February 2007

Vol. 6. No. 9

Hello Everyone,

This has been a busy time for our family in Niger with our move from Niamey to Danja-Maradi. As any of you who have changed cities or states, the list of things to get accomplished before you go just seems to grow each day. Having two little ones underfoot just adds to the challenges. We found someone to transport our belongings almost 400 miles to our new community, but were a bit surprised to learn that he first filled his tractor-trailer with bags of millet to add to his income before loading our things on top. Nonetheless everything seemed to have made it with only a few broken items. We’re still not in our final home. We moved to some vacant staff housing at the Danja Center for Health and Leprosy.

We’re very fortunate to have this house, as there is still a lot of work to do before our home at the Dogon Gao Bible School is suitable for occupancy. Additionally, the Center has had many foreign visitors recently, and they’ve needed almost all of the available lodging for their own visitors. In fact, this week they asked to use one of our stored mattresses for a guest since they had run out! I’ve attached a photo of our home. It was likely built in the early 1960s for a missionary family before the facility had electricity. There are lots of doors and windows in this home as a result! We’re grateful for the Center Director Bunmi Oluloto and his wife Loveth for making us feel so much at home.

Our home at Dogon Gao was more unfinished than we thought. Not only are there cracks in the walls, doors and cabinets to repair, a perimeter fence to construct, walls to paint with vinyl, and floors to tile, but the septic system was poorly conceived and installed and must be totally redone. We also found some of the interior work was not really completed and now must be done before we can paint. Additionally, sections of the roof must be extended since water is flowing directly onto the west section of the house wall (where we’ve put the wall brace). I’ve attached a photo of a wall brace we just had built to hold one wall together. We’re very disappointed with the Christian builder who had earlier worked on our home. While there could have been more supervision and oversight done on the house during construction, it appears that this man had a good reputation while his father was alive and they worked together, but after his father passed away, he no longer displays much diligence in his work. Changing to the positive side of things, the home will be connected to the national power grid in the next week, and our volunteer team from Sioux County, Iowa, will finish installing the wind- and solar-powered-pump, which will ensure that the school’s reservoirs will always be full of good water. The pipes and reservoirs are already in place, and a generator has been used to fill them, so we know it all works. We hope to be in the Dogon Gao house at the end of March, even if we still need to do a few things.

As for the rest of the family, they seem to have adapted well to the new environment. The girls are enjoying playing with the director’s children from time to time, although they are a few years older, and they also like the fact that this home already had a swing set!

Aïchatou has been asked to help out at the clinic from time to time, and she has enjoyed going there twice a week to consult women and children patients—even performing an emergency C-section for a breech birth! We find Danja to be much cooler than Niamey and to also have fewer mosquitos to deal with! Shopping has been a challenge though. It seems like each corner market has a very unique selection of items. For example, for the first two weeks here we ran out of disposable diapers for our girls and couldn’t find any of the size we needed in the three biggest stores. We have plenty of cloth diapers, so it was only a problem when we wanted to take the kids somewhere. One day, my assistant, Usman, stepped into a very small corner store to pick up a frozen treat for Marie, when he saw a whole section filled with our size of diapers! Maradi is like that. A similar thing happened with boxed hand tissues (Kleenexes).

Volunteer teacher needed

It is never too soon to plant a seed for someone to come and help educate our daughters, while we continue in ministry. We are hoping to attract volunteers to come for nine to eleven months at a time to teach our pre-school-aged girls, beginning in August 2008 (when the girls will be about 4 and a half and 3 years old). The Reformed Church of America’s Volunteer Office coordinates finding such volunteers for missionaries with children who live in remote areas or places where English-language instruction is not available. A one-bedroom apartment with kitchen, bath, living room, running water, electricity and limited Internet access that adjoins the Johnson house at the Dogon Gao Bible School would likely be provided. This would be ideal for a single person or a couple with no children at home. Other volunteer opportunities with the ministry could be found for a spouse who accompanies a teacher in Niger. Relevant degree and /or experience preferred. Recent university graduates are encouraged to consider this and to apply. Fundraising is required. Contact Jay Harsevoort of the RCA at (800) 968-3943 for more information. And if this doesn’t interest you or someone you know, please pray that God will call someone.

Prayer and praise

• Pray for us as we continue to make the transition to our new life in the Danja-Maradi area. Pray that we find a routine that suits our family’s needs.
• Give praise for the arrival of running water and electricity to Dogon Gao! Give thanks to the volunteers who helped install the solar and wind-power system that runs the pump.
• Pray for the current teachers and administrators at Dogon Gao and that they will recommit themselves to the teaching and the preparation of evangelists. Pray for more teachers to be engaged in providing instruction at Dogon Gao and for suitable housing to be furnished for these teachers.
• Pray for the volunteers from Hopewell Reformed Church in New York who will be coming to build a pre-school playground at the Niamey church, which could result in a pre-school or kindergarten getting started there.
• Continue to pray for Aïchatou and her medical career. Give thanks that she is able to help out at the Danja Center and to regain some of her medical skills. Pray for wisdom for us as we struggle to find a way for her to spend as much time at the Center as possible while adequately providing for our children’s care.

In Christ,

Tom, Aïchatou, Marie-Florence and Laurey

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 319