The Wenatchee FMC is sending a team next month to break ground for a school health clinic at Hope for Little Shepherds. They will do health screening and immunize the children, providing teaching for parents on hygiene, nutrition and HIV/AIDS prevention. 80 free wheelchairs and Bibles will be distributed to previously identified and targeted disabled people in the community. The Living Tower FMC in Aurora, Colorado has shown great interest in the new work with Dr. Tom and Kathy Hadduck giving great advice on plans and scope of the new clinic.

At the Fernley, Nevada FMC I met the sponsor of one of our little shepherd girls! The sponsor loaded me down with gifts, pictures and a letter for little Husseina, which I’ll have the joy of delivering in person. What a message of God’s deep love for these children is passed along through their sponsors’ caring support. Because of their sponsors’ commitment to their education and well-being, Husseina and her twin brother Hassan receive free tuition, uniforms, textbooks and feeding at Hope for Little Shepherds. Many other Nigerian children await sponsorship through the ICCM program. Information is available on www.childcareministries.org

What difference is our school making in the lives of these little shepherds? Well, when these children come to our school, many of them are learning about God for the first time. They learn that God created each one of them in a beautiful and unique way – and the world, as their perfect home. Why? Because God wants a love relationship with His children.
They learn that God is not distant and separated from those He created, rather, He is daily involved in their lives, helping in times of trouble, providing for their needs, loving, guiding and protecting – hearing and answering prayer. They learn that the kind of love God has for them is so real and true that He came to earth as the man Jesus, and was willing to lay down His life that their sins might be forgiven, that they might have eternal life with Him.
These children learn about God and His love through the pastors and teachers, through missionaries, and the children begin to respond. The changes are visible and real. It’s as though a light’s been switched on somewhere deep inside, illuminating a sense of joy as the child realizes he is valued, loved and accepted. And when the little shepherd dons the school uniform for the first time, for the first time he feels like a real Nigerian child.
As he learns how to read and write, learns about people and places he’d never known to exist, learns to sing and pray, his self-esteem becomes strong, he feels better about himself, he feels happier and begins to make new friends, playing for the first time with children of tribes different from his own.
Just imagine, he thinks to himself, people from a ‘white tribe’ come from across the ‘big river’ just to teach him, play with him and care for him in special ways! They are sent by God, they tell him, because God loves him so much. All these new experiences are gifts from God, he is told - his, because he is God’s own special child!
And so these children – once living isolated lives of physical and spiritual darkness are reborn into the kind of kids God intended them to be from the creation of the world. Children of light, joy and peace!

I'd been working in the southeastern part of the country when the call came to build the new school for Fulani kids. So, along with Pastor Bassey, we packed two vans with household and school needs and did the 9 hour drive to Kogi State. It was so hot and dry - rivers and streams, other than the Niger, beds of sand. I don't know how the cows survived! Our attempt at a hand-dug well failed - after months of hard work, only producing a small amount of water and a black mamba! So the first blessing was the gift from Clear Blue, the Free Methodist well-drilling organization, two deep wells which are supplying water for a large part of the community. Building the assembly hall, a classroom buildings and an mission apartment took about 3 months, then the business of bringing Chief's family from their forest camp to a new location on the hill adjacent to the school. Chief bought a piece of land, and for the first time in the history of their clan, will build a permanent house for his family! The children came in droves - we're up to 250 children now, and hoping to bring in more. And what a difference we're already seeing in the lives of these wonderful kids!

Every eye was on Chief as opening day approached. Would he risk ostracism, persecution and even death to enroll his children in this Christian school in the face of such opposition?Chief did not hesitate. Along with his brothers, their wives and all their children, he set up camp on the hillside adjacent to the school, enrolling their many children and opening the way for dozens of other Fulani parents who have since followed in his footsteps.We opened the school on Feb 1st, with 35 children, four classrooms and an assembly hall.From February through June our goal was to introduce Fulani kids to the concept of school – let me tell you - for the first two months, it was sheer chaos! We also planned to teach them as much English as possible in preparation for the official opening in September.Enrollment quickly shot up to 240 children and soon, we not only had 4 classrooms filled, but 3 more classes set up in the assembly hall! A team of teachers came from Wenatchee and a retired teacher from Michigan, to help train our Nigerian teachers and to give special tutoring to the children. Volunteers began work on the second classroom block.In June, we tested each child to determine their placement for September, and then on September 5, 2008, Hope Academy for Little Shepherds officially began!

One day, Chief invited me to visit his homeland on the banks of the Niger River up in Kogi State, in what is called the ‘middle belt’ of Nigeria. There, in his little camp, hours were spent discussing the possibility of establishing a school especially for Fulani children.Chief contacted the nine Fulani elders in the area, convincing them to agree with the establishment of a Christian school in their homeland. But there were still others to be convinced.There were four other representatives with whom we had to deal before building the school – two being traditional land owners in the area, and two traditional rulers over several states. All of these were powerful and influential leaders whose word could land us in prison or thrown out of the country for good. But let me say here, God was in control – this has been God’s project from the beginning, and though there have been times of extreme danger in which we feared for our lives, God protected us and carried us through. .We went first to the first land owner, whom I’ll call ‘Sule’.Sule’s palace is an elaborate structure built in the shadow of a large, private mosque! Getting out of the van, the first thing I noticed was a row of sandals outside the palace door, and two people crawling over the sill on their hands and knees!As we approached I watched the two as they crawled across the carpet to crouch below Sule’s throne, and I turned back to the van, ready to haul myself right out of there! But Chief laughingly assured me that everything would be okay and drew me on to the door!There, we took off our shoes and Chief crawled in on his hands and knees. I followed him, upright but hunched over as much as possible, trying to appear humble and subservient! I was shown a seat at the side of the room.When Sule entered, everyone bowed and touched their foreheads to the carpet – except for me, of course – I just sat there staring! Vague thoughts of Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo floated across my mind, and I wondered about furnaces and whether God would agree to come and walk through one a second time! But nothing happened, and my gross disrespect was overlooked!Sule was a huge, impressive individual, dressed in the typical garb of long, voluminous white robes and white bonnet tied around his face. He arranged himself on his throne, looked down his nose at us, and proceeded to the business of the day.When it was time for our case, Chief told the story of our meeting, his request for a school for his children, and our readiness to build such a school. Sule asked many, many questions, and of course, the main bone of contention was religion. Sule asked Chief if he was aware that this school was to be a Christian school, and as a Muslim, didn’t he have a problem with that? Was he ready to sell out his people to the Christians? Chief said he had my assurance that I would not coerce or force his children to change their religion.Is that true, Sule asked me? I said it was true.“I am a Christian,” I told him, standing there before him, “and this school will be a Christian school. The school will be open to every child irrespective of tribe, language or faith. And though we will only teach Christianity, we will never force any child to change their religion.”Then came the issue of teaching Islam in our school. Sule was insistent that we hire Muslim teachers and provide Islamic religious training. I answered that we could not have Islam as part of our curriculum, just as I was certain that no Islamic school would teach Christianity as part of theirs!The visit to the second land owner was almost identical to that of the first, and though the two finally gave us an open door, we still had trouble ahead. A letter was written to a high official of the state by a traditional emir, whose power extends throughout many states, accusing Chief of accepting a huge monetary bribe from us, to set up a school to convert Muslim children, and then, a second ruler over Fulani people in the state reported Chief to the state security police, accusing him of threatening peace in the area by bringing in Christians to work among the Muslims.Chief invited his accusers to a series of week-long meetings, arguing on behalf of Fulani children, maintaining their right as Nigerians to an education and his freedom as a parent to place his children in whichever school he chose.When Chief was told that he would be held responsible for any child who died under our care, or who converted to Christianity, he reminded them that it is God and God alone who holds a child’s life in His hands. “Who am I,” Chief asked, “a mere mortal, to ordain the future of a child?”

Life in Nigeria! Quite an adventure, and quite a challenge!
Of all the challenges: language, food, the heat, the greatest came last year when I was invited to establish a school for Fulani children in Kogi state.
It all began with a can of paint, in the little town of Ekparakwa, and a meeting ordained by God.
I had been working in the southern state of Akwa Ibom, among the mostly Christian, Ibibio tribe, but was drawn to the Fulani people I occasionally saw along the roadsides and in the fields with their cows. On asking, I discovered that these beautiful, stately people were nomads from the North – cattle rearers who follow seasonal routes through West Africa looking for the best pastures and water sources for their cows.
They are an isolated tribe, speaking a different language, living in the bush with their animals, despised by many, though they are the beef producers of the nation. They have constant run-ins with farmers over the land. Because they carry weapons they are feared; in a mostly Christian state, because they are Muslims, they are carefully avoided.
It is because of this fear and prejudice that many Fulani children do not go to school!
Many Fulani kids, from the age of 4, are expected to herd their fathers’ cows and sheep, and spend their lives, isolated and illiterate as their fathers and grandfathers before them, shepherding the flocks, following the cows.
Well, I was in the town of Ekparakwa one day, buying a can of paint, when two young Fulani girls entered the shop and asked for some of the empty paint cans that were stacked by the door. The shop keeper rudely chased them away. I followed them and using sign language and broken English, I greeted them and invited myself to drive them back to their camp!
There began an incredible friendship with the head of the clan, whom I’ll call ‘Chief’, an unusually wise and enlightened Fulani chief, his brothers, their wives and children. There were long visits in their camp, tours of their herds, lessons in cooking traditional dishes and making ‘no-no’ - a home-made buttermilk, which I soon discovered was a big ‘NO NO’ for me, and field trips for their children to our school there in the south, Hope Academy.