I had the privilege of visiting TEAM missionaries (The
Evangelical Alliance Mission) in the village of Tchaguine, Chad!!!
I arrived into the capital city of N’Djamena
and less than 24 hours later, I boarded a small 4 seat airplane to fly the hour
and half to the village of Tchaguine, and there spent 10 days with missionaries
Mark and Diane Vanderkooi.
They are they
only missionaries in that area and are doing Bible translation of the Kwong
language as well as finding creative ways to help these people hear and read
the Bible in their native language!
They
run a radio station that broadcasts twice a day from solar power, and they are
teaching the people in the village to read.
There is a small mission clinic in the village that serves
surrounding villages as well, somewhere around 10,000 people.
The clinic staff includes 4 Chadeans, one
nurse, one partially trained midwife, and a few assistants.
They have very limited resources, and yet,
God is working in spite of their limitations.
While I was there a small boy came in with severe malaria and while he
needed to go immediately to a hospital, the family was unable to get him there due
to finances and flooded roads.
The boy
was treated at the clinic and God spared his life.
I’m still amazed that his condition improved
without the standard malaria treatments he needed! Because of their extended
stay at the clinic, there were multiple times that the family heard the Gospel.
During my time there, I spent a lot of time at the clinic,
or traveling with the clinic staff to nearby villages to see patients, give
vaccines, and have prenatal checkups. In
this area, rainy season usually means flooded roads that are impassable by car.
One day we were driving to a village and
when we were only about 5 kilometers away, we had to drive through a very large
area of water. The first part was sand,
so it was no problem, then we got to a section and the vehicle was slipping and
sliding around, but with a bit of skill and 4 wheel drive we got through the
mud and started up the slope onto dry land.
As we were all starting to take a sigh of relief, the right side of the
vehicle dropped into the mud and we were stuck!!!
Even with the attempted help of many people, including a
caravan of Arabs and about 30 men from the village, it took 3 hours to get
unstuck. As we tried to get the vehicle
turned onto more sturdy ground, the left side of the vehicle became stuck. Thankfully, the second time it only took
about 15 min to get unstuck. The men used
their machetes to cut down branches and make a bridge to the section of better
road. Then the missionary and a man from
the village waded out through the area of water to find a pathway that would allow
us to get back through the large area of water and mud, and once they were
happy with a path, the missionary and I head back while the clinic staff
walked, rode bikes, or took a moto to get to the original destination and see
the patients as planned for the day!
Another day, I borrowed a bike and rode with the clinic
staff the 30 minute to the nearby village for a clinic. After a long clinic day with only some hot
milk and hot tea, someone in the village invited us to eat. I was so hungry I couldn’t wait!!! In this cultural, typically the men usually
eat outside and the women eat inside, but they never eat together. The clinic staff consisted of both men and
woman, so, after prayer and washing our hands, I follow the other lady into the
dark room where we had done some prenatal exams earlier in the day. We sat on the rug on the dirt floor and she
closed the door so that we could not see the men, but yet still had some light
since there was no electricity.
There was always a lot of activity happening around the
house, from women gathering for Bible study to children coming to play with
legos, uno cards, read, or use the soccer ball.
Their soccer field was overgrown with weeds and their soccer ball about
to fall apart, so we used the new soccer ball I brought with me to help
motivate them to clear the weeds on the soccer field. Each day they had to clear a certain amount
of weeds before they could get the soccer ball.
By the time I left it was almost cleared!!! And the ball has the same colors on it as a
wordless book does, so every time they asked for it, we also shared the Gospel
with them!!!
Millet is the staple of the people’s diet there.
They grow it and then store it and it is
usually barely enough to get them through until the next crop.
One day we were able to go with a family to
their day of planting the millet seeds in what is like a nursery for the
seeds.
Once the plants start they are
then transferred to different fields in the more flooded areas where they will
continue to grow.
How do you plant these
seeds?
With your feet!!!
It’s simple, shoes off, follow behind somebody
dropping seeds, and cover them with a bit of dirt!
It was fun and nice to be able to help them
in a practical way!
The missionaries flew back to the capital, N’Djamena, Chad
to refill supplies. So, as we prepared
to leave, the people from the village lined the side of the airstrip to say
goodbye and see us off. Daily life in a
village like that would be very, very difficult, but what a neat place and
amazing time I had there!!!
This experience was amazing, and I’m so thankful for the
time in the village and with the missionaries there! It gives me a lot to think about as far as
where God would have me in the future.
In a remote village doing primarily community health work, or in an area
with more access to health care and then traveling out to the villages. I’m still praying through these things and
know that God will give me clarity about it as I follow Him step by step!
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