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We have now had the satellite service for the internet vandalised three times, interestingly all since the road appearered in sight of the clinic on the opposite riverbank.
There seems to be an excellent, and buoyant market for 'secondhand' satellite dishes and paraphernalia...
Recently a patient was brought in in the early hours and whilst being attended to, and the workers attention taken , an accomplice scaled the clinic and removed the whole dish, arm and leads (with concrete surround).
Grudgingly you had to admire the brazen methodology, but the theft has been a real setback with regards to training and communication.
Within a week however the Amana Nana We ( Tribal Community King), and the community council leaders came to state that having seen us repair the dish three times they felt it was their turn to assist given the benefit the community received from the Clinic.
True to their word they raised £800 across the community and neighbouring villages and the Lagos Company who provide the service agreed to re-equip the service for this sum, a considerable discount for which we are very grateful.
This unsolicited kindness reaffirms the fruit of effectual partnership...
(the equipment has now been ordered and we await delivery, and are designing a more secure location)
Building Progress june 2015
Building of the new Mission station is at the lintel. The rains have been little to date this season so we hope to be at roof level in the next few weeks.This shows the interior of the main hall to be used for taining and gatherings, flexible enough a space to also be used for surgery if required.
Thank you!
David Laing, from the Peoples Church Falkirk recently completed the Belfast marathon, raising over £700 for New Foundations.
New Foundations was birthed at the Peoples Church twelve years ago so this is especially significant for us, as they have loyally encouraged and supported us since.
God's expression to the world is through his Son Jesus Christ, who indwells through His Spirit those who call Him Lord and Saviour. God uses His Church, the body of Christ to fulfill His purposes (unless acting sovereignly ).
This Mission is a little part of the body of Christ and unable to function or survive without, literally, footsoldiers like David who have done so much to help the work and outwork their faith in practice to Gods glory.
To many this may sound too theologically dense, but the affairs of the heart and the Christian call to witness and serve, demand a review once in a while, otherwise, once again it becomes all about us, and not about Him.
BTW, for those of us who have trained and undertaken marathons you will be under no illusion how punishing and time consuming the whole affair becomes, for family as well! - hope the cramps have eased...
Just in Time...
This young man was disovered by chance as the Community Health Worker visited an inner quarter of the community for general outreach and education.
We know many of the sickest patients never get to the clinic , either too weak to walk, ashamed in case of stigmatisation if it's found to be HIV, or simply have given up hope.
This young man lived with his grandparents who had exhausted funds seeking help from various hospitals, his grandmother packing sand from the creek to earn money, his grandfather labouring when able, himself in pain wth arthritis.
He had gradually becoming weaker over the preceding eight months , now short of breath with even 50 ft of walking and standing tiring and an effort.
We link with the wonderful Swinfen Charitable Trust, who liaise online with doctors around the world. The concensus seemed to be a likely infection of the heart, so we started a month of injectable antibiotics, as clinically the picture was not clear on the ground
After three weeks he is eating, gaining weight, and back playing football.
Too often these patients fade and die with no diagnosis, no help and no hope, Praise God this lad was found in time, and highlights the amazing power of telemedicine use in resource poor and remote regions.
Building starts..
The new Mission station is now underway as we look toward roads eventually reaching the community and the loss of our current borrowed accommodation that has been such a blessing for the past few years. We are building a simple multipurpose house on our land that will be deeded to the Charity to give long term stability.
We have no power or machinery so all has to be done by hand. The sand for the blocks must be collected by hand from divers and canoes in the creek.
The land has been cleared by burning and machete prior to the foundations being dug.
The man responsible for the build is Victory's Pastor who works as a brick layer and in his sixties is still a dynamo of energy.As the project proceeds we'll update you on this page. It's been an amazing act of God's provision that the funds are there for this building and we want to try and get to roof level before the rains and will be using local workers for everything so the local economy benefits too.
Chicken down!
Despite chicken wire and a sealed chicken house a large python climbed trhough a roof space and devoured one of our chickens. Too fat to escape and likely too post-prandial, it was despatched and the unfortunate bird retrieved ( too late..)
It does confirm our intention to build a block chicken house in the next few months as we look to scale up the numbers now the eggs are coming thick and fast. We had not anticipated snakes of this size getting in, but there again he had not anticipated that his greed would be his undoing....
poor lad....
a good result...
This young lad has endured a long haul to recover from a deep abscess caused by the dirty needle of a local 'chemist' who gave an injection some months ago causing massive tissue necrosis and infection in July 2014 ( see post below)
After a long time as an inpatient with wound debridement, cleaning and nutritional supplements he has made an excellent recovery.
Sometimes in these deep abscesses the sciatic nerve can be permanently damaged and the leg left weakened or useless longterm.
With diligence , care and really quite simple measures he has done very well, the wound now fully healed, and no loss of function.
Clinic Build news....
On a bitingly cold afternoon in January the rough dimensions of the new mission station were mapped out on a dour industrial estate carpark in north Cambridge. The outline shows the approximate size of the building but thankfully more competent plans are being used for the actual build than shown here in blue..
We're very grateful to the building expertise of Noel Garner and the advice for the structural engineering aspects from his son Marcus who are transforming concept to working plans. We are laying out the foundations in late January.
The afternoon was curtailed both by the freezing cold and a worried security guard who tannoyed his concerns after following our bizarre activites on
CCTV..
Community Clinic progress November 2014.
This is not a very startling image it may seem , but, in fact , it is.....
The Community of Oyang-Bene is a remote village accessible only by boat and with a subsistence economy. The shell of a rudimentary Government clinic lay overgrown and swallowed by the bush, only an frame of hand made blocks, never finished and never occupied.
We discussed two years ago that if the community completed the build then we would train Community Health Workers from the village , employ them and resource the clinic to provide a crucially needed Primary Care Centre.
There is still much to do but to roof, render and put in floors and ceilings at the community's own expense is a testimony to real stakeholder partnership.
The council have seen how our other clinics function and have made a real investment in their own development
Hoorah for grassroots initiatives, and real partnerships for change!
New Mission Station Oct. 2014
With the likelihood of roads and bridges reaching Enekorogha in the next 1-2 years we are looking to embed the Mission as a sustainable work that is an integral working testimony to the Gospel within the life of the community.
The Mission Station will be constructed in local materials and with a build quality equal to those structures surrounding it, simple and practical, but using low cost solar power and rain harvesting. It will stand on our farm providing accommodation for visitors and staff, only a few minutes from the main Clinic base. Todate we have always borrowed accommodation to restrict capital building projects but with improved transporation this provision will eventually cease, as pressure on housing increases.
The main central hall will be multipurpose for training, surgery, fellowship, prayer camps and literacy classes, whilst each end will provide bedrooms with ensuite toilet/shower and a residents apartment, solar store, office and kitchen.
The roof is flat pitched to accommodate solar panels using tree trunks as spanning beams and copious glass on the shaded side with no windows on the sun exposed side. Overhangs and perforated upper registers of bricks allow flow of air modelled on tropical hospitals found in east africa.
We believed God for the funds and have not solicited for this in any way . In seven days all the funds have arrived and we hope to start before the end of the year. Provision and timing remains the provence of God, for which man can take no credit, but can only give thanks.
10th Anniversary Celebration and thanksgiving
On the 13th September we marked our tenth year, though within 6 weeks of our eleventh in reality.
We heard reports from Ian Squire Founder of our partners Mission for Vision, Trustees and those affiliated with the work. During the evening we also managed a 'live link ' with several of the New Foundations family in Nigeria speaking from different communities via skype. It was a joy to have them 'with us' and seemed to shrink the 4267 miles between Cambridge and the Delta.
After ten years New Foundations remains a small grassroots Mission and we continue to operate as a united family of brothers and sisters seeking to work in obedience to give a clear testimony of Gods Grace in the riverine communities of the Delta.
For those who couldn't make it we wanted to give a flavour of the work and the unique character of the team..
(It's only 11mins)
Update from last post ( September)
Just two weeks after the preceding black and white picture from the previous post, this little lad is doing well. He's had a stormy time with seizures and difficulties gaining IV access but with intensive care and a manged nutrition program the wound is improving.
Totally avoidable..... (August 2014)
This child, age one year, has been admitted with a large and deep abscess from a dirty injection administered by a local 'chemist', using old needles. They also tend to use adult doses in children that destroys tissue locally.
The child is severely malnourished and is on an intense feeding program given the highly dangerous catabolic state his metabolism is enduring.. We have had to admit the entire family to the clinic and provide food for them as the mother is by herself and cannot leave either the infant or four other children. Its a difficult time in an already cramped clinic and we pray the little lad will recover with approriate antibiotics, nutritional support, dressing and hydration.
We're here! 
(July 2014)
Ten chickens have arrived at their new home . They get some time to forage outside each day before lights out. Assuming all goes well we're looking to scale up to 200 chickens early 2015 once a more permanent block house is made. This will provide protein based food for the mission and community and a small revenue to feed back into the projects. I know we've harped on about the chickens of late but we're actually quite excited about this new venture.
Chickens
With the land now cleared Marcus ( flush with a Diploma in Animal Husbandry) has constructed a small chicken coup to hold up to twenty chickens. Rats, snakes and vermin are a real problem and he hopes that the coup will also reduce the risk of parasitical infection, and indeed opportunistic theft.
Having spent a short internship at a commercial farm it seems prudent to start small ( the motto for all our ventures) and try and identify problems in a pilot scheme.
If successful we'll construct a block house and scale up to 1-200 chickens that will provide subsidised meat and eggs to the community and generate some income in the quest to make the programsmore self-sustaining.
We have deliberately kept the trees for shade and cover, as it's planned to start a small apiary and leave some space for the propose Mission Station that, God willing may be started to provide, for the first time in the Missions history, a permanent owned buidling for training, visiting teams and staff accommodation.
For now we'll get the chickens happy with their housing......
A new Clinic request: May 2014
Last month we received a letter from a small community deep in the interior creeks almost three hours by boat requesting help to set up a small clinic. The letter speaks for itself. The area is accessible only if the tides are right and due preparation is made.
When you consider our other clinic bases it's a challenge to provide a service there.
We have always believed that our call is to where there is no provision, to the marginalised and forgotten, and these inner creeks are not without considerable problems, politically unstable, remote and without power or resources.
We have prayed that there would be a route in and always believed that if it was to work it would be an open door, with a clear invitation.
We have now visited the community, explained that we are missionary organisation and that the Gospel comes with the health care. This has been welcomed and well received. The community has no health care, no clinic and no governmental provision.
We are asking the community to identify two workers to be trained and we'll revisit over the next few months to clarify the objectives as partnership is crucial in this endeavour.
We envisage that the training will begin in November. As yet there is no suitable block building to use as a Clinic, but this is a mere detail....
Praise God for an open door to these remote communities.
March 2014 Cataract and training camp
Consultant Ophthalmologist David Lass and his team ( Ezra and Ruth) returned to join us from Jos to undertake a cataract and eye camp treating 24 patients.They last came Feb 2013 treating 54 patients. The lady above had been blind for the four years. We undertook her first operation in Calabar in 2012 but had her second eye treated this camp to her obvious delight.
Before:
After:
This young lady had been blind in her left eye for some time with cataract and chronic uveitis, and had been to many centres but unable to pay. Giving free sight remains a blessing to both giver and recipient. Both she, and her brother who brought her were overjoyed.
Triage for this camp had been across the remoter communities and many had travelled considerable distances by canoe. Despite careful education and encouragement many still fear the surgery and many scheduled for surgery were too afraid to come.
This is always frustrating, and emphasises the importance of a local vision centre where, with time people can understand that they need not fear the operation , nor accept life with limited or total loss of vision.
One patient , eager for surgery, descibed her life without sight as being, ' a person living as if she was dead'.
Again this man was previously blind but this camp received his second cataract operation, his first again undertaken via partners the Tulsai Chanrai Foundation in Calabar.
Restored vision is a wonderful metaphor for the Gospel and many came to Christ understanding that Jesus came to seek and save, that those who live in darkness may see a new light, that those once blind, may now see their Saviour
.
Thank you Ruth Ezra and David!