Iowa Nigeria Partnership

I/Eye Care

Each year I go to see the eye doctor to check the only pair of eyes I have! Has my vision changed in a year? Do I need new glasses? Do I have cataracts or glaucoma? I care about my eyes!

In Nigeria caring for one’s eyes is difficult due to lack of good sanitation, poor diet and no reputable eye doctors.  Quack “doctors” will come into a village stating they are able to care for eye problems like removing cataracts. Taking the villagers money, they poke the cataract breaking it up but fail to remove it from the lens causing the person to become blind, while they walk away with the money. A tragic happening but true!

Dr. Gideon Avar, eye surgeon at the UMC Eye Centre in Zing, has for the past two years, held an eye camp in one of the church areas. With the help of Iowa health care professionals they have performed eye surgeries on over 125 patients as well as performing eye exams on 1000 persons.  This year Dr. Avar wants to hold another 5 day eye camp in the Bambur area. In order to allow Nigerians access to free eye care, Iowans are requested to underwrite the cost of the surgeries which is $150 per eye. In 2009 $5,000 was sent for the eye camp.  Can we help the blind to see physically (and spiritually) this summer?   You bet!  I care about eye care! Money may be sent through your local church to the conference treasurer designated: INP, #230, Eye Camp.

The B-I-B-L-E School Teachers for Nigeria

How many Bibles are in your home? Are these read on a daily basis? For Nigerians who have completed the Lit-Lit Program sponsored by the United Methodist Church of Nigeria in their church or community, Bibles in Hausa are a prized commodity. The majority of students in the Lit-Lit classes are mainly village women whose parents didn’t feel it was worth paying the tuition fees for them to attend school.  Through the program they learn to do simple arithmetic, read and write and for some, come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.  It is never too late for education and when you educate a woman you are educating the family and village. At graduation they must pay to receive the Hausa Bible which some can’t afford. The ability to read the Bible and the lack of funds to provide one for them is agonizing. How can we help remedy that situation? For $7 a Hausa Bible can be purchased. For $25 a student can attend Lit-Lit classes. Your contribution may be made through your local church and sent to the Conference Treasurer designated INP #230, Hausa Bible or Lit Lit.  The next time you pick up your Bible to read or to study, count yourself blessed. 

What your money can do in Nigeria:

$1.50 will allow a child to have basic school supplies

$7 will purchase a Bible in Hausa

$15 will provide a one month stipend for a UMC teacher

$20 will help an illiterate Nigerian learn to read and write

$35 will provide one- term tuition for a high school student

$50 will purchase vaccines for the poultry program

$62 will allow a woman to attend the Women’s Training Center for one term

$75 will buy a goat for the Agricultural Program

$100 will stock the medicine cabinet at the church run clinics

$120 will purchase a treadle sewing machine

$130 will purchase a bicycle for a local pastor

$550 will purchase a motorcycle for the Lit-Lit, Evangelism or youth director

$1,500 will purchase a solar refrigerator for the district medical clinics

$2,000 will built a round hut home for an evangelist to minister to unsaved people

$6,500 will sink a deep water borehole/well providing clear, pure water

Money may be given through your church and sent to the Conference Treasurer designated INP, #230 and choice of project. 

Let There Be Light!  And there was! Solar!

NEPA (Nigeria Electrical Power Association) is one of the world’s most frustrating, unreliable electrical systems in the world.  Off and on, day or night, one never can count its availability when electricity is needed. Classrooms, staff housing and dormitories at the Junior are limited in the ability to function at night due to no electricity available. Secondary School

To remedy that, James Richardson of Ottumwa, is assembling an alternative option to no lights by designing a solar system. This will be attached to the JSS campus buildings that will harness the sun through the use of a solar system. James is purchasing and putting together components which will include solar panels and the hardware to install them. He plans to produce a booklet on how to install the units and what items are available in Nigeria since he worked with the Iowa team there the past two years.  Each of these solar units will cost about $2,500.

Local churches wanting to bring light to the JSS Campus may sent money through their local church to the conference treasurer designated, INP, #230, solar units. Now JSS will not need to depend on NEPA to continue their study program and student life. Let there be light! Go Solar!

NA GODE (Thanks) to Iowans
To all Iowa United Methodists who contributed to the Iowa Nigeria Partnership in any way in 2008, we say NA GODE (thanks in the Hausa language). In spite of the economic downturn and the natural disasters in our state, $143,000 (yes! that much) was given for projects ranging from purchasing bikes to funding literacy programs, from providing student tuition grants to offering teacher’s stipends, assisting the agricultural programs with funds to purchase chickens, giving A3 seeds for planting to reduce malaria suffering, purchasing treadle sewing machines, constructing a staff house on the Junior Secondary School campus…all of these mission outreach ministries benefited from your generosity. This does not include the hundreds of kits for Nigeria prepared for the InGathering.  

Personally I used to think that when I wrote stories to tell about NigerianChurch work, their wants and needs that no one read them and that my writing was in vain. But I’m a believer that YOU DO READ and that YOU DO RESPOND! For 20 years the Iowa Conference has been partnering with the NigerianChurch. Bishop Kulah sends words of thanks on behalf of our friends there. If you keep reading, I’ll keep writing and together let’s continue our support to spread God’s word in a country a half a world away! Consider supporting one project in Nigeria during 2009, our celebration year!  

Beverly Nolte
INP Chairperson