We will be traveling back to Nigeria soon. We are excited to be traveling with Dr. Michael Sturm this trip. Mike is an optometrist who will be offering eye care and prescription glasses to our patients. At every mission we have held people have asked for help with their eyesight. We are thrilled to be able to offer this level of care to the villagers. Mike is especially interested in treating people with diabetes and school age children.
Fr. John is already on his way to Owerri to coordinate logistics for our outreach. We will be interviewing doctors and midwives to staff the maternity hospital once we get it up and running. Please pray that the right people come forward to lead us into this next venture.
Speaking of opening the clinic, our building is completed!!! We will be able to hold clinics in our new space. That will offer much more privacy than we have had in the past and will allow the practitioners to do more thorough exams on patients. There was only so much that could be done in an open air pavilion in the past.
Another task for this trip is meeting with the site surveyor for Project Cure. She will meet us in Owerri and tour our new hospital to help us decide what equipment can be sent. Project Cure gathers donated equipment an supplies from hospitals and clinics around the country and then offers them to missionary programs around the world. They will furnish our maternity clinic for free!!! We just need to pay for the shipping to Nigeria - not a small thing. We will get a better idea of the cost once the surveyor finishes her work, but we were told the cost could be as much as $20,000. So that will be our next goal: Raising $$$ to cover the costs involved in getting everything to Egbelu.
We are anxious to get going and see how the bare cinder block structure has been transformed into a real hospital building. This is dream that has been in the making for 3 years and we never expected it to be coming true so soon. We have been very blessed and are amazed at how God has been working to make this all come together. Our donors have been exceedingly generous and we thank God for everyone of you. May the blessings return to you tenfold!