November 2006

Vol. 6, No. 6

Hello Friends,

I know many of you in the United States are preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday in a few days. Although neither the dusty Nigerien environment nor the still-warm temperatures (low 90s) remind us of turkey and pumpkin pie, we would like to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving! Our family will probably also enjoy some turkey pieces and perhaps squash soup that day, since we can find those items in Niamey. This is also Niger’s harvest season, so we share this aspect with America, although there’s no public holiday here.

Laurey turned 1 year old on November 2! We invited her Niamey cousins to come and help us celebrate this event, and Aïchatou made an apple cake with frosting for the big event. Laurey was quite spoiled as our Minnesota visitors, Greg and Susan S, who had arrived two days earlier with gifts from her Iowa grandmother, aunt, uncles, and cousins, including several DVDs we had ordered by Internet. Of course, when you have two kids who are 12 and 31 months, who owns and plays with which toy is largely irrelevant. We also had Aïchatou’s uncle, who is a carpenter, craft a small wooden table for the girls to play at and bought two plastic chairs that were just their size.

Greg, a physical therapist and a clinical instructor at the University of Minnesota, made his third trip to Niger. This time he brought his wife, Susan, who manages their three PT clinics in the Twin Cities. They are in the process of selling their business and are thinking about what they’ll do in the future. One possibility that they’re giving serious thought to is to come to Niger for a period each year to teach and practice physical therapy, as a form of ministry, since the profession is not very developed here, requires little specialized equipment, and doesn’t rely on expensive medicine. Greg’s PT department head at the University of Minnesota has already approached Greg about the possibility of bringing students from Minnesota to Niger each year for an international rotation/internship. Exploring this possibility consumed much of Greg’s time, as he held meetings with various officials with Niger’s only university, as well as with the Serving in Mission hospital at Galmi and their leprosarium and health clinic at Danja (both run by that Christian mission). Greg also saw many Nigerien church members and missionaries in Niger who had various physical therapy needs. Susan accompanied Greg to learn more about Niger and whether she might also find a way to serve should she come with Greg.

Greg and Susan’s stay in Niger overlapped with a supervisory visit from PC(USA) area coordinator and the new regional liaison, Glen Hallead, last week. So, for a few days, Aïchatou was alone with the girls in Niamey while I was trying to split my time between my PC(USA) supervisors and our volunteers in Maradi. For three nights and two days, the two gentlemen met with me, my colleague Kara VanderKamp and Evangelical Church of Niger (EERN) leaders to discuss the mission partnership with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The only big news on my part was discussions which reaffirmed that I’ll be based at the Dogon Gao Bible School and largely work to improve the conditions at the school and to help return the program to its original objectives of forming young men and woman who can bring about spiritual and physical transformation in their communities.

Praises and prayers

• The Words of Hope-sponsored studio has now recorded over sixty 15-minute programs for FM radio in Niger. Pray that they will fill their remaining staff positions with dedicated Christians and that the church in Niger will start to see some results from this ministry.
• Although rains in Niger were largely good, there are still many places that missed out on crucial rains or that lost crops due to insect infestations. Prices for staples are abnormally high for harvest time. On a similar note, Niger again remains in last place on the UN’s Human Development Index for the world.
• Pray that the church can witness in the face of Niger’s poverty.
• Pray for our family as we begin the process of leaving Niamey and moving to the Dogon Gao Bible School in late January/early February. Pray also that we’ll be able to make the needed repairs and modifications to the property for our family (new paint, fence, windows, etc). Pray also that electricity will arrive by January.
• Pray for Greg and Susan as they wait upon the Lord for their possible ministry in Niger. Show the EERN on how they can be involved in this physical therapy ministry.

In Christ,

Tom, Aïchatou, Marie-Florence and Laurey

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 314