at the concert hall…no power!  After sitting for about 2 hours, sweating with about 1000 other parents, they called it off!  So we came home, had supper by candlelight–cleaning out leftovers that were no longer going to be safe.  And then we slept on the patio.  Power and water finally came back on in the night.  And Eliza finally had her program last week–4 year olds dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller…again, I’ll have to post pictures.  Nothing like a blackout to make you appreciate electricity!