Galmi Days

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

2008-05-13T10:36:00.000-06:00

Galmi,

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

-Bradly

Learn more:
https://www.linkedin.com/e/isd/266711128/XWZqAvZW/

Links to What We've Done

2008-04-13T09:00:00.003-06:00

I thought it was time I posted links to the galmi.org website and our first promotional video. They've been up for a while and I've told some people about them, everyone should know.

The Galmi hospital/mission website is just at galmi.org.
There's also a nifty 7 1/2 min. video about the work there called "No Regrets" on Google video.

Most of the writing I've done is in the staff profiles or articles sections of the website, but you poke around on the whole thing - there are a ton of photos and posts from other people, including Galmi staff.

Finally, if you'd like to learn more about how you can support Galmi financially, check out the brief article, "Support Galmi - You Can Help." Or, if you're thinking about missions work yourself, you can look under the Personnel Needs tab in the menu running along the top of the page.

Addendum/Correction

2007-09-09T21:30:00.000-06:00

In my post of 8/1/07 about the White's mission blog, I referred to the French expression "c'est Galmi." If you look at the post now, it gives the Hausa expression, "Sai Galmi," being the accurate language and spelling - the meaning I had right: "Only Galmi [can help you now]." My error was pointed out via Stephen Montgomery by none other than Ruth Long, whose husband Bert was the first doctor at Galmi. She had this to say:

I noticed in "Galmi Days" that the writer mentioned the saying, "Sai Galmi", only he said "C'est Galmi." Of course, not knowing Hausa, he wouldn't know how to spell the word "sai", nor would he know the meaning. It was President Diori who made the phrase well known, when he visited SIM in Canada years ago. He said that when anyone saw a bad wreck on the road in Niger, the comment would be "sai Galmi" -- meaning only Galmi could fix it. Of course, he was referring to the work of the hospital.

President Diori was the first post-colonial president of Niger.

"How" the trip went

2007-08-06T09:33:00.000-06:00

Apparently more than a couple people have asked Katie how my trip went out of a sense that I hadn't adequately represented it on this blog, and so she has..."encouraged" me to answer that rather broad question.

I'm approaching the subject with a protective layer of irony because I have often been asked this question and, frankly, rarely find that I can answer satisfactorily (by my own standards, anyway). How did the trip go? Fine. Good. Hot.

Of course one of the very relevant concerns implied here is: did we get what we came for? I think we did. I hope we did. Bob shot probably 1,000 pictures, maybe even more, and we interviewed at least 19 people associated with the hospital or the compound in some way - mostly missionaries and doctors and administrators. We also shot maybe 15-20 hours of video, both interview and then location and context footage - like donkeys pulling carts down the road and such. We spoke with at least one local pastor, a couple Nigeriens whose families were helped by or connected to the hospital and who have since come to work there, the acting director of SIM Niger, the regional supervisor for the hospital, and a university professor who formerly served as a minister in the national government.

At this stage, I'm trying to get copies of the interviews so I can have more material to work with for a couple bits I'm planning for the website. The site will be the media core for everything else we're doing, but its quality will depend on both the richness of the information, imagery, and video we gathered and our own skills in presenting them.

The latter is where I begin to demur from saying too much, because, honestly, I get a little anxious about what exactly I'll be able to produce. There's some factual sort of stuff that should be simple (though I don't think "in facts," so to speak, so I'll need to consult the team on this), and then there's so much that appears to me via reflection - the kind of stuff that I post here, and even more. This doesn't necessarily seem like website material, unless I can somehow adequately abstract it from the sense of it being filtered through my own consciousness (which is philosophically absurd, but commonly recognized as the conventions of journalism and/or business writing).

On the other hand (taking that former paragraph as "the one hand"), we don't necessarily plan to do an orthodox or conventional website, so there may be a place for what I'm imagining.

For more sense of "how" it went, check out the pics page by clicking the link at the top of the left-hand column of this page.

Addendum to previous post

2007-08-02T12:29:00.000-06:00

Regarding my previous post on Carrie White's blog, I wanted to add that an additional, perhaps the primary, reason that some on the compound felt ambivalent about some of Carrie's reflections is that they felt bad for her and wished they had known some of what she was going through earlier so they could have tried to do what they could to help. Despite the compound's relatively small size, there is enough work to do that it can still be difficult to always know what's going on with everyone - I think it serves to remind one of how intentional our communication must be with one another.

Missionary blog

2007-08-01T21:30:00.000-06:00

Ben and Carrie White and their kids were at Galmi from June 7 to July 7 of this year, so we just missed meeting them. Carrie blogged at The White House - offering some 15 or so posts over the last six weeks, covering daily activities and adventures and some reflections on their experience.

There was a little buzz about this blog when we were on compound. There was a little controversy, or maybe it's better to just call it ambivalence, over the tone and content of some of the posts, which don't necessarily paint the happiest picture of missionary life or of the hospital.

I spent about a half hour or so reading them and I can see how someone, especially a long-termer, might be uncomfortable with some of it. Life seems hard and sweaty, and the hospital causes Carrie to cry as much as anything, it seems. She even speaks of counting the days before they are to return home, though she feels guilty for it.

In the two weeks I was in the country I saw enough to sympathize with Carrie about the heat, the dust, the poverty, the critters... I think it must take some people more time than others to adapt to such things. I had seen video of the hospital before going over, and so I didn't react as strongly as her when I saw it first-hand, but I do appreciate her reaction, especially as compared with the hospitals we are used to in the States. What doesn't quite come through in Carrie's blog, I think, is how valuable the hospital is to the region. The locals will say of some injuries or illnesses, "Sai Galmi," meaning in Hausa, "That's a job for Galmi; if they can't help you, you're out of luck." And Galmi Hospital has long been a "hospital of reference" for the region, meaning it sets a standard for other hospitals. Since Carrie posted about Helene Zoolkoski, who died of cancer early Sunday morning, I'll add that she and her husband, Chris, consulted experts in the States before deciding to return to Galmi, once they had learned of Helene's condition. They learned that there was nothing an American hospital could do for her that Galmi wouldn't be able to do. That they returned, and accepted the implications of doing so, is a great testament to the quality of care that really is available there.

That said, Carrie's blog struck me as wonderfully honest in a way that perhaps few others would dare be. Missionary life can be hard; we should be honest about that - especially if we want to attract the right kind of people to making a long-term commitment. Galmi Hospital will not be served by sugar-coating some of the realities a Westerner faces in adjusting to the West African sahel. The Whites came to Galmi as a "fact-finding" trip, to use Carrie's language, and I heard more than one person advocate just such endeavors as good ways of learning about missions and about oneself.

It's also worth pointing out that Carrie's final post from Niger, dated Thursday, July 5, recasts her time in light of insight offered by Lois Freeman, the guest house coordinator, and ends with an affirmation of the work at Galmi and a call for her readers to consider going. The Whites may not return, but then again, maybe they will. Or maybe they'll try a different field. Or maybe they'll never, for one reason or another (also called "life"), do missions again. But it seems clear they were really engaged while at Galmi and thus had an authentic experience that will likely have innumerable unforeseeable (and unnoticeable) consequences for themselves and the people in their lives, and the people who read about them.

What's God doing in Galmi?

2007-07-30T11:18:00.000-06:00

I was reflecting on this question yesterday, when I was able to worship back at my home church, the Evanston Vineyard, for the first time in nearly a month. Prior to that we had been out of town for a friend's wedding, and the last two Sundays I was in Niger.

My first thought was that it was nice to worship again in a language I understood. At the service in Galmi I was able to sing along out of the Hausa songbook, and this felt like a little bit of participation, but I had little comprehension what I was singing or hearing.

My second thought was that I simply didn't have enough time to really, properly feel out "The Church" in Niger - meaning the two churches we visited. It was nice to see full buildings, and good-sized choirs, and everyone was very warm and friendly afterward, greeting us and shaking our hands. In many ways it didn't feel that different from many churches I've visited in the U.S. and England: friendly, well-meaning, comfortable.

Complacent? I can't say for sure. At least one missionary told me that such was her impression, and I also heard people speak of resources in the church that were probably not being harnessed to great effect. There is also a pretty recent rift in the church, one that split it in three, that hasn't quite healed yet. Niger is a democratic state, and internal fighting in the church would seem to require a certain amount of ease and stability.

Culturally, too, it is just difficult for people to leave behind Islam for Christianity. The Qu'ran more or less defines and prescribes a whole cultural way of being, and when someone confesses Christ, it means leaving behind a community and a way of life - or it means trying to maintain an independent faith within an overwhelming religious culture. Thus the gospel work is slow.

Cherif Chako, a professor of economics at the university and a former government minister, added to the complicated picture of Christian Niger when he emphasized to us the importance of foreign missionaries forming authentic, human relationships with the people they come to serve. First, they must see you are a real person, he said, and then they will listen to, be open to, your message. Yet, from much of what was translated, paraphrased and otherwise communicated to me, Nigerien pastors and evangelists often preach a dogmatic works doctrine, apparently neglecting or eliding the relational aspect of faith, which, in all likelihood, is a part of their own stories.

But how familiar is this? We learn so much about God through the people he brings into our lives, and yet so often we try to tell others about him by teaching them what they're supposed to know. The cultural and historical roots are different, but the spiritual ones probably are not.

So, what is God doing in Galmi, in Niger? He's doing what he's doing, I suppose. And in his own time. The proofs of this are not in numbers of converts or church buildings or African francs in the bank, but in the people who faithfully continue in the work God called them to, both national and foreign. Time and again people told me that they felt confident of their calling, of the work they were doing.

There are challenges and setbacks - oftentimes more dramatic than those we're used to in the West - but there are also triumphs and graces. This can be seen most clearly in the hospital, when simple surgeries return people's lives to them, or save their babies. One morning a nurse brought in an infant that Dr Peter Jackson had just successfully delivered by emergency c-section. Before going in he didn't know if they would save it, but then we saw it: it was just a little bit blue, but quite alive, and squirmy, and not half as awed by the strange new world it had entered as we were of its miraculous coming.

"The only time we're comfortable here is when we're in the car."

2007-07-27T09:50:00.000-06:00

My title is a quote from Parker's father, Bert Haaga, who, despite being from Mississippi, and having lived some 20 years in Niger, is still not a fan of the heat. As you might expect, a country stuck between the Equator and the Sahara Desert can get quite warm at times. Last Wednesday it was 100ºF/38ºC on Jeannie Hofer's thermometer, mounted in the shade of her front porch, which meant at least 105/40 in the sun. Thursday was warmer, and Friday warmer still - we guessed maybe 115/46 or hotter. And everyone kept saying it was more humid than normal, as though it would be quite pleasant otherwise.

I don't care for the heat, myself. I'm pretty sure I have reason to believe that my body metabolizes funny, and that in addition my circulation is poor, which means, in effect, that I'm rarely comfortable in any temperature outside a range of, say, 55-75ºF/13-24ºC, with low humidity. Given that the temperature in Niger at night never dropped below 81/27 while we were there, and men don't wear shorts outside the home, I was not in the environment most suitable to my physiology.

Most rooms, thankfully, had at least one ceiling fan. These were kept almost constantly running, though there were often multiple brown outs each day, so we would lose our light and our air flow; at such times it was often best to sit outside in the shade. Indeed, it was only when we got in a car (usually, in fact, a van or truck) that we ever had much respite from the heat, for these vehicles were equipped with powerful A/C units. When we returned to Niamey, and were driving around the city (which, after Galmi, looked large and wealthy and fascinating), I was comfortable enough to look around and notice all the wonderful and mysterious sights around us. There was still so much about the country, about the continent, that I don't understand, or have only glimpsed, and it occurred to me that I could see the attraction of staying longer, learning French and Hausa, and trying to better know this place.

But then we would stop, and the A/C would kick off, and there would be an instant setting in of the heat, and so much of that energy of curiosity and wonder would quickly drain away. It's still an open question whether I could live there long-term. When one has a task, and forms relationships, and feels a true calling, no doubt many things become tolerable or even non-issues. We spoke with Mike and LaRae Schmidt, church-planters and administrators who have been out there some 13 years (if I remember aright). LaRae told us how, before they came out, her friends came to her with great concern about her ability to survive the climate - she was rather a suburbanite at the time. And yet she told us, wearing an African-print dress and with a slight sweat-shine in the fluorescent light of our room, that she was thriving. Then there's Genevieve Goh, from Singapore. She says the climate in Niger is similar to back home, and has recently moved off compound to live in a mud hut in Galmi village. At the same time, Dr Henri Blanc - a Frenchman who has served at Galmi for the last 8 years with a heart for fulfilling the Great Commission - still cites the climate as a challenge.

Despite this challenge, Henri has returned to Galmi again and again for 8 years, and seems ready to do so for 8 more. Obviously something about Niger, or about Galmi, is more important to him than feeling comfortable all the time. This, I imagine, must be one of the tasks for anyone who comes to Galmi, and it will be easier for some and harder for others. Even when calling one out of his or her home, then, God's strength is still apportioned differently, and according to individual need and, no doubt, his own plans for him or her. And so sweat can be a matter of faith.

Back home

2007-07-25T15:54:00.001-06:00

I'm posting these two pictures to put the relative dangers of travel in Africa in perspective against the inconveniences of our return from that continent. The first shows the size of the thorns that made me a patient at Galmi. I was wearing cheap flip-flops at the time, and stepped on one of these, which pierced the thin foam and nailed it to the bottom of my foot. When I pulled it out a pool of blood formed under my foot, so I was rushed to the pharmacy, where some five Hausa women fussed over me, cleaned my wound and bandaged it.

The second photo shows a mijin kunama, which mean's "scorpion's husband." This critter, who was probably just a little too big to fit in a coffee mug, showed up in our room one night. They're actually harmless, but they're ugly and freaky, which is its own kind of affliction. We chased it about the room, shining a flashlight on it while we shot photos, then spraying it with Raid. After some 5 minutes or so of writhing, it still hadn't died, so Parker grabbed his shoe and...well we all know what happened next.

The inconvenience I refer to occurred on our trip home. Our flight out of Casablanca was over an hour and a half late, and then we had to do some loop-the-loops before landing in NewYork because of rain, with the consequence that, despite our best efforts at expediency and efficiency, we were unable to make our connecting flight to Chicago, and due to bad weather there as well, there would be no more flights until the next day.

I had been looking forward to seeing Katie again for the last 72 hours or so, and was tired on top of it, so the prospect of waiting one more day was actually quite depressing to me. There were many people in our predicament, and the hotels that had any rooms left were charging upwards of $400 for them. We found a Holiday Inn with 2 double beds for $329 and decided to all share it; trying to keep my spirits up, I told Parker that he wasn't exactly the person I had planned to spend that night with.

In fact, we didn't have so bad a night as we might have. We managed to joke about it amongst ourselves and generally maintain a positive attitude. The next day we had no problems and we were home by early afternoon.

Now it's time to turn around and try to organize the material we collected over the past week and a half. Being out of that environment in some ways makes it easier to begin to understand it. I notice, for instance, how clean the States are by comparison, despite our problems with littering and waste. I also notice myself moving more slowly but beginning to feel like I should be moving more quickly. We were certainly under time pressures in Niger, but we were forced to slow down if only because everyone else operated less hastily than we were used to. But in that calmer movement is something like a slowing of time to match it. We had a task, and we had people all around us, and we had less access to recreational media, and I think we were able to experience fuller days for it. Last night Katie and I watched some TV, and even then I felt more conscious of the length of the hour - yet less satisfied with how I filled its minutes.

I don't think this marks a conversion away from entertainment for me. I'll probably be back to old habits within a week or so. But it's good to throw those habits in relief against other possibilities, if only for the sake of awareness of them.

Over the next few days, I plan to post some thoughts, from afar, about topics such as the heat, poverty, mission work, the work of the hospital, etc., as a preliminary to the content I'll be developing for Galmi Hospital's website. I don't know if I could properly do so before coming back.

Winding up

2007-07-19T04:20:00.000-06:00

Today Elaine Haaga, Parker’s mom, leaves us. Oh yeah, and Parker is going with her. They’ll meet us Saturday in Niamey, but those 48 hours in between will be noticed. Elaine and Bert, Parker’s parents, came up Friday for the weekend to see their son and meet the team. They’ve been missionaries in eastern Niger for about 20 years, so they know their way around a guest house and the villages, and they were very generous about sharing their experience, and Elaine did a lot of cooking. Then Bert went back, but Elaine decided to stay on, cooking and cleaning and otherwise taking great care of us. Though she’s made her home in Niger for so long, and doesn’t seem to notice when she’s speaking Hausa or not, she still understands a lot about the kinds of things we’re trying to adapt to in our short time here, and her presence has thus been like the constant presence of grace among us. Each day, even at lunch, when we come back to the guest house, and I look down the hall to the kitchen and see the table set with plates and glasses, it’s like a great softness comes over me, a comfort and calmness. We’re so thankful for her being around.

We visited the Galmi village market Wednesday morning. Compared to our drive through on Saturday, when things were quiet, market day was a whole different world. The place was packed, to begin with. And noisy. And a little smelly. Huge buses blocked up the street. Vans pulled off to the side with goats strapped two or three high on the roof, then began to unload them rather peremptorily, grabbing them by the horns and legs and tossing them about. The market proper was off the main road in a clearing filled with millet-stalk pavilions. Besides the expected cloth, grain, and household items, you could get a lot of “Western” products: clothing, toys, electronics, soaps, etc.

The purpose of the market trip was to photograph a missionary “going to market,” so Bob followed Elaine around and shot her buying mangos and cloth and such. I started taking some photos, too, which got the kids all excited and crowding around. A couple vendors even started posing before me and asking to be photographed. This became such a distraction, and gave Bob such trouble trying to get more candid shots, that I put my own camera away for the most part and tried to ignore the kids, which did the trick.

It's surprising how eager many people are to be photographed. I mentioned as much to Stephen, and he said many times they think they're being put on television. There's also an ugly rumor that sometimes gets spread that when Westerners take photos and video of them, they go back to their countries and make lots of money off of them. In fact, while we were filming a waiting room Parker heard a rather brash man say as much, in Hausa to the others in the room. He had been strutting around importantly, and had made some women move out of line and off their bench so he could get quicker service, and so everyone seemed to just shrug him off anyway.

We've done lots of filming, lots of photographing, lots of interviewing. Now it looks like we might be in position to independently go off and do some of our own things. I'll probably take our spare camera and play around with that while I track people down for untaped interviews. It was around 100 degrees yesterday, and seems warmer today. I haven't seen my travel clock/thermometer go below 84 since we've been here, even at night. You kind of get used to moving more slowly and sweating more often.

Galmi Village

2007-07-16T07:03:00.000-06:00

Internet is kind of funny here, and slow - but then again, there is Internet. There's also a cell tower, and cell phones are plentiful even if water isn't (though this is the rainy season). Parker and Bob went out to a village with the AIDS (SIDA) team, and the village chief had a cell phone hanging from the thatchwork awning out front of his mud hut.

The girls in these photos are from Galmi village. We drove through Saturday midday prior to the "siesta," which is usually about 1 to 3. The girl on the left, it turns out, is deaf and mute, but that didn't much matter because we were only communicating with hand gestures anyhow. She was acting kind of shy when I indicated the camera, but she didn't run or hide when I shot her. I later noticed she had dark tattooing on her hand and tried to comment on it. She laughed, but then the kids around her laughed and started explaining to Stephen about her.

The girl on the right was one of maybe a dozen or more kids who were running around in this one yard. She made an even funnier face in one picture, and then everyone had to see it and laugh at her.

How long are five days?

2007-07-13T15:41:00.000-06:00

Gadamer differentiates between "empty" time and "fulfilled" time. Empty time is the kind we feel like we need to fill, the kind where we feel bored and there's "nothing to do." Fulfilled time is when we are so in the moment we don't think in time, or it feels almost eternal, or like we are so content we could go on like this forever - e.g. during celebrations or in conversation with friends. Most of us have had much of the former and, I hope, at least some of the latter.

On this trip we've certainly had empty time, such as our twelve-hour layover in Casablanca, or during our ten-hour drive from Niamey to Galmi, when there has been little we could do and we were so tired that the mind shuts down and the jet lag catches up to us. We've also had some fulfilled time, such as the excursion Bob and I took to the city of Casablanca (see photos); or the dinner we had with Dave and Lois Freeman, two missionaries from New Zealand who prepared a meal for us our first night in at Galmi. There was also a song performed by Walter, a missionary from Switzerland - an acoustic guitar version, in German, of Psalm 148, which he chose to sing on the occasion of the 50th birthday of Esther Pflaum, a doctor from Germany; I didn't understand much more than "Heaven" and "Hallelujah," but he is a skilled and sensitive singer/musician, and I don't know how long the song was, but it was a fine moment of grace during a night of celebration, and I was surprised myself by how it held the night in place for as long as he was singing it.

I think there must be a third kind of time that might properly be called "crowded" or "undifferentiated" time. I mean the experience of confronting so much new information - verbal, visual, sensory, (subliminal, for all I know) - and you are interested in it all but at the same time overwhelmed by it. In crowded time you can't quite process everything that' s happening to you, but you're neither bored nor swept away - though perhaps at times confused or lost or even giddy.

We've had much more crowded time than anything else. Whether it be rushing around airports or driving through Niamey or touring the hospital compound, there has just been so much information to process on so many different levels (cultural, relational, neurochemical [i.e. jet lag], and project-related). And then tonight there was a potluck celebrating Linda, the director's, 20th year in the field, the end of the Zoolkoski's term, and Esther's aforementioned birthday. It was a great chance to mingle with the missionary community here in an informal setting, but for an introvert like myself it meant finding extra energy to socialize when I haven't had much down time to myself for five days. Crowded time can feel both longer and shorter than it really is depending on the amount of stimulation, duration and degree of physical stress and quirks of the individual personality.

Which is to say it feels like we've been here for weeks and like we just got here - it feels like we just got here weeks ago. There's so much we've seen and learned that we can't even realize we've learned yet, and so much more we want to learn. And so little time.

What is a Missionary?

2007-06-26T12:07:00.000-06:00

My brother told me recently he was surprised to learn of my trip - I told him I was probably more surprised myself. It only hit me a little while ago that, if what I'm doing is "mission work," then that makes me a "missionary." Since my childhood I have sat in church congregations and listened to missionaries from Africa, East Asia, Central and South America, give their spiel about what they had been doing and what God had been doing and what their material and spiritual needs were. In college I started to hear of opportunities to go on such trips myself, and in Portland I even made friends with a guy, Stacy, who identified himself as a missionary, but I never really considered myself "like" the people who did such things - that is, like a missionary. I saw the value of the work, felt compassion for the suffering they were trying to alleviate, believed that I should even be putting a portion of my income toward some form of mission work, but I never felt called myself.

The "call" is a strange and interesting spiritual phenomenon. When people describe to you the various signs that amounted to their own personal call, one feels totally mystified - either because each instance hardly seems like a sign or could be read as rather harmless or coincidental, or because the person speaks with a confidence that you yourself are excluded from. How can I explain what made me accept this trip as a call? "God told me to forget about the money; showed me sources of acquiring the money through quite normal, if imprudent, channels; threatened to answer a thoughtlessly spoken prayer..."

The call is only a call to the one who receives it. When the call is to turn to those in one's community we say they are "serving" and call it a "ministry" (from the Latin for "servant, service"). When the call is to leave one's home for another community and culture, we say they are "going" and call it a "mission" (from the Latin for "sent"). Knowing the etymology makes it all seem far more normal than it often does in our church-speak, where those who "stay behind" look on visiting missionaries with a kind of half-embarrassed awe. Now, I'm only going on a short trip, really, but I certainly don't feel like anyone particularly special - I'm just trying to submit to the call.

It reminds me of Samwise Gamgee's reflection on heroes in The Lord of the Rings, which runs something to the tune of: maybe heroes aren't born "great," but are just regular folk, like hobbits, who choose to act when action is required of them. You could probably substitute "missionaries" for "heroes." Rather than romanticizing everyone who does something with his or her life, I think the force of the idea is that we should each attend first to the needs of who and what comes before us - let posterity work out for itself who it will value as what.

So, I guess I'm a missionary, at least for a couple weeks. It feels like a new idea to me, but really it's an old idea: God uses regular people to do great things.

Vanity Fair Africa Issue

2007-06-12T20:52:00.000-06:00

I don't normally read Vanity Fair, but I heard Bono was going to be its first ever guest editor and was going to make the whole issue about Africa, so when it came out recently I picked one up.

Everyone's making a big fuss about the covers, since there are 21 of them featuring a chain of politicians and celebrities who have been working to make Africa a so-called household word. What I find more interesting is Bono's stated purpose for wanting to be the guest editor:

"describing the continent of Africa as an opportunity, as an adventure, not a burden. Our habit — and we have to kick it — is to reduce this mesmerizing, entrepreneurial, dynamic continent of 53 diverse countries to a hopeless deathbed of war, disease, and corruption."

Since he's been getting into more capitalistic forms of activism - e.g. the (Red) campaign - it makes more sense he should want to go this route in presenting Africa (besides the obvious issue of being fair and honest about what the country is like). I think there is an interesting question here for charitable giving: do we give because it is good and right, or because it makes us feel better after hearing how poor and sick other peoples are? Do we give because we hope to make the world a more equitable place, or because we feel magnanimous with all our American comforts and wealth? (or even because we feel guilt for having all that comfort and wealth?).

Such questions apply to us all, and can only be answered on an individual basis. I think the significance of these questions lies in what they reveal to us about our overall disposition towards others, whether of another nationality, race, or class (or gender, still). If we really wish the best for those who have less, then we have to face the real possibility that it will mean having to do with less ourselves - there is no justice without sacrifice.

I encourage you to check out this issue of Vanity Fair in print or online.

Picture of a "Developing" Nation

2007-06-06T22:25:00.000-06:00

This sort of image fascinates me. You see the confluence of modern technology and traditional manual labor: a donkey pulling a cart with pneumatic tires and steel drums. I believe they are heading to the well, which means they probably plan to fill the drums with water for drinking, cooking, bathing and irrigating.

Notice they are traveling a muddy road. It reminds me of a documentary we watched in my junior year of high school history class. The film showed the uneven and inadequate development of many (perhaps most) African nations. More specifically, it made the connection between Western imperialism and these developmental troubles. That is, the European countries that came and took control of Africa spent time and money building up the cities where most of their citizens and armies lived; nationals were employed as laborers, mostly. After World War II, everyone basically just left, but they didn't leave behind them any nationals trained in taking care of or further developing their own cities. So, many places went to waste.

No doubt there are a number of factors complicating the current situation, such as, on the positive side, people receiving educations in Africa and abroad, and, on the negative, rampant government corruption. While these sorts of forces struggle against one another for the future of the continent, average people and their families and communities have to attend to the day-to-day. And people often prove resilient and resourceful.

Hence I view images like this as simultaneously a contradiction and a wonder. A contradiction because the tokens of modernization do not signify modernity; a wonder because they demonstrate the practicality and creativity of human beings, who often have the will to act where those with power do not.

Update & Thoughts on Stories

2007-05-29T20:11:00.000-06:00

I've really only been fundraising for a week but I've been overwhelmed with the support people have already been offering, both financially and in prayer. Even when you believe in a cause it is humbling to ask others for their money, but everyone seems to understand how these things work, so it has been much less awkward than I anticipated. I'm considering expanding my sidebar to include anyone who has pledged any kind of support, though even that could only reflect those who explicitly said as much as that they would pray for us, and would almost surely involve overlooking some whose support I can implicitly trust in.

It looks like soon we'll be flying Carol Montgomery, Stephen's wife, down to SIM: USA headquarters in North Carolina to pick up some immunizations for three of us on the team. Doing it this way is rather inconvenient but saves a lot of money on the shots. Carol is a nurse so I'm guessing she can administer them.

I was watching some footage today from one of Stephen's past trips to Galmi. It included a little church service held on one of the hospital wards in which five or six "nationals" (i.e. Nigeriens) and one missionary sang familiar Western hymns translated into Hausa (at least I'm guessing it was Hausa, one of the dominant languages). Actually, the song was "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which struck me as an odd choice. I understand the impulse to translate what one knows of traditional worship music into a native language, but I hope to find that some "indigenous" worship music has been developed, too.

I also hope to learn some folk tales or traditional lore, or any such stories that serve to identify the people as a nation or even as Christians. It may be that, as a democracy of some 21 ethnic languages and I think 27 different groups, there are few of these stories, or that they are more of the nature of the historical stories we learn in 8th grade Social Studies. No doubt Galmi has a few that play an important role in the staff's and people's concept of it and that embody its core values. Those are the kinds of thing I think I'll be interested in.

Instantiating Blog

2007-05-22T22:09:00.000-06:00

This is the only image I have right now, so it's going on anything I want an image for. It at least makes it look like the place I'm going is beautiful and mysterious, whereas the video I've seen thus far doesn't permit much romanticizing. As future posts will confirm, Galmi Hospital, as reputable as it is in its region, doesn't look much like a hospital to those of us from the West.

I don't know what kind of web access may be available in Niger; I'm guessing little to none. However, I'll try to do periodic updates before and after the trip to give people a sense of what it was like and what the team's been up to.