Taunya helped my Reformed Church
of America colleague, Barbara, prepare some teaching materials
for her classes and then did several activities with the children
of the Dogon Gao Bible School. She also assisted in a pre-school
at CSL that prepares children to enter Niger’s French-language
school system (most Nigerien children do not speak a word of French
until they begin school, since tribal languages are spoken in
the home). Jerry, a maintenance supervisor, tackled a job that
I had been wanting done for a long time—he installed the
solar electrical system in our future house at Dogon Gao. As a
result, we will now have electricity 24 hours a day! The house
is almost complete. The bathroom and kitchen need to be finished,
as do the two new bedrooms that we added. However, it is almost
liveable right now. Jerry also helped get solar lights into two
classrooms at the Bible School.
Because this first group had been to Niger before, they did not
travel as much as other groups usually do. Instead they spent
almost their whole time working in Danja. We did try to show Jerry
as much of the Maradi area as possible, since it was his first
time in Niger, but I asked them to put in much fuller days than
I normally would with first-time volunteers. While my personal
goal is to try to find the right balance between project work
and experiencing the culture of Niger, it really varies with each
group and sometimes with each individual. Although it is always
nice to finish whatever one starts, exploiting free labor to complete
projects is not our objective. We really want people to form relationships
with Nigerien Christians, to share their lives with the people
here and to better understand what missionary work is like. When
volunteers return to their families and churches back in the United
States, they will more likely talk about who they met and what
they saw and learned and not about wiring a building or treating
a patient. When they talk about missions, they will probably emphasize
what they received from their Nigerien experience and not what
they gave.
The couple who came, Kevin and Michelle, are old friends of mine
from our grad school days at Michigan State University, when we
were active in Graduate InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. This
was their first trip to Africa, but Kevin and Michelle are experienced
travelers, particularly in the non-Western world since Kevin’s
geological research takes him into the remote regions of Russian
Siberia. Although the heat was new to them, other features normal
to the less-developed world were not and they took everything
in stride. As we discussed what they wanted to accomplish in Niger,
it became clear that they had very different goals than other
groups had come with. Also, they had a shorter time frame (12
days total) than was otherwise typical. They wanted to help with
a project, but they also wanted to see a lot of the region, if
possible. A trip to Timbuktu, in neighboring Mali, proved too
expensive to arrange, but we found two other things that I had
never experienced, but were not that far from Niamey. The first
was the country’s only wildlife park, which is three hours
from the capital. There we saw monkeys, elephants, and many types
of antelope, buffalo, and crocodiles. The other trip we made was
to the desert north of Niger in the Agadez region where we hired
a guide and spent two days in the Aïr Mountains. Formed by
ancient volcanoes, these mountains are spotted with oases and
micro-climates that permit cool-season fruits and vegetables to
grow. Some villages are so remote that they are only reachable
by camel or by donkey. Culturally, they are inhabited by the Berber
people of North Africa, thus the whole experience was remarkably
different from life in southern Niger. We did manage to get some
painting done in between our travels in the EERN Community Development
building, where I keep an office, and the inside now looks much
brighter.
Poor Aïchatou was largely abandoned for much of this time
while I was with the volunteers. She was able to start her maternity
rotation in February and now is spending her mornings in the capital’s
maternity hospital (a reference hospital for complicated maternity
cases). She is now approaching eight months of pregnancy and is
not able to put in full days, but everyone understands that. The
May 2 due date is rapidly approaching, and there’s much
we need to do to prepare for the baby.
Praises and prayers
- Give praise for all the volunteers who were here in Niger
and that nobody sufferered any serious health problems (we did
have a few days of stomach problems, though). Thank God for
his protection as we traveled on Niger’s roads and worked
on projects that involved heights, electricity, and sick people.
- Please pray for the final weeks of Aïchatou’s pregnancy
and for the healthy development and delivery of our baby. Pray
that we are able to prepare our home and our hearts for this
new blessing.
- Pray for the launching of our micro-credit program at the
Dogon Gao Bible School. The project has been put on hold while
the work volunteers were here and we need to clarify many issues
before we can get it started.
- Pray for our partner Nigerien church, the EERN, as they had
their General Assembly meeting in February where a large number
of decisions were made. If properly implemented, these changes
would strengthen the national church’s finances and their
ability to carry out ministry.
In Christ,
Tom and Aïchatou
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
44
|
