We were honored to get to tag along to a medical outreach to Oga on Christmas Day. We visited a few houses and invited people to a free medical clinic. They received testing for HIV, were seen by Dr Jen, met with a counselor to talk about their faith, given free drugs and other provisions. It was a long day but so rewarding.
I am sure everyone reading this blog has had life smack them in the face before. I know that I have. Sometimes it is my own stupidity and disobedience that brings on these trials, at other times it is just LIFE. We live in a broken and sinful world so we are going to experience disappointments, heartbreak, sadness, and much more.
Recently, three of our monthly donors have had life smack them in the face. One lost a job. Another is going through a disagreement. The last one has an amazing ministry and his large donor just backed out and left all the financial burden on him. I know God uses these trials and that they will refine all three of these supporters of ours. I know their walk with the Lord will grow stronger as they have to have faith that God is going to provide and heal the hurts.
These trials have a domino effect and affect our families monthly support by $1,500 a month deficit. We along with our 3 supporters will be putting all our faith in God to provide. I am excited to get to watch him work in our supporters lives and also in our own. Below you will see a wonderful infographic my husband created for this new monthly campaign. Please let God use you in Nigeria and become a monthly supporter of ours. Click Miles In Missions to sign up.
We decided to add a little fun to our Christmas Party this year and asked the kids to create a Christmas Photo Booth for us. For some reason there weren’t many Christmas props but everyone still had fun with it. Lenny passed the “Mantle” to Pete as we transition into the new year and prepare for our move to JOS. We ate some Jollof Rice and heard some great contributions from the staff. We are so blessed to get to spend Christmas with these amazing Egbeites.
Change a cherry pie to a blueberry pie. Now that would be a miracle! But that’s exactly what we are trying to do. We need this pie above to change from red to blue.
We are giving thanks to you who donated on #GivingTuesday. It seems the day was a huge and unexpected success and started a huge momentum shift towards a delicious blueberry pie. You all gave so generously for us to continue God’s work here in Nigeria. A total of $9,600 was raised in one day! You all are amazing! We wanted to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for this huge boost of encouragement.
This is equal to nearly one quarter of our total “one-time” need of $40,000.
If you missed #GivingTuesday, that’s ok. You can still join our team and support the ministries we are involved with here in Nigeria. Please click here NIGERIA To make an end of the year, tax deductible donation.
No matter the amount, if it seems to small to you, please consider giving anyways.
We will update you regularly on the progress and as you see this pie turn from cherry pie to blueberry pie, you will be encouraged that you had something to do with it, no matter the amount.
If you are wanting to become partners with us for a longer period of time, you can also join our monthly support network. Not only does it take “one-time” funds to get setup in ministry and move to another city within Nigeria, but it also takes monthly support to allow us to stay and continue the work here. If you feel you could help us on a monthly basis, please click here MONTHLY to sign up for that.
Once again, we would like to thank all of you have supported us over the last 3 ½ years. We literally couldn’t have done it without you! We thank you for your unwavering support along the way. We pray you have been as blessed by supporting us as we are doing ministries here in Nigeria. I pray that through our communications, you have been able to see God working through us to disciple, bless, and encourage the people of Egbe and Nigeria as a whole.
Recently one of our C.A.R.E. Africa caretakers, Gift, had a baby. She called me when she arrived at the hospital. Within 15 minutes she called again to tell me that she had the baby. I rushed down to the hospital and there she was sitting up in a chair with the baby next to her already dressed in some clothes. In a total of 30 minutes, she had a baby naturally. The baby was dressed, she was out of labor and delivery, in the ward at her bed, sitting in a chair making phone calls, and all ready to go home.
I was in complete shock and awe because when I had my two children, both of my labors lasted over a day. I had an epidural so I could handle the pain and I pushed for hours. My recovery was another day with pain pills and ibuprofen brought to me every so many hours, food delivered to me three times a day, the baby taken so I could rest, air conditioned room, and a comfy remote controlled bed. I am so weak!
When it was time for Gift to go home there was some confusion on her bill and I had to go down to the hospital during dinnertime to make sure she could go home. I immediately was inconvenienced as I was trying to enjoy dinner with my family. Then as I am trying to get out the door my seamstress stops by to drop a new outfit and a Chief from the town drives up to give me paperwork on a school that C.A.R.E. Africa is about to lease. Uggghhh……. I finally got to the hospital, flustered of course, and see Gift. She has her new daughter on the breast and 3 large bags all ready to go. I looked at everything and said, “Gift, how are you planning on getting home?” She looked at me like I was stupid and said “Okada” (the motorcycle taxi that everyone uses to get around). Really!!!! How was she going to get this new born baby and three large bags down to the road, hail an Okada and then get on the motorcycle with all this stuff and the baby.
I of course didn’t let her do this and got a car to take her home. I have no doubt Gift would have managed without me just fine. Nigerian women are so strong in dealing with what they endure on a daily basis just by living life. Not to mention what the deal with in this male dominated culture and poverty stricken environment amazes me. They are so strong and I am so weak.
Ngozi, Our C.A.R.E. baby seeing her new baby sister for the first time.
I looked at my self and thought about how I stomped down to the hospital perturbed my dinner was interrupted and that my seamstress and the Chief delayed me. I think about how I constantly worry I am too fat, how I complain about my kids messes and what they leave laying around or how I am so hot in this harmattan season that I can barely function every day. It amazes me that after living in Africa for 3.5 years I am still so weak. I think I already knew this but today God is showing me that I am always going to be weak. He is the only one that can make me strong and I have to find satisfaction in him and not in my surroundings. Pray for me as I continue to find strength and satisfaction in my Father in heaven.
Meet Mosun. If you have ever visited the Spring of Life HIV/AIDS Center in Egbe, you would have gone and prayed with Mosun. She is an HIV patient that has been on ARV therapy for 5 years now. She is doing great, but unfortunately the sickness left her blind in both eyes. She has two small children, Faith and Eniope. They are currently enrolled in C.A.R.E. Africa and sponsored by Rick and Martha Bradford, two SIM missionaries in Egbe.
Pastor Alabi continues to encourage Mosun through nutritional support, picking her up on Wednesdays for the caretaker meeting at C.A.R.E. Africa, and by delivering her ARV drugs. Through some recent donations that SOL has received, Pastor Alabi and I talked about how we could empower some of his patients. Mosun was top of the list. Pastor Alabi knew she had sold charcoal before. He was able to help her buy several large bags of charcoal, which she will break down, and sell in small quantities. She is very excited and grateful for this.
When I recently visited her to see how the charcoal business was going, she expressed her need for eye drops. Vision First is an eye drop that was subscribed for her. These drops she said have really helped with one of her eyes. It has allowed her a little bit of vision in the one eye. The costs is n4,000 for a two month supply. That is $50 a year for her eye drops. I wish she would make n4,000 from the charcoal sales, but she will only make about n400 per large bag she sells.
I am praying that someone out there reading this blog would like to buy Mosun a year supply of eye drops for Christmas. Please consider donating $50 as a one-time donation to Spring Of Life. You can put in the memo “eye drops” so we know it is for Mosun. Thanks so much!
Thank you Thank you Thank you to everyone that participated in our #GivingTuesday campaign. It was so awesome to see all the Nigerian flags raised on Facebook. So many of you were ambassadors for us. You exposed our ministry to many people that would never have known about us all the way over here in Nigeria.
At this point we know that our donation link was clicked 93 times and our video was viewed 52 times. In the next few days SIM will upload to our database the donations that were received and then we will know how the campaign went. Thank you again for your support!
First there was Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Now #GivingTuesday is a new and creative way to capture the attention of supporters through social media.
As many of you know, we are in the middle of a fundraising campaign to move our family to Jos, Nigeria where we will continue heavily in ministries that bring Glory to God throughout Nigeria. To do this, our “one-time” support need is a pretty large number and we are considering many ways to get the word out for this need.
Here are several ways you can help us;
1. Click Miles In Missions and make a year end donation to our ministry.
2. Pray for our fundraising campaign on this #GivingTuesday.
3. Become a social media ambassador for us. Change your profile picture to the Nigerian flag that I attached to this blog? Then copy and paste this verbiage into your Facebook post.
Today for #GivingTuesday I have decided to change my profile picture to the Nigerian flag. I’m doing this in support of my (friends, family member, etc) serving in Nigeria. Please consider donating to their ministry in Nigeria on this #GivingTuesday. Click on https://youtu.be/gDXyXzSmElo to see a video about their ministry. Click on http://bit.ly/givingtuesday100 to donate.
That’s all you have to do and then we can all sit back and see what God does. It really can be that simple.
August 2013
This past Sunday morning, Patrice and I sat on the back porch of our home in Egbe and discussed what we are thankful for. We both were very thankful for what the Egbe Hospital Revitalization Project provided for us when we arrived into Nigeria in 2013. Most missionaries have to raise one time support for cars, kitchen appliances, house furnishings, generators and more. All of these things were provided for us in Egbe and it made our transition to the field so easy and stress free.
Now that we are moving to JOS, we will have to leave all this behind. We will have to purchase everything for our new home. We realize that we are asking for God to perform a miracle. Most missionaries would go back to their home country and spend 3-4 months visiting supporters to raise this kind of support. It would cost our family almost $7,000 round trip to fly to the U.S. We just don’t feel like this is being a wise steward of the resources God has given us. We do plan to come back for home assignment, but not until summer of 2018, after Cason and Jolie complete their first year of school.
This brings up another area that Patrice and I are very thankful. We are thankful to all of you who have supported us in so many ways over the last three plus years! You have supported us by prayer, by financial support, by sending us much needed items (excluding all the candy and pop tarts!), while others have helped heavily with C.A.R.E. Africa in sponsorship.
We need you and more partners to come alongside us in a huge way. Our “one-time” support seems large to us, but we know that God will provide. Please pray how you may be able to contribute to our work in Nigeria with an end of year one time contribution or joining us as a monthly supporter.
Maybe you can be creative before the end of the year and “sponsor” a room of our house or one of the kids school fees with your church group or family members this holiday season. Please remember that all giving is tax deductible. Click on Miles In Missions to donate.
Our One Time Support Needs are below;
Two cars – $15,000 (Includes the over the boarder customs fees and taxes for purchase in Benin)
Generator and Inverter Battery/Solar Power System – $3,000
Cason and Jolie school fees – $10,000 total per year
Tents are not an option! Beds, dresser drawers, mattresses, and cabinetry repairs for closets are needed in all three bedrooms. $500 per bedroom.
Additional furniture for dining room, family room and office – $2,000
Repairs on the home we are moving in to – $2,000
Equipment for ministry – $6,000
Kitchen and Laundry Appliances – $2,500
Through grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, the disarray we create with our choices and actions transforms into our testimony.
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
my words sound better coming from my hands than my mouth,
A writer whose passion is to encourage others to live joyfully!
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
"Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
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Patrice Miles
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Miles In Missions 