I like the Psalms. They are very real. When I read them, I feel like I’m in the company of a real person – another human being struggling to make sense of a fallen world. The psalms of depression and self-pity are right next to ones of exuberant joy, which are right next to the ones asking God to bash in the heads of all his enemies. It looks a bit like my own journal – (well, maybe not the bashing in heads part) J
For a period of about two months I experienced several severe anxiety attacks (I call them that for lack of anything better to call them). Leaving the compound seemed just too overwhelming. When I would try to plan a trip to town (or when I actually made it into a vehicle), my body would start shaking and I would have to fight back tears and the urge to jump from the vehicle and walk back home. I had never experienced anything like it before, and, praise God, they’ve stopped and things are back to normal again.
During that time, God offered me two supports. One is a faithful friend who listened to me non-judgmentally and encouraged me but also pushed me to face what I didn’t want to face and would not allow me to fall into self-pity. The second support was in the form of the Psalms. I could lament with David:
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and sorrow in my heart day after day?” Psalm 13:1-2a
I could plead: “Restore the joy of your salvation to me, and provide me with a spirit of willing obedience.” Psalm 15:12
and then later testify that:
“I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry for help. He pulled me out of a horrible pit, out of the mud and clay. He set my feet on a rock and made my steps secure. He placed a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.” Psalm 40:1-3a
May our prayer be that which Mark Buchanan includes at the end of the second chapter in his book, Hidden in Plain Sight.
“Help us, each and all, to see and believe more deeply what God is up to in the thickness and thinness of our fallen lives, the awkwardness and messiness of broken people living together. Help us find the Spirit in the midst of our tiredness and testiness, our heartbreak and disappointment. Come fresh to us and renew us in God’s grace when all our natural good will gets buried beneath our hurt and anger. What life calls for is not, first and foremost, more cunning, more skill, more resources. It calls for more faith. O Lord, increase our faith.”
What’s Been Happening:
School/Church/Evangelism:
The last time I wrote I spoke of being understaffed in the education department. Well, thank you all for your prayers. We started this school year with a total of 13 teachers! This enables us to have a teacher for each class and even two sections of Nursery classes 1-3, keeping the number of students in each class under 20! I also have a teacher exclusively for P.E. and library, thus improving these programs and enabling us to provide for the students based on their developmental levels.
So, there we were, just beginning the last swimming class for the day when the madaki (local village leader) came down to the stream carrying a broom and a bag. A bit strange, but I didn’t give it too much though – until the madaki asked to speak to me. He was informing me that we should leave because he wanted to use the stream for something and we couldn’t be there, when two more men came down the path. The first one was leading a small goat on a rope and carrying a bird and a knife in his other hand; the second one was holding red and black feathers used in traditional worship. They had come to do animal sacrifice. What a strange interruption to swimming lessons, but traditional beliefs and practices still have a strong hold on people here. Many of the fears of the water that we work to overcome in our classes are based on the fear of water spirits that are believed to steal people away. Please pray that those who are still in darkness will see the great light of Christ.
The work on the school building continues in fits and starts. We have begun molding blocks and cutting wood for the foundation. We need about 2,000 blocks for the foundation – that takes approximately 80 bags of cement and a lot of work. We only have one block mold, so we can only make one block at a time. Praise God that we now have the means to quickly, easily, and safely transfer the funds here for the project work. Thanks to Jane Galley for all of her work on this. We also had a prayer and commissioning of the site in July.
During my parents’ visit in July, my father not only shared his flannelgraph lessons with our children at MoM, but he was able to share these lessons on the life of David in the village in the evenings as well. Many who attended were Muslims and those in traditional religion. Pray that the seeds that were planted will bear fruit. One young man has been asking me about becoming a Christian and about how he can tell his family if he decides to convert; a local mallam (Islamic teacher) is also open to dialogue.
Speaking of Islam, the end of Ramadan was officially signaled by the two-day Sallah celebration. Out of deference to our Muslim friends and neighbors, our school does observe this holiday, as the Muslim schools observe Christmas and Easter holidays. However, we assembled our students for an hour each morning and prayed for family members, friends, and neighbors who are blinded by Islam and for God to raise up and protect those who would witness to Muslims. The children prayed that we may be driven back to the Bible to find ways to relate the truth of Jesus to Muslims in ways they can understand and that through our loving relationships we may win the right to witness of Christ’s love.
Of course, a lot of the most important discussions come up from just sitting and talking with people For example, last week I was talking with two Christian youth from the village: Somehow, the question of killing in self-defense came up. As we discussed its various implications, one of them said, “but if you shoot them, they can’t go to hell because all their sin will come on you.” I responded by talking about how each person must give an account before God for what he/she has done: we can’t stand in for any other person. The only one who can stand in as a substitute for anyone’s sin is Christ. Finally, this young man looked at me and asked, “Are you saying this from your head or from the Bible?” I told him that it was in the Bible. He replied, “Can you write down the verses for me so that I can study it, because my own idea about it is just from my head.” Pray that we would be faithful (and accurate) stewards of the Truth that has been entrusted to us.
Health:
After much effort on the part of our health staff and some of our visiting medical personnel, Juliana, the mentally disabled teenage daughter of one of our staff (I.P.), died in late July. Her father has already suffered the loss of his first wife, and his new wife gave birth to a stillborn baby about a year ago. Please keep the family in prayer.
One of our teachers, Olive, suffered a miscarriage following a motorcycle accident with her husband, our school supervisor. Pray for physical and emotional healing.
A little over a year old, Elizabeth has been failing to thrive and suffering bouts of diarrhea and fever. No tests were conclusive or covered all of the symptoms (which recently included swelling of the limbs and a persistent cough) until recently. She was tested and found to have sickle cell and possibly tuberculosis. The medicines seem to be helping, but the sores in her mouth still make eating difficult, and unfortunately, there is no cure for sickle cell. Please pray for wisdom as our health workers seek to manage her condition.
New Arrivals:
· Benjamin Samuel has recently joined our health staff. What a blessing to have a second health worker to help handle the job of providing for the health needs of almost 200 people.
· Mary Joseph and her son Daniel have also joined us. Mary has been a big help in keeping the orphanage clean. Washing the floors everyday is a great help as this is where our babies crawl and play.
· A young lady with multiple physical disabilities, Ojoma, was abandoned by her parents to a traditional healer in a local town. This man is the only father she has ever known, but he is very aged and is worried about what will happen to this delightful young lady if he should die. She is now at MoM, attending school and is a great help with our babies.
· Welcome to our new teachers – Jeremiah Musa, Stephen Ochala, Lawrence Simon, Aminu Ameh, and Shedrach Ahiaba. Welcome back to Yakubu Akibo. Please keep these young men in prayer as they adjust to the demands of teaching here, and pray that they will be strong, godly role models for our boys.
· And babies, babies, babies – Baby Tom, who is living with me, came in July at 8 days of age, weighing less than 3 lbs. He’s now 3 months old and weighs over 8 lbs.; Aishat was next. She was three months old when she came and tested positive for HIV/AIDS. However, she is asymptomatic and has a great chance of reverting to negative status by 18 months of age; then came Ejura and an Ibo baby girl abandoned by her mother; these were followed by Jordan. In the meantime, one of our teachers on maternity leave, Lydia, gave birth to twins two months prematurely, and we were informed of a woman who had given birth to quadruplets who needed help giving them a healthy start. All are doing well.
Looking Ahead:
· I am planning lessons on the Holy Spirit for my 4th, 5th, and 6th grade Sunday School class. Please pray that God will give me the words to say so that it will be understandable to them. Pray that they may begin to let the Holy Spirit help them apply the Bible truths they learn to their daily lives.
· We are praying to begin a junior high school next year. This means we need to start working on registering our school, selecting curriculum, and staffing. I still need a strong English teacher.
· Elections in our state, Kogi, have been nullified due to election fraud. Please pray for peace and safety as the political campaigning, posturing, and fighting heats up again. Did you know that the price of machetes, the murder weapon of choice for political thugs, more than tripled during the last elections? A number of politically-motivated killings have already taken place, including one man who was beheaded and dismembered – it is rumored that he had a magic that protected him from bullets, causing his attackers to use such horrific measures. Some of the fighting is taking place within parties, not just between parties.
Spotlight on…
Helene Simon. Helene is one of our primary school children. She is about 9 years old and is a delightful spitfire J Helene loves snuggling and baking cakes with me. She is a bright but strong-willed girl. When her aunty left, she moved down to stay with Daniel and Esther. One day, having been caught stealing, she was told to pack her things to go back up to an aunty. On checking her bag before sending her up, they found some packets of spaghetti on the bottom. She was told to unpack her things. She would continue to stay where she was. Please pray that she would learn obedience and that the hold of the habit of stealing would be broken. Pray that her sharp mind will be a gift cultivated and used for the Lord.
Praise for:
- our new school staff!
- progress on the school building!
- the time of fellowship with all our short-term visitors since April.
- safety on the road – my trip to and from Abuja as my parents were leaving was quite “exciting” – more than 20 hours at various mechanics, a new timing belt, three new throttle cables, a new accelerator, a stalled vehicle on a bad road in the dark, police harassment, a cramped taxi ride to the airport, and a broken shoe (among other things)
- the health of our babies; especially the preemies who beat all odds to make it this far
- the ministering of Christ’s physical body through the hands and feet of His people
Pray for:
- the continuing work on the school building project.
- those of our students and staff who are struggling for admission to higher education.
- our students at secondary schools and universities – for safety and that their hearts and minds would be guarded against the temptations of the world.
- healing for Elizabeth
- an increasing desire to pursue an increasing measure of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love so that we will not be ineffective or unproductive in our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:1-9)
- Jason Jordan, one of my former students, who was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison at his recent trial. He is still writing letters and reaching out. Pray that God would send people to Jason who can speak the love of Christ in a way that he can understand.
- the church to preach a clear message of the Gospel and the truths of the Bible, and for more discipleship.
Random Funny Printer Problem: For two days I couldn’t print anything because there was a gecko inside my printer. There was no way to get him out and no way to print anything without smooshing him all over the insides of the printer.
