by Tina | Mar 23, 2016 | Devotional
Yesterday was one of the “memorial days” for our journey to Nigeria. March 22, 2012 was the fateful day that we were on our way back to the airport to embark on our “missionary adventure”. After deciding that, Yes, this is where God wants us, we can’t do it ourselves, the job is too big for us, for anyone. Art and Dorothy assured us that what they have done the past 10 plus years was listen to God’s leading and people were helped and God was glorified. We decided that, yes, we could do that!
We were excitedly talking about the mission trips we would have and the groups we could get to come help us when we rolled up to that fateful “check point” that wasn’t a check point. It was an attempted robbery.
It was a confusing day, it was the longest day of my life thus far BUT it was a good day. Let me tell you why March 22 is a “pile of rocks” memorial in our lives. That was the day that God spoke to each of us clearly and loudly amidst the confusion, fear, and blood He said, “This is where I want you, I will take care of you”. Immediately we were assured of His plan and we knew we were going to be okay.
Even amid Boka Haram violence, Ebola scares, and tribe riots we have not had fear. God already told us and showed us that He had our backs and He was in control of EVERYTHING.
My leg healed about 8 months after the incident, Jim’s head and thigh healed up, Peter’s hand has nerve damage and he can’t move his ring finger or little finger but it is usable and healed. Does Peter fear driving now and those check points? No, he travels hundreds of miles a month most months and is the same cheerful, singing, talking Peter the Driver that he was before.
What if we would have taken this unusual way to start our missionary career as a sign from God that Nigeria was not where God was calling us? What if we had not listened and let fear get in the way of His assurance? I tell you this, WE would be the ones missing out.
It is an amazing thing to stand back and see God work, sometimes through you, sometimes through the people around you. Working in people’s hearts and lives. Do we just stand back and watch here in Nigeria? No! It was a lot of work to get here and every day there are hard decisions to make and a lot of things to do. I just think what if we weren’t here? Not only would we be out of God’s will, but so would the people that God wants to use here.
I know I am kind of rambly today, but I do have a point. My point for today is this: Are you listening? If God told you to do something or go somewhere would you and your spouse know that it was God? Would you do it? I have to tell you something, in Dan’s and my marriage God has always worked on both of us at the same time. I can name so many instances that we were at the same place at the same time and knew it was God. Then we took the next step. Straight Ahead, as our dear friend, Pastor Joel says!
by Tina | Mar 17, 2016 | Devotional
John 4:14 – But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 7:37-38 – On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’
Two weeks ago we had “retired” missionaries Bernie and Lily Lemke visit us. I took a trip with them to visit a community that they did a water project in. The town was Missamari. This is a picture of Amino and some children by the well that was installed there. People from miles around come and get water there. We also visited the very muddy stream where the people used to get all of their water from.
Believe me, people, since moving to Nigeria I have recognized the importance of clean water. Looking up statistics shocked me though. As a middle-class American growing up, I have never even thought about not having water. Even in the 70’s when we had to conserve energy, water was another thing my family conserved as well.
Here are some facts that I hope shock you. REMEMBER THIS IS 2016!
With a population of over 150 million people, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Political unrest, poor governance and corruption have led to decades of water shortages, while the population has increased rapidly.
Though there is surface and ground water, rapid population growth, particularly in urban areas, has not been supported with additional resources. Only 11% of people have access to safe sanitation and 42% live without access to clean water.
Funding for water, sanitation and hygiene is low and there is little coordination within the government.
Improving hygiene behaviour is vital if the full benefits of access to water and sanitation are to be realised.
In Nigeria, hygiene is not widely seen as a big health risk, making it a more difficult issue to address. 68% of the population has no access to a toilet and it is these communities that face a higher risk of disease from poor hygiene standards.
A lack of awareness, education and a culture of hygienic living make changes in the community slow and complicated. Often knowledge about hygiene does not transfer into practice very quickly.
Around 700,000 children die every year from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation – that’s almost 2,000 children a day.
1 in 9 people world- wide do not have access to safe and clean drinking water.
443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.
In developing countries, as much as 80% of illnesses are linked to poor water and sanitation conditions.
Half of the world’s hospital beds are filled with people suffering from a water-related disease.
Girls under the age of 15 are twice as likely as boys to be the family member responsible for fetching water.
Over half of the developing world’s primary schools don’t have access to water and sanitation facilities. Without toilets, girls often drop out at puberty.
It turns out that water is pretty important to our bodies and to this world! Isn’t it?
God knew that, I think that is why there are so many verses about living water in the Bible. I am still learning and growing, but I hope at the end of my days people can say this about me, “She was like a drink of cold water on a hot day” or “Joy gushed out of her like a spring of living water.”
Thought for today: How about you? Do you gush forth anything? What is it?
by Tina | Mar 8, 2016 | Devotional
Friends, I want to share with you just ONE of the challenges we are facing as we are serving our community here in Gembu. This week I saw something I had never seen before (pictured here) I was heartbroken for this poor woman as she is in much pain and now the Kaposi’s Sarcoma is starting to affect her other hand! This woman has been treated at another facility here in our area. The recommended treatment for this cancer is to change your HIV medications from first line to second line medications. This poor woman has been suffering with this for about two years and has never had her medications changed! This has made her hopeless as you can imagine. She came to us for help.
I am angry because this is negligence. I am angry because these are real people’s lives that are being affected. I am angry because these sort of things happen here many times over and life is not valued here. I am angry because line 2 drugs are usually more expensive than line 1, even though facilities in our area get free medications for the HIV/AIDS patients that are being treated, they may not always get the right medications. I am angry because last week we found handfuls of antiretroviral medications lying on the ground in front of our office from people who came for testing, got the correct medications, and threw them there as if to say, “I don’t need these.”
Here is what I learned about Kaposi’s Sarcoma and I know the next time I see it I will know what it is and how to pray for the person affected.
Due to weakened immune systems, people with HIV are more likely to develop certain cancers. AIDS is a later stage of HIV infection where most severe cases of Kaposi’s Sarcoma occur. Surprisingly, though, Kaposi’s Sarcoma of the skin can also occur earlier in infection. It is a sign the immune system is being suppressed. The good news is that anti-HIV drugs have caused an 80% to 90% drop in the rate of KS cases since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Also treating the virus itself is the best way to treat KS, especially early on.Researchers have discovered that Kaposi’s Sarcoma is caused by a herpes virus, called Human Herpes Virus 8 (HHV-8). Affecting eight times more men than women. Keeping your immune system strong with antiretroviral therapy (called HAART) is the best-known way to prevent Kaposi’s sarcoma. In many cases, HAART is the best way to treat active Kaposi’s sarcoma. It may even clear up the skin lesions.
Friends, please pray for us as we teach, train, and encourage our staff and hire new staff for our growing needs. Pray as we are building and serving our community here. Pray for the people of our area here on the Mambilla Plateau to have Satan’s blinders removed from their eyes so they can see the true love of Jesus and His healing power.
Point for Today: Is there anything in your life that Satan may be blinding you to these days? Pray about it.
by Tina | Feb 26, 2016 | Devotional
These past few weeks have been so busy! Believe me I don’t believe busy is a bad thing, it is good. This means things are happening here in Gembu!
This picture shows you part of our compound where we are clearing trees to build (squee!) our maternity and surgery building. This was a beautiful area, beautiful towering eucalyptus trees, ferns, sisal. I loved it there and have taken many pictures in that area.
Have you ever noticed how progress or growth is often messy? I have! Remodeling, building, moving to a new location – chaos seemingly. I used to wonder at different stages in our life if we would ever achieve the project we were working on because I just couldn’t see the end product. God knew what He was doing when He allowed me to marry a man who CAN see the end product. For over a year now Dan has been telling me where and how these spaces are going to look on our compound here in Gembu, because he can see them. When he looks out over our trees and grounds he SEES buildings. My brain does not comprehend this AT ALL, but after over 30 years of being married to this man, I trust him and know that if he says it’s going to be good, it’s going to be good!
Because I dislike change of any sort, remember I am the girl who never moves furniture, changes paint color, re-arranges anything, because I like it the way it is. In my own power I would be living in the same house, with the same job, with the same friends, the life I knew and loved. The safe life. I just have a hard time seeing change!You know with building, really you need to have a blueprint or some sort of a plan. SOMEONE needs to be able to visualize the end product to get you through the mess!
Do you feel as if your life is a little messy right now? Are you trying to help messy people in this journey here on Earth? Friends, life is messy and I hate to say it but ministry is even messier! We are all broken people in a broken World.
My point for today is this: Remember God sees the big picture. He knows where we are going, He knows that right now there is a mess, He is building something better, something beautiful in us. Don’t get stuck in the mess!
by Tina | Feb 1, 2016 | Devotional
The tree that cannot shed its old leaves in the dry season, cannot survive the period of drought. ~Nigerian proverb
We are now in Harmattan season here in Nigeria. Wikipedia describes this season as “usually a dry and dusty period associated with low humidity. As a result, the weather is harsh to the hair as well as the skin”.
The picture is ants literally sucking all the moisture they can from any source they can find. They are crawling up the tree trunk to reach the leaves and flowers. It is very dry here and the dust is very fine. There will be no moisture until April or so. It seems like most people here are suffering from Catarrh, Catarrh is an unpleasant nasal congestion with a build-up of mucus, usually in the nose, throat, or chest. This is just one of the infections that bother people during this time of year. Dan’s asthma has decided to act up a bit as well.
Well, last week I sat down to blog and to tell you the truth, I was as dry as a bone. I had not one good thing that came to my mind. I was wondering what in the heck am I here for and really am I affecting anyone positively in any way? I don’t have anything to say that anyone would want to hear.
My nose itches, my eyes are gritty, my skin is so dry, I have to wear socks at night so I don’t maim Dan! Worse than the dryness of everything external was the dryness I was feeling in my spirit, down in my deepest part. I really didn’t even realize that it was soul dryness until I actually laid down yesterday and prayed for a while and took a very long nap. I really had a weird feeling of anxiousness this past week and couldn’t figure out what my problem was. I went about doing what I usually do, but just a weird feeling that something was not right.
I get fed a lot through music. We go to church here in Gembu, and to tell you the truth, frequently we do not get much out of the message and the songs and prayers don’t really fill us as they are not familiar. As I was praying I remembered that my tablet has not connected with the blue tooth speaker for close to two months now. I have not had the music that fills me and keeps me focused on Him throughout my day and my soul is missing it. It took my brain a while to figure it out! Today I will ask Dan to check and see what the problem is so I can get music again that I so enjoy. The book I am reading right now is great, a wonderful book on leadership, but nothing that touches me spiritually, more on leadership skills and not soul care.
My thought for today is this: Are you dragging buns throughout your weeks? Is there something that fills you? Something that makes you happier, healthier, focused on Him? Are you doing it? Do you realize how important it can be to your attitude, to life?
by Tina | Jan 21, 2016 | Devotional
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will. — Romans 12:2
Last Thursday and Friday here in our hall at GECHAAN we had our very first Global Leadership Summit. You see, for many years Dan and I were privileged to be able to attend a live satellite event and spend two days focusing on building our leadership capacity and skills.
We were listening to Bill Hybels talk about “God’s big task for you” in 2011, when we realized that God was indeed asking us to move out of our comfort zones and do something different. Dan wrote on his piece of broken pottery, “I am willing”, I wrote, “I am willing to stay or go”. Two months later we were asked to pray about coming to Nigeria and we knew that this was where God was leading us on our “big task”. You see the Summit experience has a very special place in our hearts and WE had experienced it before.
We assembled a team in our community to help us get the word out and invite community and church leaders to the event. Dan worked on this for months. We tried to explain the best we could and show our team clips from the summit. But unless you have seen something with your own eyes and truly experienced it, it is hard to explain and equally hard to understand how you can benefit or tell anyone else how they can benefit.
Dan and I were praying for at least a hundred people. We knew people would really benefit from listening and taking notes from such speakers as Bill Hybels, Jim Collins Horst Schulze, Albert Tate, Craig Groeschel. This year, for the first time that we remember there was a Nigerian speaker as well, Sam Adeyemi, the Founder and Senior Pastor of Daystar Christian Centre in Lagos.
Well, Thursday morning bright and early we set up for at least a hundred people. We knew people were really going to benefit and it is always a little interesting doing something totally new (which is the theme of our past couple of years it seems). We started on time and throughout the morning people drifted in. We had 37 people total attend our Global Leadership Summit in Gembu here.
Were w
e disappointed? At first I think, but the response and way that the participants were so blown away by the quality of speakers and what they learned about leading in their different areas of work was so awesome! To see heads shaking affirmatively and hear their insights was so awesome!
The biggest complaint is that they thought more people should have been there to experience this. Our next summit will be held in November and we believe there will be many there, just from the word of mouth from the people who took our words on faith, that they would gain from this experience.
This is a report on how our first summit experience in Gembu went, but I also have a point for this week as well: One of my favorite sayings from a talk I loved from years ago was, “Pigs don’t know pigs stink”. Think about it, you don’t know what you don’t know! Never take an opportunity that you have to learn for granted. Learn all you can, take the time to process your thoughts and move forward!
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