Eager Learners

We have been finishing up teaching on mother/child care in several of our villages. In this particular one it’s been exciting because the women have had lots of hands on experience. When we taught about mudstoves and did a demonstration with them, they got busy and have nearly 2 mudstoves in each of their 6 homes! We taught on weaning children and did a food demonstration. They taught the women and the women practiced it some. Then we went on to the last section of our teaching which is on caring for pregnant women and doing clean and safe deliveries.
Here again some of them have had hands-on experience for themselves. Three of the six women were pregnant. Two have delivered already. One of the traditions we have been trying to reverse is that women have been taught they must wait until the ‘milk comes in’ and then the milk has to be tested. In the meantime the baby and the mother suffer. Sometimes causing death. More and more women are learning and seeing the difference in the babies when the start nursing them the day of delivery.
That’s what one of our TBAs (trained birthing attendant) said. Her baby wasn’t vomiting or having diarrhea. She was ‘clean’. The mother is all smiles. Here are a few pictures of the teaching session on breast feeding. These pictures were taken by a real photographer.

A TYPICAL SATURDAY

This Saturday I woke up early to the alarm as there was a friend’s baby’s naming ceremony. Normally on the eighth day the new born is treated to a great ceremony usually beginning at 7 a.m. Lots of family and friends will come. The men sit in the courtyard and the women gather in the patio of the house. The pastor chooses the Scripture based on the name the parents have chosen. Most Christians give their children Bible names. When the name has been given, the pastor takes the baby and prays for him/her and the family. Then the food is served, rice or corn mush and sauce, on big platters for everyone to enjoy together. The women go inside the house and greet the mother and give a gift. For the Hausa women they keep track of all the monetary gifts given. When the “giver” has a baby the mother will double the amount of the gift that she received. This goes on to a certain point and then drops back to a reasonable amount. Hmm, very interesting.

Back home around 8 a.m. I greet my gardener and mention that we’re going to plant seeds in the garden today. He’s been working on 4 plots (4 feet by 12 feet) that I had him dig out to a depth of 18 inches. He filled them with dry grassy stuff, dirt, grassy stuff, and dirt then planted beans. Once the beans were 12 inches tall he dug them under, added manure and worked everything in the improved soil. So we planted one plot of corn, and one row of green beans. Then on mounds we planted cucumbers and cantaloupe.

It was also bread baking day. So with my trusty mixer I made some nice high protein brown bread. It’s good to time the bread to be out of the oven to enjoy for lunch, which I did and Cali too. She enjoys the crust, actually she’d enjoy any part of the bread.

The weekends are great for taking naps, catching up with sleep missed during the week. Our internet was down for the day, so I avoided the computer (always good to have a forced break from it). We have a lovely swimming pool that’s so refreshing to dip into. Others come and we enjoy chatting and bird watching. We have some new ones in town, Gray-headed Kingfishers. One of my friends husband found and brought home a Marsh Owl. We have lots of pigeons, doves, weaver birds, Senegal rollers, and other unidentified ones too. They like to come to the pool for a sip. Cali does too. She likes to sit at the edge with one or both paws in the pool and lap up some water. After the swim and a shower I went to my tailor with some material to make a needed outfit. It’s a simple top and will cost only $3.

Silke invited me over for a video in the evening; I offered to make a pizza. I have lots of pizza sauce in the freezer, so it’s easy to throw together a pizza. I have some green peppers and mushrooms frozen, put that together with canned chicken hot dogsJ, and pineapple. Pretty tasty!!! We sat down with the pizza to watch the video and there’s a power cut. We enjoy the pizza by candlelight and wait patiently for 30 minutes for the power to come back on. Last evenings video was “Fried Green Tomatoes”. Jacquie pops in and finishes watching with us. There you have a typical Saturday.

April 23

Last Sunday Linda, Maimouna & I went to Gidan Roumji, 2 hours east, to the Maradi Region EERN Women’s Conference. The conference went from Friday to Monday. We have the annual national Women’s Conference as well but Maradi has started to host one in their region so that it could benefit a lot more women. There were 315 women who attended and most of them were from Maradi. That’s quite amazing. The women always enjoy being together with other believers and not having to work.

They were already singing when we arrived around 9 A.M. Each church group presents 1 to 2 songs, and there were at least 6 church groups. They also take offerings during these times of singing. You bring your offering up, dancing, and put it in the bowl. There was also the offering for the widows with lots of dancing around and around in a big circle. The way we were situated outside was very conducive for this.

There was a skit put on by some men, acting out how some women they live not depending on the Lord or living a life pleasing to God. The message was obvious to all. Just before noon the speaker got up and spoke on Ps 68:11 “The Lord has announced the Word. The women who proclaim the Good Tidings are a great host.” Good message encouraging us to take the Word to the world and be a part of the great host. (That’s what I got out of it at least).

After that was lunch –rice and a delicious sauce with lots of vegetables. I brought two cakes –banana and carrot, to share with the Galmi women who were attending, they were 25 in number. Then we just lounged around and relaxed and talked. With the temperatures in the 110, there wasn’t much more one wanted to do, besides drink lots of water.

As some of you may know, this was my birthday. So I decided to view the day as a big party with over 300 women in attendance, lots of singing, dancing, gift giving, eating, sharing & talking. I really appreciated that they all participated so well. It was best that they thought they were there for the Women’s conference. What fun!!!

April Heat

The heat is on and it's been on for over a month. This is how some get replenished:

Some got refreshed through baptism yesterday. The compound swimming pool is the venue for this event. It was pretty special to see 16 youth and 4 adults (who were from Magaria) make a public testimony of their faith in Jesus Christ on Easter Day. This is one of the women I have worked with in Magaria.

Easter: Linda had Yoko, Genevieve, and me over for brunch at 1 p.m. She made a lovely cinnamon roll ring and omelets. We had our English worship service at 5:30 outside which included a puppet show: possum and rat shared their experience at the site of the tomb. They testified to the resurrection of Jesus! He is not in the tomb.

After that we had a potluck with yummy food. Today is a holiday for us --Easter Monday. It's nice to have the extra time off to catch up on little things and do special things.

Today we had quite the experience going to Maradi to view the Total Eclipse of the Sun. Marie, Maimouna, Yoko, Moumouni, and I depart from Galmi at 6:30 arriving at 9 a.m. We had tea and carrot cake with Ruth and Lois. At about 9:30 the eclipse started. We took are trusty little solar shades and went outside to take a peek. As it was going to be an hour before the total coverage we went back inside and carried on with our meeting. We sang our new song about washing hands, face, eyes, and feet, to the tune of Row, Row, Row your boat. It's a simple little ditty that the children and women will enjoy. Then we had some skits to share that hopefully make people aware of their values and how that affects their lives. That was fun to see what each group has come up with. We talked about different difficulties we have with the villages. Struggles are similar.

In between each item we'd slip outside to check on the progress.
I shared a lesson on team building using the animal characters to show the types of behavior that are not conducive to team building. We evaluated what we thought of each other. I didn't spend anytime on positive behavior, that will have to be done at another time.

There it happened: the Total Eclipse of the Sun. I'm not sure what those other rings are in the picture.

As it was occurring the weather go cold; I had goose bumps. It was a bit breezy and strange. People were outside on the streets as usual. Then they were sending children inside as they had been told to do on the radio.

That's as dark as it got; like at dusk just before it's totally dark. That was at 10:30 a.m. It's truly amazing to observe God's handiwork. It's a great reminder that everything God made and the way it was made was very intentional. Creation is not something random at all.

After the moon started to move off the sun, we went back and finished up our meeting. We enjoyed a meal of rice & beans, with lamb. Then everyone was free to do whatever until we'd depart for Galmi at 4:30. We made it back safe and sound at 7:00 p.m. The rest of the day was hazy; even though we were driving in the west we did not see the sunset due to the haze. Hope tomorrow is a sun shiny day --both inside and out, and for you and me! Many blessings.

Total Eclipse of the Sun

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Maradi with my team (five of us) to view the eclipse. Maradi is in the 100% strip. That means there should be darkness, which is estimated to be for 2.5 minutes. I'm excited about taking the team there and hope it will be a good time of being together doing something mostly none work-related. Team-building. Although we are going to meet up with the other team in Maradi who are involved in community development like we are. We'll have an exchange time, sharing recent happenings, new things we're doing, and I'll be doing a lesson on team building. This will probably be for 1-2 hours, after the viewing of the eclipse. Then we'll have free time for visiting and shopping. The drive to Maradi is about 2 1/2 hours and we hope to be back before dark which is around 7 p.m.

Pictures, Part II

Camel riding in Tchinta:

Lake Tabalak which is long, like 10 kms.

Darren with my friends in Magaria:

My friends in Lawaye, eating mangoes! Yummy, yummy.

Jamilou and Ouma, my daughter!

February, part I

This month has been full with Darren, my nephew, visiting me. First I went to Niamey to meet him at the airport on February 10. We spent a few days in the city visiting the National Museum, the open market and the supermarket, taking him to my routine places I visit and do my shopping. He didn’t get much of a Niger cultural exposures going to the American Recreation Center where we bought Nachos, Hamburgers, and Dr. Pepper. (Got me another case of 24, to split with Linda). On Monday, 13 Feb, we hired& filled a taxi along with a Swiss student nurse, who’s here for 6 months, with all our baggage and the co-op purchase and the ice chest of 10 pounds of fresh strawberries!

Darren has spent some of his time helping install some new computers and troubleshooting computer problems for others. He’s been a great asset for us. I’ve enjoyed having him hang out at my place, eat lunches and dinners with me, and set up my new laptop he brought. He’s taken lots and lots of pictures. I keep giving him suggestions of what to take as I’ll get a CD of the 1000+ pictures. Stuff I never get around to taking. My own photographer!

We made a weekend trip to Tchintabaraden, 30kms north of Galmi, on the edge of the desert (but still not desert). Bruce and Robin Walton live there with their 8 children ministering to the Tamajeq people. Sunday is market day, so after the church service we walked through the market. Darren bought all the necessary apparatus for making the Tamajeq green tea. (Maybe I can use these things when I’m on Home Assignment). Later he got to try some in the bush where we rode camels. The church is a small group of believers who meet under a millet stalk shelter. We sang in Hausa & Tamajeq. The sermon was in Tamajaq and translated in Hausa for us, and then I translated it to English of Ruth, a pediatrician from Rhode Island. Bruce translated from Tamajeq to English for Darren.

In the afternoon we drove 20kms out to an encampment where Bruce keeps his 5 camels. From there they had to go look for them and bring in the 3 males so we could have a ride. Ruth, Darren, and I were led around for a little bit. Then Darren, Bruce, and one of the older sons went riding. I followed on foot with the camera. The weekend was relaxing, being out of our usual environment and with a large family where we really enjoyed being together.

Pictures to come.

Happy New Year

It’s nearly a month since Christmas –my, how time flies! Much has happened this month. First we celebrated the New Year again with a joint Worship Service in Magaria. It’s good to be together since both groups are rather small.

As New Year’s was on Sunday, that meant we had Monday off. Silke, a German doctor, and I have a tradition now of making New Year’s Cookies together. I have raisins in mine and she fills hers with jelly. At 10 a.m., we invited everyone over to help us eat them. At 11:30 the plane arrived with 4 doctors. So they all came over for round two.


From January 11 to 17, I was in Niamey for our annual Spiritual Life Conference. Our speaker serves with Navigators in French speaking Canada and Africa. The theme was Discipleship and Disciple-Making. Stuff I have heard many times before, but really do need to think of how am I disciple-making anyway?


PDI ministry: We’re focusing on the importance of baby-weighting through awareness building meetings with the men and the women in our villages. We took two women and two men from the Magaria health community to help us do some skits. As they have had success in the community being involved in baby-weighing. This simple act of weighing a baby or child every month and marking it on the growth card really makes a difference in their health. The mothers are encouraged and persevere in care and they are also instructed what to do if the children isn’t gaining weight or is sick.


Puppies: They are each in their new homes in the village. It was sad for me to see them go but it had to happen. Two weeks ago, Linda and I took two of the puppies to their new owners. The next day another two. The third and fourth day they came and picked them up, except for one. Spark, the last to go, got to stay one more week. He really enjoyed having his mom all to himself. They both got into wrestling, Cali did so in such a gentle way. Now it’s just Cali and me. And it will be that way for a long while.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

It's a joyous time of the year all around the world, even here in Niger. This morning after having breakfast at my place with Linda, Yoko, & Leigh, we went to Magaria for the Worship service. We first had to get other car keys as the Landcruiser had a flat tire which wasn't surprising to me (I think we'll get a new tube). There was lots of congregational singing (much of which we missed out on). Yoko, Linda & I sang “Silent Night” in English & Hausa. The women marched in singing and then sang several more Christmas songs. The kids did some singing, the women a skit, and then the pastor preached on Luke 2. After the service we gathered as usual at the pastor’s house for some rice and sauce. Then us women did more singing. There were crowds of children both at the service and at the pastor’s house.



Now I’m home and getting ready for our English service with the missionaries on the compound at 5:30. Afterwards we’ll have Christmas goodies and visit.

Yesterday we had a compound dinner and then went to the hospital for caroling and sharing the Christmas story with the patients and their families.




I hope you’re all having a great holiday season sharing the Good News of Jesus with those around! Blessings.

It’s almost Christmas!

A good time of the year to reflect on the goodness of God and His amazing gift to us: His Son, Jesus Christ. What a most precious gift, the gift of Life. I’m so thankful that God in His kindness and love thought of us and thought good for us. What a sense of peace that gives. I hope that’s the same for you too.

These last ten days I have really slowed down, or was slowed down by a cough, turn cold, turn laryngitis, turn more coughing. When my voice started coming back I thought it’s nearly over. But today it doesn’t seem them way. So I need to keep myself slowed down.

My mornings I go to our PDI office from 8 to 11. As a team we have devotions together and review the previous day hashing over the issues at hand. Then we’ve been going through a book on community eye health development. It’s in story form so makes it interesting with questions and discussion points to talk about. We reached a point on Tuesday when we were talking about evaluations and decided we needed to do that with our villages. We’d like to do some special campaigns with village meetings to do awareness building. Awareness building is a way of getting people to think about their own situations and make action decisions. We’d like to see people take a more active role in the health of their children’s growth and development. But that’s our idea.

I only went bush on Friday (yesterday) as we are beginning training of five women to be maternal/child care givers. They are so receptive and quick to learn, it’s exciting to teach them. Mae, my colleague, does a great job teaching, too.

What I can’t slow down about is feeding Cali as often as she wants to be fed during the day. The puppies are all growing equally fast, their eyes are opened and they’re trying their legs out. They end up roll over each other, then they’re all piled together sleeping. Cali is protective, yet allows the children to play with them a bit. She doesn’t like you to go far with them.

EIGHT BLACK ONES

December 3, 2005 Cali gave birth to 8 little black puppies. It was a fun occasion to watch the birth that took place from 8-11:30 a.m. I had spent the night with Cali as she was in labor, panting most of the time. Neither of us got much sleep. I know it was a silly thing to do, but I knew I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at home. We set her up in the Palmer’s Patio which has been an idle place. The children on the compound love visiting her and the puppies. Cali has been most gracious with all the visitors, not growling but at her brother. Although now after 6 days she’s pretty tolerant. She likes getting away from the pups, walking around the compound, hunting for lizards, seeing if she can get more food at home, etc.

Here are some of the puppies at 5 days. The other pictures is Cali is labor.

Answers to your questions

Yes, those are the curtains you helped me make years and years ago.
The tablecloth is plastic with flannel backing.
I live on a compound with other missionaries. It's part of the hospital complex.

It's confirmed: Cali is going to have at least 4 puppies. She had a scan today by one of the doctors. I estimate somewhere between 5 to 10 days. The big question is where will she have them? She doesn't stay inside with me anymore, too much for her to do outside at night.

Some Pictures

At the dinner table working on emails and reading blogs! This is before the two dogs bounded in, jumping on me, thinking I'd give them a treat . . .and I did.










To the right --half of my kitchen and the backdoor. I was busy making yogurt and bread today. I also bought some beef filet and cut it up. Cali loves it when the meatman comes around.








My living room. My bookshelf has gotten quite full. I did bring a stack of new books back with me. So when am I going to be reading?

Below is my bedroom. Hmmm. It needs new curtains and some pictures on the wall. I still have work to do.

Where is Galmi?

It's above and to the right of the first giraffe's (on the left) head, between Konni and Madaoua. And Niger is in West Africa, north of Nigeria and borders on Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Algeria, Libya, and Chad.

Now in Galmi

Home Sweet Home. Home Dusty Home. Home Away From Home. Galmi!!! It’s a good place to be when it’s God’s direction.

I finally arrived on Friday, a day earlier than anticipated. The course on Sorting out the Supernatural, was cut short as the speaker had to return home on Tuesday. His wife had a heart attack and most likely would be needing surgery (but she didn’t). He said, “This is what ‘I do’ means.” We did have two days of teaching and I also bought 2 of his books, Sorting Out The Supernatural and Binding and Loosing. I tell you more along the journey.

I was warmly welcomed by everyone including both dogs, Cali and her brother, Wong Di. It does feel good to be here, now going on six days.

I’ve been going into work each morning and having devotions with the team. We’re also going through a book on community development, something I’ve done with other team members in the past. Today I will first go bush, to Magaria. I’m basically unpacked both the boxes I brought with me and those packed in the house. It just needs to be put in order, which I hope to do in the next 2 days.

I’ve been helping out Alicia who has a 5 week old baby and 3 other children. Kendrick went to Niamey for meetings that I should have gone to. So I go over at dinner time and stay until we’ve read stories – in French and translate them. They’re children’s story so it’s simple reading and more or less not too hard to translate. It’s a good exercise for us all.

Back in Niger

It's been five days now since I arrived in Niamey, Niger. My flight connections and baggage travel went without problems! Thank you, Lord!!!! I was surprised to see that all my excess baggage came with me, as in Paris airport I got to see the hiddened side of things. What a mess. It's amazing that our luggage arrives with us anytime we travel.

I'll be in the city for another week as I'm attending a seminar, "Sorting out the Supernatural". I met the speaker and I think this will be a really good course. There are 3 other Galmites who arrived today to attend.

Jet lag might be somewhat behind me -- it sure hasn't been easy this time. As I have to be up and going by 8 a.m. tomorrow I hope tonight's sleep will be uninterrupted.

Well, I'm just curious to know how many of you are reading this, for those of you who have my email. If you don't want to leave a comment, which I don't blame you, send a quick note. I understand that my house at Galmi now has it's own internet connection, broadband. Wow, can I handle this??

Ten-Three-Thirty

I have often used the verse in Psalm 119:11 “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee”, in teaching the importance of memorizing God’s Word. Three-Thirty was given as a challenge to us at the SIM Home Assignment Retreat in May this year. Ten-Three-Thirty is taking a portion or a chapter of scripture, like Psalm 23, and meditating on it for 10 minutes three times a day for thirty days. I did that with Psalm 23 and was very encouraged by having God’s Word right close to me in my thoughts throughout the day. I also did it with I Corinthians 13. I must say I didn’t always do 10-3-30 but it was often there. I’d like a challenge to anyone to join me for November in 10-3-30. You can pick whatever verse or chapter you’d like to do.

I have picked Psalm 16:8,9,11:
“I have set the Lord continually before me, because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices, my flesh also will dwell securely. Thou wilt make known to me the path of life, in Thy presence is fullness of joy, in Thy right hand there are pleasures forever.”

Notes on Patience

There are two important Greek words for patience:
Hupomone: patience in circumstances, inspired by hope
Makrothumia: patience with people, inspired by mercy.

We see in James 5:7-9, 11 and II Peter 3:9, 15 that the Lord is patiently waiting for the lost to repent.

We are called to patience. Colossians 3:12-13 and Ephesians 4:1-2 couple the word patience with the phrase “bearing one another”.

The completion of patience: From James 1:2-4, the practice of patience helps complete something lacking in us.
How could this be true in forbearance with people?

• They bring out the worst in us. . . so the best will come out.
  
• They keep us from thinking too highly of ourselves.
  
• They keep our pretenses from working.

This is what they are supposed to be doing. II Corinthians 4:10-12 : In any given relationship demanding patience, God could be working life in one person and death in the other.

This is a follow-up of a conversation I was having with Holly last night.

Dinner with the Aunts & Uncles

This afternoon I had the privilege of taking my parents to Ben & Etta's house. The siblings were getting together as Jeff & Chris are visiting from Oregon. It's so fun to watch the 4 sisters together. I should have gotten a picture of them as they were looking over mom's scrapbook of the family. Pictures of their grandparents and so forth. The men were watching football. At the dinner table I was able to wing the conversation around to --you guessed it --dogs. We all got to telling stories about our dogs. It got started as they were first talking about grandchildren not behaving the same way at the grandparent's house as they do at the parent's house. I could definitely relate to this as my Cali doesn't behave like a beggar at my friend's house while we're eating. She knows not to sit and drool. But with me, not so. She knows she can get by with drooling as she'll get rewarded with the leftovers. Oh well, someone has to eat them and she's no worse the wear.