Samaritan's Purse is putting out the following call for craftsmen to help with the project to revitalize Egbe Hospital.

The love of Christ is being proclaimed as patients receive care at Egbe Hospital in Egbe, Nigeria. Strategically located between two major cities, the hospital is a resource for doctors and nurses in training, a ground for healing the sick, and a mission field for sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Egbe Hospital was founded almost 60 years ago and is in desperate need of revitalization so this mission can continue. Samaritan's Purse is asking for volunteers with many different skills to make the revitalization a reality. Opportunities for electricians, masons, carpenters, landscapers, and painters are now available. Round-trip airfare to Nigeria will be subsidized by $1000, in addition to the cost of food, lodging, and in-country transportation for all volunteers. For more information and to register, visit our website at spvolunteernetwork.org.

Someone has remarked that suffering “is any experience that causes internal or external duress physically, emotionally, spiritually, or relationally…In this fallen world all mankind suffers. [But] it is God’s people alone for whom suffering brings the outrageous opportunity for both temporary and eternal benefit. Indeed, it is in the context of suffering that God's redemption work can be powerfully experienced” (Tender Care, p. 146). What a remarkable perspective!

This summer we have watched, in several different contexts, God's people have the “opportunity” to experience suffering.

• Christian Nigerian widows and their mentors. Being a widow in Nigeria can mean losing your home, your primary means of support and retirement, and perhaps your children to the father's family. Some Evangelical Missionary Society (EMS) widows lose their husbands because of their testimony. See, for example, the story of Rev. Isma Dogari, the late husband of widow Agnes.
• 

  Cheryl Pridham fills the tank to give the house running water.

  I recently visited an ECWA school for widows two hours from Jos, where two SIM missionary sisters, Donna and Cheryl Pridham, are training sixty Christian widows are training in Biblical studies and life skills. The goal is not only spiritual growth but also to help them support themselves and their children.It's not an easy location, especially when there is civil unrest in nearby towns. I also met with the teen-age daughter of one of the widows, who is continuing to recover from a traumatic experience during the post-election violence.
  Read more…

I recently attended the West Africa Orality Consultation here in Jos. Almost everyone I have talked to since then about this conference  has asked the same question, namely, “what does 'orality' mean?” I must admit I was not entirely sure myself until I attended this conference.

Orality is an important concept for missionaries to grasp. If we categorise cultures into those that are primarily literate and those that are primarily oral, orality refers to the way that oral cultures and oral learners receive, process, remember and pass on important information. It may help to think about story telling, because this is one good example of how oral learners receive, understand and pass on information. There are many other ways of course, such as songs, proverbs, poetry, riddles and drama.

The reality is that 60% of the world's population is either illiterate or functionally illiterate, while another 20% are semi-literate and prefer oral to literate communication. According to projections, this proportion (70-80%) who are primarily oral learners will increase rather than decrease as time passes. Therefore we will be missing the mark with most people if our strategies for communicating the Gospel (or anything else for that matter) are based on literate culture principles, such as books, reading, analytical and conceptual thinking, 3 point sermons, Bible study etc.