amy0b87982ac418
bluewatergigi
dbeville
Patrice Miles
Lenny
God continues to place people in my life that hear the call to help C.A.R.E. Africa. I am always amazed at the email that comes through from a stranger, that God is using to do his work. Here is the most recent one….
Hi Patrice,
My name is Whitney Nesse. My cousin, Abby Anderson, gave me your contact information. I am helping with grade school programs at my church, Riverside in Hutchinson, MN, and we are looking for people to support during this upcoming school year. I proposed my idea to Abby and she thought you might have a need where you are working.
What we would like to do this school year with our students is set up a marketplace in our church with pictures of items (school supplies, bedding, small animals, meals, Bibles, etc.) for people in need. These pictures will be available for the price that a person in need would pay in their country. The students would then purchase these pictures and that money would go directly for that item to a person in need.
I would love to have a direct contact with someone like you so we could possibly Skype and send photos and letters between our students and those in your sphere that are in need. Is this something that you would be interested in? Our classes start up on September 14th, so this doesn’t leave a lot of time, but with God, anything is possible, right!?!?!?
Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you,
Whitney
So of course I was interested!! See what they have created…..is this not the cutest thing you have ever seen? I love it when God shows off! No one can orchestrate anything like this but him. Thank you Riverside!!
Might sound like a great book idea, huh? However, there really is no book that can entirely prepare you for missions… However, you can do missions if you are a dummy!
The wife, a great nurse in real life, knew from conversations with the medical team on the ground that she would be a great fit to teach the nursing staff on many subjects. She thought, “What if I could teach CPR? Do you have any training dummies?” We told her no and she went on a “mission” to find dummies all on her own. On the surface finding dummies around you might seem like an easy task, but for her dummies were suddenly in short supply. Asking and searching for months, she had no luck. Finally, the miracle dummies appeared. Just a few days before her trip to Egbe, the Louisville Fire Department called her and said, “Come and pick up these 24 dummies. Our training people just brought us 24 brand new ones and we have to get rid of the old ones.” 
The husband and wife couldn’t believe their ears. They felt like shouting in celebration and grabbing the woman to hug her! But they thought it might cause a huge scene in the airport. 
The wife has completed CPR training with many of the nurses in the hospital and the trainees have gotten certificates proving their education. She even had time to train a few nurses to be trainers themselves. Leaving the dummies, literature, and dvd programming for them to use in the future. The hospital will now always have dummies around. How wonderful!
“As Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” – Proverbs 27:17
This member and his wife are dear to our family. (I will not name them, because sometimes they visit “closed” countries and I do not want to endanger them or the people they meet in the fields there). We met them a little over four years ago, when Patrice and I took the Prospectives class at SECC. They were the “course facilitators” and this class was instrumental in helping us to become missionaries. With their heart already set for missions, this couple was determined to go to the field to see graduates of their class, SECC members, and friends (us). 
Also at SECC is another great program which many know as simply DC which means Developing Co-leaders. It is a 21 month class based on bible study and meeting in a small group to discuss many topics throughout the two years. It can also be thought of as discipleship training. Both Patrice and I have completed this course in the past, which is dear to our walk with the Lord and so had our fellow SECC member who was coming to join us on the field. It was brought up one day that he could come here and teach a few of these classes and build into our sphere of influence here on the ground in Egbe. We picked two topics, Managing Conflict and Intro to Leadership.
We used the scriptures for many discussion questions on judging others, tolerance, where each of us sees conflict in our lives, how to handle that conflict, and many more topics. We even covered the book of Philemon (only 25 verses). Where Philemon was asked to take back his old slave who had stolen from him and ran away. Talk about conflict!
However, our motto for the three weeks wasn’t about managing conflict, it was about iron sharpening iron and one man sharpening another. Our thought and prayers through this teaching is that a few of the 75 in attendance will step up and say they want to be able to sharpen other men (and women). We offered the entire course of DC lessons to them when they are available to start up their own small groups. We ask you to pray that the seeds that were planted bring good fruit, that at least two or three of these groups gets started and we begin to have a multiplication process of leaders developing co-leaders, in turn developing more co-leaders, and so on.
Several months ago our team started praying for a senior member of Egbe to join our C.A.R.E. Africa team. We love our young vibrant team but knew we needed some wisdom and age on our team. Almost all of our 35 orphans live with caretakers that our twice our age. They are all respectful and grateful for our help but we wanted someone that could really understand them. We wanted someone their age that could truly disciple and mentor them. After several weeks of prayer Tofunmi asked if she could bring someone for us to meet that might fit our criteria. When Mommy Balogun walked in the door, I laughed. We already new each other, we were Tolusha sisters. Tolusha was a class I attended for about a year when I first got here. It was immediate confirmation for me that she was the one God wanted for our caretaker manager.
I am excited to introduce you to Mommy Balogun. She has been with us for over two months now. She has started a compulsory weekly caretaker meeting where she educates all the caretakers on family preservation and God’s word. We have seen a huge improvement in our caretakers attitudes and communication with C.A.R.E. Africa. Thank you Lord for adding another Egbe angel to our team!
“…give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.” Proverbs 30:8-9
Coming back to the states I experienced somewhat of a small culture shock. While I knew I would miss the people of Egbe, Nigeria, I did not expect to miss living in their culture. I missed living simply and being in Africa. My thoughts coming back were not “I am so thankful for all the things I have here,” but “why do we need all this excess stuff?” While I am thankful for the things I have, my eyes were opened to all we have in America that we do not need. While the people in Nigeria live simply with enough, or less than enough, we in America live in excess with way more than enough. Do we really need a fast food place on every corner? Do we really need 100+ options for cereal?! And shampoo? And soap? And everything else with our many options? We have so much in America. Everything seems to be accessible, right at our fingertips. But instead of making me grateful, this makes me sad.
A big part of Nigeria is greetings. You greet everyone you pass, whether you know them or not. Whether it is saying “good morning,” “good afternoon,” “good evening,” “you are welcome,” or “well done,” everyone is greeted and everyone will greet you. In America you are lucky to get a smile from someone who passes by you. Though it is not always that people are trying to be rude or insincere, we are just too wrapped up in our own worlds to even notice the people around us.
Now am I saying that the culture of America is all bad and Nigeria is all good? No, of course not. There are good parts of each culture and things that could improve within each culture. I also am not saying that the solution to America’s excess is to just give a bunch of stuff and money to Africa so that they can have more than enough too. In fact, I do not believe that “more than enough” should even be the goal. I think a better goal is for all places to have enough. Not more than; not less than; just enough. But how do we obtain this? This problem is one that has existed for centuries and I know that it is bigger than me. It most likely will not be solved in my lifetime. But there are changes we can make. Instead of enabling, by just giving stuff and money, we can empower. Empower by sending and supporting missionaries. Empower by teaching the Nigerians in a way that they will not have to depend on us—in a way that they will learn and then be able to teach others. And then let them teach us. Let us be empowered by their culture. Let us learn how to be more welcoming—to slow down and notice the people around us. To live more simply. To strive for “enough” instead of “more than enough.” The goal is not to force the Western culture on Nigeria—or anywhere. From what I’ve seen—in the selfishness and shallowness—the Western culture should never be the goal. We can learn from the Nigerians—through the way the live in their culture, and they can learn from us. Though this is all more easily said than done, if we each start in our own worlds and our own mission fields—some in our very backyards–it is one small step that can begin to make a difference.
Miles In Missions 