Sano from Faith Alive, Jos, Nigeria!
I attend a church here – United Baptist Church. The services this past Sonday were short – only three hours long. There is an exuberance in worship here that I just love! It is some of the most living worship that I have ever been blessed to experience. It invites you to fully release yourself to BABA (Father God). The Pastor is preaching a series on church growth. Hum-m-m sounds familiar – doesn’t it, Willie? On Sonday evening I go to the Faith Alive Support Group – people who are living positively who get together to praise God and to encourage each other. Again, the worship cannot be described – only experienced.
On a fun note, Blessing (she runs the sewing training center for Faith Alive) has completed several of my dresses and so I am able to wear clothing that is not only much cooler than my skirts and t-shirts but is prettier and a lot more fun to wear. All my friends here say that now I look Nigerian – I am just glad that now I do not look so underdressed to be working at the clinic. (They all dress so professionally – even the women in records!)
Monday morning I was back at Faith Alive working with Ayo (the program Manager) in the morning and with Hannatu (the financial Manager) in the afternoon. On this morning I waited outside in the breezeway for Ayo and started playing with Noro, a five-year-old girl I had met at the support group. Noro asked for my Biro (pen) and took a piece of my paper and started teaching two little boys who were hanging around in the area to read. I told them the stories connected with my His-Story and my Lord’s Prayer bracelets and they loved them. By the time that Ayo was ready for me I had a number of children around me all wanting to hear my “rosaries” again.
When I joined Hannatu I got a pleasant surprise. Her three-year-old nephew, Godslight (Gods light), was with her. I didn’t get much accounting done, but he and I had a great time. I played “Itsy-bitsy spider” and “This Little Piggy” with him as he shouted with laughter. I gave him a green bal-balloon that he would blow up a little bit and I would squish it making his cheeks puff out. He loved that. Then he wanted me to blow up his bal-balloon and I could not do that. Godslight was born positive. His mother tested positive shortly after his birth and she has since died of AIDS. Godslight lives with another of his aunts who has also recently tested positive – possibly infected from taking care of Godslight. He is already on the ARV’s. I am always aware that these children are different and I cannot play with them like I play with the children at home. I cannot tell you how difficult that is for me.
On Wednesday I went to the orphanage that partners with Faith Alive. Orphanages are a new thing in Nigeria. In the past when a child was orphaned and there wasn’t family to take him in, then another family in the village would. But with the increasing number of children orphaned by AIDS, this tradition is totally inadequate to meet the need. In the main room cribs were lined up four across and three deep, with even more against the walls. One this day there were only four children, but Matron told us that there are many times when the three women who work there are dealing with 25 to 30 babies and children.
Thursday morning I was once again with Dr. Ogbeh. I think that this is my favorite time of the week – the time I get to spend with the children. I spent a lot of time filling out the pediatric pharmacy slips so that the children can get their next month supply of ARV’s. A little girl came in and gave me a great big smile from behind her mama’s side. I waved at her and then looked down at her file. Her name was Jovita. I asked Dr. Ogbeh, “Is this the same Jovita we saw last week?’ Dr. Ogbeh looked at the file, “Yes, this is her.” The limp little girl who had to be carried in by her mother last week, the one that I wondered if she would even live had made an amazing turnaround. Because of the ARV’s and the family being given a simple water purification system for the home, a dying child was given a future. Then Emily came in – was carried in. Emily was born positive. Her mother, frightened of the backlash if her husband knew, had been secretly bringing Emily in to Faith Alive – but two months ago Emily’s mother died from AIDS and nobody knew to bring Emily to Faith Alive. A neighbor, who partners with Faith Alive, came to visit the family. The father showed Emily to the neighbor who immediately recognized what was wrong. Because Emily had been off the ARV’s, the virus had progressed with lightning speed through her little body and had lodged in her brain giving her seizures and leaving her what appeared to me as comatose. The neighbor immediately brought Emily in (the father refused to come). At no time during the examination did I feel that Emily was with us – just her still-breathing body. Faith Alive is not set-up for critical cases such as Emily’s and so Dr. Ogbeh referred her to a hospital in Jos. This morning (Friday) as I attended the daily devotion for staff and patients I asked Dr. Ogbeh about Emily. She was in the process of leaving to go and see Emily at the hospital where she had been admitted into intensive care.
It was just a short time ago when I would have bypassed a story about AIDS in Africa to read the latest on Paris Hilton being cold and hungry in jail. At Faith Alive, I am learning what is real in this world. Now when I read the statistics on AIDS in Africa they are not going to be numbers to big for me to comprehend. They are going to be Godslight, Blessing and her sons, Jovita, Emily, the mama and her newborn child, the children who take so much pleasure in their snappies and bal-balloons and a long list of people I know, all of whom own a piece of my heart. What is real in this world is not Paris Hilton, it is the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab techs and staff of Faith Alive who fight every day a battle that the world says they can’t win – but they won’t quit fighting.
Thank you so much for the notes from home – they help so much with the homesickness that I am experiencing. I miss you all so much – I did not realize how much I love you.
Until the Shout!
Valerie