Daring to Dream in Damaturu

It's not an impressive sight. When one drives (or most walk), up to the fellowship center of the believers in Damaturu, Yobe State, one wonders what is located here: an abandoned building, a room for animals, someone's uncompleted home. However, when one walks in to sit down, everything changes. Followers are meeting here and they sing with passion. The prayers of the disciples are inspiring as they are uttered in such austere conditions.

The thought first occurred to me to begin encouraging the believers in Damaturu in the fall of 2005 after our family moved to Maiduguri. Dr. Uche Eni, a servant among the Maiduguri followers, performed a week of surgery every month in the far northwestern Yobe State city of Nguru. Dr. Eni would always leave on the first day of the week and had to miss fellowship because of the distant journey from Maiduguri to Nguru. One day I proposed to Dr. Eni that I drive him to Damaturu (closer to Nguru) so that we could break bread with the disciples there. From then on, Dr. Eni and I developed a monthly routine when we would leave Maiduguri by 7:30AM on the week's first day, stop in Damaturu to rendevous our brothers & sisters, then I would drop him at the motor park to finish the final leg of his journey to Nguru.

It has been during these 2 1/2 years of visits to the fellowship in Damaturu that I first met Ebenezer Udofia. Ebenezer was the "Executive Agricultural Administrator" at RNT Farms in Damaturu covering 1.5 miles by 1.5 miles. As Dave Goolsby from Healing Hands International visited Maiduguri, I invited Ebenezer for some discussions. Dave was immediately sold on Ebenezer's credentials and encouraged me to request his services at the INTERCEP farm in Maiduguri. Graciously, Ebenezer recently covenanted to come on board our work with INTERCEP in Maiduguri by developing some livestock additions for our drip irrigation farm: poultry (broilers & layers), rabbits, & rams.

The most impressive site when one enters Damaturu is the new huge mosque just commissioned by the state governor in May of 2007. It is apparently the largest mosque in West Africa and the 2nd largest in Africa only to the Friday mosque of Cairo, Egypt. Damaturu is a state capitol that was commissioned when Yobe State was carved out of Borno in 1996. This immediately put Damaturu on the map and brought it out of obscurity to a commercial center. However, the overriding sense that one is overwhelmed with when one drives through Yobe State is desert poverty.

As INTERCEP has located a branch office in the northeastern Nigerian hub of Maiduguri, one must pass through Damaturu. There has been a fellowship there for a number of years but it has failed to mature due to a long line of proclaimers without the tenacity to endure the harsh conditions of this desert city. Now that Ebenezer is coming to serve with INTERCEP in Maiduguri, we will not forget our kindred spirits in Damaturu. We dare to dream that the Almighty has big plans to bless the brothers & sisters at Damaturu through agriculture, health care, skill acquisition, education, and in-depth discipleship. Won't you dare to dream with us at Arewa Aid to demonstrate compassion to these desert disciples?

Christmas At The Blakes

Under the Christmas Tree



















Opening Presents

Christmas Eve Dinner

Testing the Quality of Life

Do you notice a difference between Save-A-Lot groceries and Publix fare? How about filling up with generic fuel from 7-11 instead of Exxon? What about purchasing toys that are “Made in China” as opposed to “Made in the U.K.”? This is the dilemma that we face daily as we shop for household items, food, and most recently, building supplies in northern Nigeria. The passage of time teaches us much about how the quality of the materials with which we invest but also the context in which the choices are made.

When the idea was expressed that our farm needed a water reservoir, we immediately thought that a believer serving as an architect could do the job. Between the first estimate until the last dime was spent on the reservoir, the amount of money to be spent had doubled. This caused us little concern if the quality of the materials for the reservoir would stand the test of time. Therefore, after eight months, when Jen wrote in an e-mail that our reservoir had sustained a leak, we questioned the value of the supplies used in construction. The intensity of the desert heat, the ferocity of desert thunderstorms, and the cool desert dry season nights had offered a test that this cistern could not pass.

Unfortunately, this is not surprising in northern Nigeria where the average person lives on $1 a day. Therefore, when faced with a choice of purchasing building supplies that is imported or local, cheap or expensive, and non-guaranteed or guaranteed, the decision is an easy one to make. It’s a bit like asking someone in Nigeria to choose between buying infant formula for their baby or saving for their infant’s college fund. They can’t do both. Tough choices played out in these real life scenarios put one’s decision about the purchase of building materials into perspective.

When INTERCEP needed an office in Maiduguri, we rented a small storefront with no existing electrical apparatus. We had to start from scratch with the power company in purchasing a meter, registering the meter, and paying out first installment. The brother who made the arrangement was given the option of waiting through a 6 month process or getting a meter on the “fast-track” (off the books). We asked what our options were and we were told that practically everybody has to take the “fast-track” to get anything done with the power company. After being in this office for over a year, the power company threatened to cut our light if we didn’t produce a registered meter.

All of this illustrates the need for people to see a quality of life through a series of decisions made based on integrity. The INTERCEP drip irrigation site offers local farmers the opportunity to work through means that are affordable, practical, simple, and sustainable. The upcoming INTERCEP food preservation workshop offers the women of Borno State honest ways of keeping excess vegetable produce reducing waste. The 2008 INTERCEP agricultural addition of poultry, rabbits, and rams will train farmers in upright methods of small-scale livestock expansion of drip irrigation farms. As people envision a work ethic that produces a quality means of livelihood, they will be drawn to the One who gives meaning to all of life.

Counting the Cost

Wal-Mart seems a million miles away. The ease of walking into Home Depot and purchasing sheet rock, shingles, or tile fades like a distant memory. Everything in Nigeria is negotiable. There are no set prices except for “supermarkets” (one room dry-goods shops). The bottom line: the Nigerian customer is always judged by what they can pay not the value of the items to be purchased.

The research into the expenditures of drilling a bore hole (well) in northern Nigeria easily explain the lack of bore holes: commercial drillers estimate based on the customer’s pocket not the merit of the service to be rendered. Our first question into the bore hole maze surrounded the options available in pumping water from the depth of the first aquifer: hand-pump, gasoline generator, diesel generator, solar-power, wind-power. At the first committee meeting of the believers interested in a bore hole being drilled at our farm, one thing stood out: the idea of using a hand-pump in Maiduguri was comical. Then, Jen and I had horrifying anticipations of most of our financial resources being siphoned off into gasoline and diesel generators. Therefore, the sight of some solar-powered street lights began to give us hope that this was our best alternative for a bore hole pump.

However, when Jen and I looked into solar power as an option for electrical supply in our home, the cost was an outrageous $40K. An elder in Abuja working with the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Water Resources encouraged us to approach the Chad Basin Development Authority. After multiple visits to the offices of Chad Basin, we could merely receive an oral estimate on a solar-powered bore hole for $45K. A brother in Maiduguri thought he had friends in high places with the Borno State Ministry of Water. His visit to the state office of water resources yielded an estimate of $40K.

After these frustrating encounters, the fog was lifted through the intervention of Mac Safley, an agri-engineer from the University of North Carolina consulting with Healing Hands. As he sorted through our labyrinth of bore hole options, he asked a simple question: why not use Schedule 40 PVC pipe instead of stainless steel pipe? As it turned out, Mac further revealed that this would not be “stainless” but galvanized steel pipe anyway. This significantly reduced our cost into the $28K range out of the outrageous $40K zone. Bolstered by Mac’s ability to critique the current bore hole proposals in front of us, we felt confident to finalize our plans.

At our first drip irrigation workshop, one of our Borno State government participants, Ibrahim Ngamdu, vowed to help us with our solar-powered bore hole. Ibrahim offered the name and telephone information for Kunduli Mustapha, a solar engineer at the University of Maiduguri, who had drilled 4 bore holes in the state. We were duly impressed when Kunduli thoroughly read all of the information from Mac Safley and designed a solar well for our needs. In northern Nigeria, the proverb “It’s not what you know, but who you know” applies in a market of little supply and tremendous demand. May our ears be sensitive to the One who grants all wisdom as we interact with the good, the bad, and the underhanded.

Strengthening Weak Knees

I hate being sick. I never thought of myself as a very sickly person until coming to Nigeria. Malaria, typhoid, dysentery, diarrhea, and boils were only a handful of the illnesses to which I grew accustomed. Basically, we thought enduring bouts of bad health was just part of the job description of being a cross-cultural worker. Jen and I even started to appreciate the feverish moments to take it as a sign that we needed to slow down the pace of our work.

But then when we had Ibrahim, Rahamatu, and Musa, all this causal thinking about infection changed. Suddenly it wasn’t “bulletproof Brad” or “jagged Jen” getting sick but these little kids depending on daddy and mommy to get better. I still remember Dimis and Mary Mai-Lafia telling us to give our kids malarial treatment at the first sign of fever. So there I was ever-armed with children’s fever reducer, multi-vitamin mixes, and kid’s malarial remedies. Immediately after Rahamatu was born, I held her little arms and listened to her cries during a blood transfusion that still makes me shudder to ponder it.

Last week, I woke up feeling some pains in my right knee that I thought might have been from excessive walking on our farm. The pain gradually increased until morning I woke up to a tremendous pain behind my right knee and Jen looked at it in dismay saying, “That looks like a softball!” I immediately sent a text to Dr. Eni asking for some tips on urgent treatment. He recommended rest, elevation of the leg, an analgesic, and hot compresses on the swollen area.

After a week, I am still not able to walk normally but I can actually dress myself, walk stairs, and drive without too much pain. With another week of treatment, I expect to be walking without a hitch hailing the Lord’s healing grace.

The Almighty uses our feeble bodies and weak joints to teach multiple life lessons especially in a context like northern Nigeria. On the 3 rounds of treatment that I have spent this week, this would have been half the monthly salary of an average Nigerian worker. Most northern Nigerians endure infections like this until there is no other alternative than amputation. How desperately the indigenous people of northern Nigerian need health care delivered with compassion. With even greater desperation, medical treatment needs to be given with the gentle touch of the Great Physician.