Medical Outreach to Katsina and Kano

The Northern part of Nigeria is a very different place to Jos where I live and work.  The climate is different with increased heat and humidity, the landscape is different, with dry, dusty and desert-like conditions and the culture and way of life is very different, being predominantly an Islamic area with a number of the Northern states operating Sharia law.  Despite the climate and conditions not sounding all that inviting, the North is somewhere I have wanted to visit since I have been here in Nigeria.  A number of the other SIM missionaries here also wanted to visit the North and so during the Hillcrest (the missionary school in Jos) Easter break we made a trip up to the North.

The trip was organised by Dustin one of the missionaries on my compound.  Part of his ministry is to do outreaches to rural areas to support the work of the pastors in those villages.  He does these outreaches in various parts of Nigeria but the most challenging and interesting places he goes to are in the Northern part of Nigeria.

So, on Saturday 27^th March 2010 eight missionaries and four Nigerians (who work for City Ministries) set out from Jos to the Islamic states of Katsina and Kano to do outreaches in three different villages.  We travelled in a minibus and in Dustin’s 4X4 taking with us all of our food, equipment to camp and medical supplies to be able to provide medical care for people in the villages.  Our first destination was the City Ministries care centre at Malamfashi in Katsina state, about 5 hours north of Jos.  The road was not bad and we soon made it to the care centre where we unloaded part of our things and rested for a while.  We then made our way to the first village called Dogon Dawa where we would do an outreach.

When we got there we were greeted by the pastor and a number of the church members.  The whole village was excited and the children were all keen to see the strange white people that had come to their village.  They just stood and stared to start with but then became braver and were able to join in the games that some of the team started to play.  It didn’t take much for them to get scared of the white people though and a number of times the crowd would just scatter as one of the white people started to chase one of the children.  The village adults that were sitting around took great enjoyment at this and there was a real fun atmosphere with different games being played, bubbles being blown and people just chatting and laughing.  The plan was to show a film that evening and to advertise that fact that we would be giving free basic medical care the next day.  So we  set about arranging the film equipment and putting up the screen, using a ladder made from a few planks of wood loosely nailed together.  It took about three people to hold the ladder together whilst one person climbed to the top to secure the screen to the wall of the church.  Whilst this was going on we gave some of our food supplies to some of the locals for them to cook a meal for us.  They were very pleased to be able to help and after a while a piping hot pot of Jolof rice was delivered to us.  Later we showed a number of Gospel films which the villagers seemed to enjoy a lot.

It was then time for us to go to bed so we set up our sleeping mats inside the church, shut the doors so we were not stared at all night by the children of the village and settled down for the night.  Despite the odd bit of loud snoring from Stefan, the night went quickly and before we knew it it was time to get up.  It was Sunday morning so there would be a church service and then we would do our first session of medical care.  The service was conducted in Hausa so was pretty difficult to understand but it was interesting to see the effect having white people in the church had.  There were loads of children in the church who would not have normally been there, but they were just intrigued to see what the white people were up to.  After the service we started to give out the treatment cards which entitled people to treatment.  We were only able to give out 50 cards as our time was limited before we had to leave, so once the cards had been given out we began to see patients.  Victor, one of the Nigerians with us, is a nurse and he was the one consulting.  I took the role of blood pressure taker and then others became the pharmacists and general handy people.  Others in the group were busy keeping the children outside occupied with games and other activities.  It took us about 3 hours to get through all the patients and then it was time for us to leave.  We packed up all our things and headed back to Malamfashi.  On the way we greeted some of the local pastors and people at a former SIM mission station.  It was interesting to see the place that SIM missionaries used to work before work was handed over to Nigerian missionaries instead.

When we got to the Malamfashi care centre we set up our camps for the night, in tents and in some of the rooms that were available.  We also took the chance to have a wash.  However, we were not sure whether we would be cleaner or dirtier after the wash when we saw the colour of the water that had come from the well.  But, despite the colour it did feel good to get some of the dust and dirt off our bodies, or at least change the dirt on our bodies!!   After a good night’s rest we were up bright and early ready to travel even further North to the border of Niger.  We were joined by Mama Zachary that morning who is a nurse who works for City Ministries in that area.  She was to travel with us for the rest of the trip.  The landscape continued to get more and more desert-like the further north we went and it was a real excitement to see camels wandering around at the side of the road.  Dustin had told us that we were going to within a stone’s throw of the Niger border and although we trusted him, we were still amazed when we arrived literally within a stone’s throw from Niger.  When we arrived at the village we greeted the Pastor there and started to unload all our things.  He had a very nice walled compound and so despite the harsh environment outside the house and the church seemed very homely.  We were glad of this because we would be staying at the church for two nights.

We decided that there was really no point in wasting time and so once we had gone to greet the village chief and also the Nigerian customs men that had an outpost just across the road from the church, we began to distribute cards for people to be treated.  I once again took blood pressures and everyone else took up their various different roles.  We did this for a few hours and then once we had seen everyone with a card we started to prepare for a puppet and film show.

The other side of the road from the church was a large open area.  So we decided to drive the van onto the area and set up the puppet show stage and the film equipment there.  One of the Nigerians who was with us is a very good puppeteer and he had brought his puppets with him.  He had a number of songs that he would sing with puppets and they would dance along.  It was really great fun and the children sat half afraid and half amazed at what they were seeing.  The puppeteer was really good at getting the children engaged and they had a great time.  They had never seen anything like it and probably won’t ever again.  After this we showed some evangelical films before packing the equipment away and heading to bed.

The next day we did more medical care and managed to see over 100 people.  After people had received their medical care they were asked if they would like to be prayed for by someone.  It was amazing the number of people that took up this offer.  It was even more amazing to hear the questions that these people had.  A lot of the women there had heard the message of Jesus on radio programmes that are broadcast into the area, but had never had anyone to ask questions to, so they were able to take this opportunity to ask the things they had wondered about for a while.  It was great that they felt able to ask these questions and that the medical care that we had provided had been able to open the door for them to ask them.  That evening we did another puppet show and film show before once again heading to bed.

The next day we once again rose early, but this time got our things together ready to leave.  Our departure was a little delayed by the fact that we found a man outside riding a camel.  We managed to ask him if he would mind some of the group riding the camel.  So one after the other people climbed on and off the camel.  Unfortunately the camel became tired from all the standing up and down before everyone was able to have a go.  But it was a lot of fun watching the people’s faces as they went up and down in the camel.  After all the excitement we were then soon on the road again, heading towards Kano for a rest day.

It took us 3-4 hours to reach Kano and we were due to stay at the ECWA guesthouse.  However, due to some strange rules that they have we were not able to stay there without having to pay ridiculously high prices to have a room each.  So after a bit of negotiating we managed to get one room for half a day so that we could at least have a shower.  So the guys took the opportunity to wash up in the room while the girls went to the house of an SIM missionary couple to get washed up there.  Once we were all clean some of us went into the busy bustling market of Kano to pick up some more medical supplies.  This was quite an experience. I thought the market in Jos was busy and lively but in Kano it was amazing.  The narrow streets were filled with people walking, pushing carts and driving motorbikes as vendors sold their huge variety of different wares.  It was a shame that we did not have any more time to explore a bit more but we had a very important place to go.  We were going to ‘Pizza Hot’ a renowned pizza restaurant in Kano.  It apparently has pizza better than at home, so we had to go to find out.  It was a really nice place with air conditioning and a wide variety of pizzas to choose from.  What was even better was that we were able to use the money we had saved from not staying at the guesthouse to pay for our food.  The only downside of that was that now we had to make our way to the village at after 8pm in the evening so we had somewhere to sleep.  As we made our way there we needed to get some bread for the next two days.  It was amazing that along the roads out of Kano there were bread stalls about every 50 meters.   All with generators lighting up their produce.  We stopped to get some bread and then later on stopped to get some more water.  We eventually made it to the village by about 10pm and after resting for a short while we set up our sleeping places for the night.

The next day the guys had to get up early to go and greet the village head.  We thought that this would be just a formality and we would be back in time for breakfast.  However, as soon as we got out of the van to meet the village head I got a strange feeling that things were not going to run smoothly.  Unlike in the previous places we had been he didn’t seem to be pleased to see us.  He didn’t offer to shake our hands or anything.  He told us that he was pleased we were there and that it was within his power to let us go ahead and do the medical care, but he needed to check with his district head first.  So, we then all got back into the van, along with the village head and made our way to the District heads office.  As we travelled there I sent a quick text message to the group back at the village asking them to start praying for the situation.  When we reached the District head the village head went to speak to him and then they called us in.  Everything was conducted in Hausa so I don’t really know what was said, but in the end it turned out that we would need to go to the State department of health in Kano in order to get approval there before we could do the medical care.  So, the next stop was the local government headquarters to pick up someone from the local government health department who could take us to the State health department office in Kano.  When we got here the pastor and the village head went in and after a while came out and asked us to join them.  We went into an office and sat down and the person behind the desk began to speak to us in very good English.  It was obvious that he was not originally from the area and judging by his name was from the south of Nigeria.  It turned out that he was the head of State security for the local government.  He told us about how he has previously spoken to the village and district heads and encouraged them that when people, whether Christian or Muslim, come to help develop their area and people they should allow them to do the work they want to do.  He said it will benefit them all in the long run.  However, despite this he said he had no power to allow or stop us from doing the work and we had to follow what the village head had said.  This left us with a decision.  Did we continue to try and do the things that the village head wanted us to do, which would probably takes hours and might not even be successful, or should we give up on the idea of doing a medical outreach and do something else instead.  We came to the decision that it was not worth making the 2 hour trip back to Kano as we only had today to do the outreach so we decided to do things to encourage the church members in the village instead.  We had quite a lot of extra food that we had not used during the trip and as it was our last day before leaving we decided we would cook a meal for the church members as a way of encouraging them.  So we spent the day playing with the children in the village and then set up the equipment for a puppet and film show.  Before the films we had a short service in the church and after that we served the church members with the meal of Jolof rice and Yam that had been prepared.  It was a great experience being able to share with the church in this way and to be able to serve them their food.  Hopefully this was an encouragement to them.  We then had the puppet show and a film show before we headed to our beds for our last night in a village.

The next day we packed up our things early and then were on the road, heading back to Jos.  The first part of the journey was pretty uncomfortable for me as I was half sitting on a fold down chair squashed between three people and the door of the van.  The part of the seat I was sitting on also consisted of a metal hinge that I managed to hit my coccyx on every time we went over a bump.  I was very relieved when some of the people we had given a lift to got out at Kano and I was able to have a whole fold down seat to myself!!  The journey went on but was slowed down by one stretch of road where there were over 10 police checkpoints in about 15km.  It was pretty annoying having to stop for each one but it was made not so bad when we were told that the reason these stops were here was to stop armed robbers from attacking people on this stretch of road.  We got through this stretch and then after about 6 hours from our start we made it back to Jos.  We were all looking forward to a nice shower to clean the grime off ourselves but unfortunately we found that we did not have any water in the tanks at Challenge.  We also didn’t have any NEPA either, so this meant we had to hook up the generator and pump water up to the tanks at the top before we could take a shower.  Not what we really needed after a long trip, but we got it done and then we were able to have our showers and rest.

It had been an amazing trip with ups and downs.  We were very pleased that there had been a lot of Harmattan (dust from the Sahara) during our trip as this meant that the temperatures were significantly less than they usually are at that time of year.  We had worked well together and the trip had been a great success.  During the trip one Fulani man had decided to give his life to Christ and also the ladies in the second village had been able to ask questions about Jesus that they had not previously been able to ask.  Also, in the last village, despite not being able to do the medical outreach, we really felt that God was in control and the meal that we were able to provide for the church members was hopefully a great encouragement to them.  We also hope that we made an impact on the village as a whole by showing that we were able to share the message of Jesus’ love despite not being allowed to do the medical outreach.  We really pray that the effects of our short visits to each of these villages will be to open the people’s eyes to the love that God has for each and every one of them and to encourage them to investigate this more through the pastors who are working in those villages every day.

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