Kids’ Doc in Jos

You have given him his heart’s desire …
For you meet him with rich blessings;
You set a crown of fine gold on his head
      Psalm 21

Last night we were all playing games. Saralynn kept complaining that she had worse contractions than usual, and wondered if it might be the beginning of labor. We didn’t hear anything from her this morning but at 12:00 David called and said that Saralynn was having regular contractions and was going to go down to the hospital.

After Luke left for his afternoon class at Hillcrest, Barb and I went down to visit Saralynn and David and see how they were doing. Barb brought some ice chips and a tennis ball (for rolling hard into Saralynn’s back … a trick that helped Barb when Saralynn was born). David said she was progressing well and the baby might be born by dinner time.

I returned home to be there when Luke arrived (and to take a nap!) but had hardly gotten Luke settled with an Odyssey audio story than David called and said Saralynn was now in the “second stage room.” I told Luke he could play outside with his friends, I grabbed the video and still cameras, and went back to the maternity ward.

Less than half an hour, the baby was born. This was really express service indeed. Not only did Saralynn shave 9 days off her due date, but she didn’t waste any time laboring in the hospital, either. Having had no complications, she and David (with the permission of attending doctor Bev Truxton) decided to go home. They came here for some dinner while we oohed and aahed over Baby Timothy, then went home (100 yards away). Luke is excited to have a new baby around (he asked him, “are you my brother or something?”).

For those interested in statistics, Timothy weighed in at 3.0 kg (6 lb 10 oz) and was born at 3:40 pm.

I’m up late tonight. Had a three-hour meeting of the SIM security committee, which is now meeting weekly again. Then I stayed up answering email that I’ve been ignoring for too long. Friend Karl Edwards challenged me with his recent blog entry, “Focus In On That Fog,” about the need to think each day about what’s really important to get done, what will distract me, and what I can include in my day to energize myself. Email was on the list today (actually, one is supposed to ask “If I accomplish one thing today, that one thing must be…”, but email was on a short list).

In the security committee meeting we discussed and debated issues such as

• If an armed robber comes to your door holding a hostage and demanding to be let into your house, do you let him in? Is there a general answer, a guideline, or is it a case-by-case matter?
• Does anyone in the mission still have wooden outside doors in their house? (Yes, but not many, and they’re being replaced.)



• How can we get those boat air horns, with a pressurized can, to Nigeria? The airlines only allow the small, 3 ounce size which is not so effective.
• Dogs are recognized as a major element in deterring intruders, but what if some people on a compound do not want to have dogs around, while others do want them?

That gives you some idea, anyway.

The mission community here in Jos observed a day of prayer and fasting today, prompted by the increase in violent crime against both missionaries and Nigerians. There have been several incidents lately including one 12 days ago (against SIM missionaries), which was quite serious and traumatic.

Pastor Lyndon Wall preached in the Hillcrest chapel this morning from the story of Elisha surrounded by the Syrian soldiers at Dothan. God knew at every point just what was going on and what the enemy’s plans were, he provided angels as protection even before Elisha is recorded as praying. Elijah knew they were there without seeing them, and his prayer was simply that his servant would be able to see them. Finally, though God protected Elisha many times, he still suffered and died from a long illness—God protects according to his own plans and purposes.

This afternoon, we had a special prayer service with readings and prayers

• Prayers of God’s people in distress
• Prayers for protection and healing
• Prayers for the violent men, their redemption as well as the hindering of their purposes
• Prayers for wisdom, courage, and faithfulness

As you think of us, please pray with us and for us along these same lines. Our salvation is from the Lord!

“… and I got shocked when I turned off the water,” said Luke, as I tucked him in for the night. “Right,” I thought, “how can you get a shock from the water pipes?” Still, I had felt a little twinge earlier in the evening when I had turned on or off the tap in the bathroom sink. I thought it was just one of those little shock-like stabs we get now and then from whatever cause. Still, maybe I’d better check.

We were on vacation at the SIM retreat center in Miango, not far from Jos. It was Monday night, our first night of a six day stay, and we had already changed rooms once because the fan didn’t work in the first one (see how spoiled we are now?). I had to travel to Abuja the next day to give a presentation at a training session for doctors working children infected by HIV, so Barb and Luke would be alone.

In the US, we used to take electrical safety for granted—not ignoring dangers, but knowing that if we followed the rules we would be safe. In Nigeria, all bets are off. One high-priced electrician connected some of our home’s outlets with the hot and ground reversed: touch the outlet screw and get a shock. A hospital electrician reversed the neutral and hot for a whole section of the compound, causing a lot of damage including our hot water heater wires burning. A contractor, repairing wiring in one of the wards, used cheap telephone wire or something similar rather than the proper gauge wire, causing an electrical fire in the ceiling. I won’t go on, but really, electrical safety is a nightmare in Nigeria.

I went into the bathroom and gingerly tapped the tap, this time without my shoes on. Yes, there was a distinct though mild shock. Ah, well, I thought, probably one of those little shocks from some floating ground or something. Pretty strange, though, how would there be an electrical potential between the floor and the cold water pipe? At that point, a prudent course would have been to stay away from the whole mess until I could get a test meter or something, but I curiously (and quickly) dipped my finger into Luke’s now-tepid bathwater. Ouch! This time it was a real shock for sure. The rest of the evening we were careful not to touch the water or the pipes.

Grounding rod and connecting wire

Click on photo for larger view

The next day, I borrowed a voltmeter from dentist Steve Porter and verified that there was indeed high voltage on the pipes. Steve had mentioned that a cracked water heater element could cause this, but turning off the heater didn’t help. Checking the house’s grounding system showed half the problem: a grounding rod was there, all right, but the wire was just loosely wrapped around the corroded rod like a bad joke. So the house’s wiring was a setup for disaster, but still, why was it the pipes that were “hot?”

The second piece of the puzzle was that the plumbing inside the house was metal, but joined to PVC plastic pipe at the outside wall. This meant that the metal pipes themselves were not grounded.

Finally the maintenance crew arrived, shortly before I had to leave for Abuja, and traced the problem. It only happened when something was plugged into a certain outlet. Apparently, the outlet was faulty so that when something was plugged in, the hot wire was pushed over to touch the ground. Somewhere the housing ground wire must be connected to a water pipe. The result was that when the outlet went bad, the whole plumbing system effectively became part of the hot side of the electrical wiring! Since I was reading an Agatha Christie mystery at the time, I wondered if couldn’t form the plot of a murder mystery.

The immediate problem was solved by replacing the offending outlet. By the time we left, however, the real problem of the useless grounding system had not been fixed. Long term problems are not something that get much attention here …

A BBC news headline reported yesterday, "HIV treatment ‘failing’ in Africa". The news item goes on to say, “More than a third of patients on HIV medication in sub-Saharan Africa die or discontinue their treatment within two years of starting it, a survey shows.” The report is based on a newly-published report in Public Library of Science Medicine.

I have not yet read the article but will soon. Meanwhile, here are two questions for you to think about and, if you want, comment below.

• Is it a “failure” that 61% of patients are alive and continuing treatment after two years in a program taking antiretroviral (anti-HIV) drugs?
• The study includes reports published between 2000 and 2007. Do the results take into account any changes in during that time? That is, are programs more or less effective now than they were 10 years ago? Is there enough information to know? Again, I haven’t read it yet but it’s a good question to consider as you read.

Rosen S, Fox MP, Gill CJ. Patient Retention in Antiretroviral Therapy Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review. PLoS Med 4(10): e298. Oct 2007. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040298. Free access.

Why blog? And particularly for foreign Christian workers, is there any particular reason to blog? Over the last two or three weeks I’ve been working on a 10-minute presentation on that topic. It’s mainly to be shared with our colleagues here, but since I’ve prepared it, I may as well share it here on my blog, too. If you have a modem connection, you may need to put the video on pause after you start it, then wait until it finishes loading before viewing it. If you have a faster connection, you should probably view the higher resolution version instead. If you have any trouble viewing the video, please let me know what kind of problems.

For more information on blogging for missionaries (or on missionaries who blog), check Missionary Blog Watch, lots of good info and links there.

Oh, yes, the important news. First, we finally have a teacher for Luke! The past two weeks has been great as Luke has had consistent teaching & fun with this young guy. More details later. Second, baby Abigail went to her new adoptive parents on Friday. As usual, it has been a hard adjustment for Barb and even I’ve been missing her. We probably won’t take care of another baby this year since Saralynn’s is coming soon, but then, who knows.

Tomorrow is a holiday and we’re having all our missionary co-workers over for brunch. Barb says we’re expecting 28 including kids, quite a bunch.

This month’s Books and Culture has a very thought-provoking and incisive on-line essay titled “Human Rights and Justice in an Age of Terror:
An evangelical critique of An Evangelical Declaration against Torture.” The author, Keith Pavlischek, describes himself as “an evangelical, a political philosopher, and a recently retired intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps with a long history of both scholarly and personal interest in these matters.”

Like many others, I’ve been upset by the stories of “torture lite” and other coercive measures, maltreatment of prisoners, and so on by the US in recent years. It does seem we (Americans) have lost some of our ideals. This article does not directly challenge that idea and certainly does not in any way support the use of torture, but it does expose some of what has been said as fuzzy-headed, muddled thinking.

Like nearly everything in Books and Culture it’s interesting reading and makes you think. If you read it, let me know what you think of it.

I got an email yesterday from a friend, asking for thoughts from people who became Christians as adults. That request was prompted by someone asking my friend, “It would seem like it would be difficult for someone to come to believe as an adult. I was wondering how something like that could happen.”

Having followed Christianity since childhood, I can’t answer personally, but I do know of some excellent autobiographies that give some perspectives. The books I’m thinking of are not of people who simply heard the gospel and believed, but of ones who tell stories of a more complicated path of struggling with it, wrestling with God, and so on. I don’t remember Dr. Olsen’s story too well, but as far as I recall, none of these people had a lot to do with the organized church before (and in some cases, after) becoming Christians.

Some good books I would recommend would include these:

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. by C. S. Lewis. Lewis, of course, was an adult and in an academic setting when he came to believe in God. Since Lewis is such a good communicator and is now popular again, this might be a good one.

Laurel Lee is my favorite author: very readable, yet deep … the best way I can describe her writing is that light shines through it, largely because of who she was. Not only how she came to faith from a 1960s hippie life, but the way she lived it in a fresh way, is not a typically “religious” or churchy story. She wrote several books based on her journals, with the last one, Tapestry, being a weaving together of them all.

“I was stunned. I knew I must be in Stage III. I could count my thoughts and emotions, as if my head had broken into a lot of little pieces and they were falling slow enough to number. I was mad at every encouraging word and that I had believed them. “We all stood two inches tall; I was set up for a fall. It was winter, and they took my only coat.” From Walking through the Fire: A Hospital Journal, the first of Laurel’s published journals.

Other good books include

• So the Woman Went Her Way: A Personal Journey by Lynne Bundesen, a journalist who describes her long and different journey to faith (though she might not call herself an Evangelical).
• Daktar: Diplomat in Bangladesh, is the missionary autobiography of Dr. Viggo Olsen, a surgeon in Bangladesh, and begins with the story of how, with a scientific background, he became convinced of the truth of the gospel.
• The Wind Is Howling is the autobiography of the well-known Japanese novelist and poet Ayako Miura who, in post-war Japan, struggles to find meaning in life. Not the easiest read of the books on this list, but worthwhile for seeing the way a non-Western intellectual comes to faith in Christ.

There must be hundreds of other books that would be helpful and, of course, each story will have a particular meaning to certain people and not others. Why not add your own favorites in the comments to this post?

Spring of Life is the support arm of The ECWA AIDS Ministry (TEAM), with activities including home visiting, voluntary testing and counseling (VCT), and community-building activities. Here is a short (6 minute) video with pictures of the children in the Kids Club, as well as a few shots of the adults’ Spring of Life club meeting. These support groups have played a big role in the lives of our clients, building a sense of community, caring, and teamwork, and helping eliminate the stigma of HIV. The pictures and footage here were shot in 2005. Nearly all the kids were living with HIV at the time, and most are still doing well, with many on antiretroviral therapy.

(Click on player to start. If your connection is too slow for this video, see the low resolution version instead or press pause on the player, wait until the video finishes loading, reaching 100%, then press play again.)

It’s way too late for me to be up blogging. But it was my last day at Evangel Hospital, officially anyway, so I want to mark that. Not sure how I feel about it, really … not elated or greatly relieved, a bit sad, a bit guilty like I’m abandoning my friends, ready for a break, reassured by believing God “told me” it was ok to take a different path for now, wondering what I’m going to be doing instead, …

I’ve also been seeing our pastoral counselor, Lyndon Wall, and talking about many issues. We in and around Jos are really blessed to have a SIM member who is here specifically to be a pastoral counselor.