Sunday, June 29, 2008

Tales of Indescribable Amounts

Friends and Family,

The past few days I have spent exploring the town, meeting the huge community of missionaries here, and learning about the many different ministries in Jos. I am working for a group called City Ministries. City Ministries is HUGE and it would take me forever to explain it all to you, we have a website, so check it out if you want to read about it . . .the website is posted on the right hand side of my blog towards the bottom. Anyways, it looks like I am going to be assisting Nicky, a missionary from England. She works everywhere, so Friday I got to follow her around and learn all about City Ministry.

The first step or goal with City Ministries is to get street kids off the streets. There is a huge population of orphaned boys here in Jos. Some have been orphaned by aids, some aren't orphans in the usual sense, they maybe have ended up on the streets because they have been abused by a step father, or grandparent or someone else. One little boy, about 7 or 8 years old, ended up at the first center on Thursday, because his grandmother tried to hang him, and praise the Lord a woman walked by and cut him down and saved his life. You can still see the rope marks on his neck from where the rope was cutting him. I can't even imagine.

When boys are first taken off the streets they are taken to Gidan Bege which means House of Hope. Here the boys get schooling, and discipleship, they have 'uncles' who take care of them 24 hours a day. The boys stay here for 6 months, and the uncles see if the boys will adjust to life off the streets. Some run away, some steal . . . so Gidan Bege is a trial period. If they make it the 6 months they are taken to Geyro, where I will be mainly working. Geyro is a town, 45mins outside of Jos. Here the ministry was able to purchase a large plot of land where they now house 70 boys and 13 girls. All the kids go to school, have discipleship and have 'aunts' and 'uncles' who take care of them.

Once the kids reach high school age, they are then taken to Transition House, a home in Jos. Here the boys go to high school and get internships to help transition them into life after school.

After high school, many of the boys, do internships, or go to Bible school, or join YWAM.

The ministry really aims at reconciling children with their families. So at any time during this process, the uncles and staff work hard at contacting and getting to know any of the family the children might have, in hopes of one day sending the children back to their families. This is only a fraction of what is going on in Jos, and as you can tell, it is amazing and important work.

Friday I was able to go to the Christian hospital called "Evangel" in Jos. Okay, want to talk about culture shock. Going to a hospital in Africa. Now for Africa, this is a really nice hospital, but I can't explain what it was like. I was over come with the need here where I walked into the hospital. For those of you who are reading a long in Matthew, the day I went to the hospital happened to be the day we read Matthew 11:4 which reads "Jesus told them, 'Go back to John and tell him about what you have heard and seen- the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf here, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him: 'God blesses those who are not offended by me." This verse really came alive to me, because there are lepers here, there are the blind, the lame, the deaf. To experience what Jesus was talking about first hand is a totally indescribable.

The need is so great here. I have really felt called to returning home and doing fundraising for this ministry. They are in great need of funds. They might not have enough money to pay the hospital bill for the boys this next month, which means if another boy gets sick, they can't take him to the hospital because they can't pay for him. It's overwhelming. Please pray about God giving me direction with this ministry and about possibly fundraising for the ministry when I return home.



Here are a few pictures from my adventures around town! Hope you enjoy! You are in my prayers! Lot of love!

1 comment:

Kim said...

Jamie,
Just wanted to let you know I am praying for you. I know you are going to do amazing work in Nigeria because I have seen your true heart for Africa. I miss you and I've enjoyed reading the blog thus far. I'll be off to Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya next month for work...too bad I couldn't skip over to West Africa and see you! We'll have to meet in Africa one day.
Love ya,
Kim