Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Headed to Niger

As we wrap up time with family in Nebraska, we are growing with excitement everyday for our new adventure. We will head to Jammal, Niger on August 10th. We have spent the last 3 years in Wichita, Kansas where Nick completed his training in Family Medicine. He has chosen to do an additional year of training called an International Family Medicine Fellowship. The fellowship consists of a 6-week tropical medicine class in West Virginia, a 4 1/2 month stent abroad (we have chosen Jammal, Niger where fellows have gone for many years before us), and a final 5 1/2 months doing rotations in Wichita that will provide helpful training for future international work. These rotations include dentistry, ultrasound, burn care, and trauma. 4 other physicians are also doing this fellowship. A dear friend of ours, Parker, and pictured with us here will go to Niger with us on August 10th. The other 3 will do Wichita rotations in the fall and be abroad in the Spring.



A few things we have been learning about Niger...
  • The national language is French.  We have all (except for Charlie, he's still working on his English) been doing Pimsleur French lessons. If you want to expose your toddler/preschooler to a foreign language, we love Little Pim. Moriah likes to tells us "the panda says 'Au revoir!'" French is spoken in places of business, but most people in Niger primarily speak a tribal language called Hausa. Nick will always have a translator available to help him with language in the hospital.
  • Health Providers are rare.  For every 33,000 people in Niger, the country has 1 doctor.
  • Niger is twice the size of Texas and has a population of about 17 million.
  • 80% of the country is covered by the Sahara desert; the rest of the country has little to offer for natural resources, making Niger one of the poorest countries in the world. 68% of Nigeriens live on less than $1/day.
  • The infant mortality rate is higher than 1/10 births. The average fertility rate is over 7 babies/woman. If children do survive birth and early infancy, they are still at high risk of death from treatable diseases or malnutrition before school age. Life expectancy is 53 years.
  • The national literacy rate is 28%.
  • Niger is different than Nigeria! While we are very close to the border, Niger is considerably more stable and less dangerous.
  • We will have running water and electricity. The hospital and missionary housing is inside of a compound (think gated neighborhood) with western-style amenities.
  • Nick will spend much time treating malaria, typhoid, dehydration due to diarrhea, and malnutrition in kids. He will also deliver babies. Most mothers give birth at home, so the ones who come to the hospital have likely had previous complications.  Some may have already been in labor for over 24 hours and not seen any progress.  From our understanding, he will see babies, children, and adults die every day.
  • After spending time in the hospital being stabilized, malnourished children and their mothers move to a nutrition clinic. They live at the clinic where the children receive specialized diets to get them to a healthy weight and the mothers receive training on how to properly feed their children and keep them from getting preventable infectious diseases. I am hoping to spend some time in the nutrition clinic with women and children, possibly bringing Moriah and Charlie along as well.
  • According to wikipedia, 99% of people in Niger are Muslims. Unlike many muslim countries, Niger is accepting and welcoming to Christians. The hospital where Nick will work is overtly Christian.  Doctors, nurses, and other staff frequently pray with patients and share with them the hope we have in Jesus. Most patients have never heard that the Creator of the world loves them as a Father, is concerned with their life, and is pained by their suffering. This is certainly good news to them. Two Hausa-speaking churches openly meet in the village of Jammal, and one English-speaking church meets in the compound for missionaries. The hospital and the churches work closely together to care for people physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I will need to wear a head scarf while I'm out in the village, but it is more African in style than Muslim. I will always need to wear ankle-length skirts and keep my shoulders covered. (I did find out I can wear scrub pants to go jogging on the airplane tarmac! woohoo!!!)
We have limited experience interacting with Muslims, so we certainly have much to learn about the people who will be our neighbors this fall. But we look forward to serving God in this new way, being stretched outside our comfort zone. In America, so many people tend to deny God's existence, or if they acknowledge that, they want to deny Jesus' authority in their daily lives. From our understanding, our soon-to-be Nigerien neighbors are keenly aware of a God who created and sustains the world and recognize his authority over their lives.  Their name for this Creator/Sustainer God is Allah... and I'm not necessarily referring to the idea of a 6-day creation, but rather referring to the idea of a God who "has the whole world in His hands." ;) They follow Muslim traditions including the 5 daily calls to prayer. But where their understanding of God falls short (from what we know) is that they don't see Him being concerned with their daily life and suffering, and their ability to please Him stems from their adherence to religious rituals and observances. We know He cares about their physical suffering, and we want to be a part of the medical care that is an expression of His desire to see complete healing in their lives. We are humbled that we have the opportunity to share with them (or even just to work with people who will do the talking...) that God cares about their daily lives - He knows the number of hairs on their head and He gives them every breath they take. Not only does God care about their daily lives, but He sent Jesus so they can have the Father-Child relationship with Him for which we were designed. No adherence to daily calls to prayer or fasting can bring them close to God, just as no amount of church-going or tithing can bring us close to God. We strongly believe this sense of inadequacy before the God of the universe is deeply ingrained in every human being. We hope that as patients seek care at Jammal Hospital and interact with the Christian workers and volunteers there, they will come to realize they can hope in Jesus to make them pleasing to God. Everything else we do as Christians is an expression of our love for Jesus and our gratitude for His forgiveness, healing, and restoration. While we will never see complete healing of our lives and world this side of heaven, we rejoice that He may use us to give Nigeriens a taste of the healing and restoration He desires for them.