Trip Summary

I was asked to write a Reader's Digest version of my last 2 1/2 months in Nigeria for a newsletter. I figured I would write a summary blog on my last day here. I am mostly packed and ready to head to the airport in about 5 hours. In all this was a successful trip. There were some frustrations. I had delayed my trip a few weeks so I would arrive after the Health Board had there two weeks of administrative training. Their training got delayed two weeks. At the end of the trip there was problems with transferring money to a driller and that delayed the drilling of the Waya borehole to the very end of the trip.

I should introduce myself for those who do not know me. I am Jay Johnson. I am a professional engineer. I am a retired Lt. Colonel from the US Army and Army Reserve. I have traveled extensively in my military and professional careers. Since 2006 I have been traveling to Nigeria annually. The first two trips were short two week visits with the Minneapolis Areas Synod / Global Health Ministries Public Health Evaluation Team. Starting in 2008 I visited by myself for visits of 6 week to 10 weeks. In 2008 my purpose was to start learning the people and culture. I visited all the Dioceses of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria and over 100 villages. This is when I composed my three priorities for village water. 1. A village wants to have enough water to survive. 2. They want the water as close to their village as possible. 3. They want safe water.

The Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria is based out of Adamawa State. Adamawa is a rural state in the northeast part of Nigeria on the border with Cameroon. It is mostly savannah. Deforestation is almost complete except in a few preserves and hillsides too steep to farm. They have two seasons. Dry season is from October to June. Rainy season is from June to October. In the southern part of the state the rainy season is longer and in the northern area it is even shorter. In the capital Yola the annual rainfall is about the same as Minneapolis. Except it is concentrated in a short period of time. Farming is mainly a rainy season business. We have had several rainfalls and the countryside is turning green. The vacant farm fields are now busy with people with hoes, or cattle pulling plows and tractors plowing. The sorghum has sprouted in some areas and the maize is being planted. On weekends the people from the cities head to their villages and plant their crops.

My original purpose in coming to Nigeria was to start my retirement career as a non-denominational water, sanitation and development consultant. All of my trips have been centered on clean water and sanitation, but have included work in community development. The three main organizations I work with are the LCCN Health Board Water and Sanitation/Hygiene (WASH) Team, the LCCN Deaf Centre and Spring of Hope HIV/AIDS Support Group. Over 90 percent of my efforts are with clean water.

This trip had a slow start as my main contact Yakubu Bulama the Water Coordinator for the Health Board and Projects Coordinator for the LCCN was working with the Health Board Administrative training for the first two full weeks I was in the country. I spent these weeks setting household in the old mission house on the LCCN Compound and visiting with the Deaf Centre. The guards at the Cathedral Church in the adjoining compound called my house the "falling down house."

 My travels this 10 weeks has probably totaled around 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) by road in public transportation and in LCCN owned vehicles. This was the most dangerous part of my time. Many of the drivers are not licensed. Some went from riding bikes to driving cars. Others drove motorbikes and drive their cars the same way. Few know the rules of the road. When I got my license I paid an extra 1,500 Naira ($10) so I did not have to talk to the driving examiner. The manager just gave me my license and told me that was what the extra money was for. 

Water accomplishments: There are more accomplishments than disappointments. Some of the disappointments are actually accomplishments (or steps towards accomplishments.)  The main two accomplishments were fixing the water distribution system at Banjiram and drilling two productive boreholes at Waya and a third at Polchi. (Waya and Polchi are in Bauchi State and are mission villages of the LCCN churches in Jos, Plateau State). We also were able to go to Timbukum, in the southern part of Adamawa State to start the review of the non-functional solar powered borehole that the Nigerian Government with money from the US Government had installed and never worked. We found that the pump was installed at the very top of the water table. The next phase which will do done after I leave will be to determine if the borehole is deep enough to lower the pump to under the water. We be a preliminary survey of the broken water system at the Government Secondary School in Hong that the PTA had asked for our assistance. In Pella we got to review the large hand dug well near the LCCN Maternity Clinic to determine the possibility and estimated cost to clean out the bottom of the well, cover the well and add a hand or powered pump. This is a highly productive well that has had continuous water for several decades. The water was over 6 feet deep. The hardest part of this project will be to find pumps capable of de-watering the well so the well diggers can enter and remove the several decades of debris that has accumulated.

Disappointments: We performed a geophysical survey of two points in the community around the Sabon Gari B District Church on the edge of Mayo Belwa. The survey indicated that there was not a significant amount of groundwater for a productive borehole at the two locations surveyed. However, there are several productive motorized boreholes operating in the area. The next thing for the community to do is to go to the owners of the productive boreholes and find out how deep they are and if possible measure the static and dynamic water levels. Likewise, the geophysical survey of the area where they want to install a borehole at Gada Biyu in Bauchi State found very little indication of groundwater. We have asked the geologist if an improved hand dug well might be possible. This village may require some more innovative system for obtaining water during the dry season.

Other Work: LCCN Deaf Centre is moving towards being able to serve more of the Deaf Community of Adamawa. Last week the Yola Bishop requested that the paperwork for the Ordination of Ruth Ulea as the first deaf pastor in the LCCN be forwarded to the Jimeta District Church. By tradition a candidate's home district is suppose to call pastors.Ruth's home church is in Arewa Diocese in Hong. They have sat on her application because she does not serve their community and for some other reasons. The LCCN Constitution on specifies that a District Church will call a pastor. In Ruth's case she provides Sunday School and church services in Jimeta and several other locations in the Yola Diocese. We fixed most of the roof leaks in the patio area where Ruth holds Sunday Services and I bought 7 sets of jewelry and some bracelets that some of the women make to support the Centre. They normally sell them for 300 naira in the local market. I talked them into sell them to me for 500 naira. I will be putting them up for bid on a website for a minimum of $10 (1,570 naira) with the profits going back to the Centre. I have started work on some concept designs for improvements to the LCCN Deaf Centre and improvements to the location that Church services are held at until a new church can be located, designed, financed and built. I was able to attend a meeting of the Spring of Hope HIV/AIDS Support Group. A part of the group has been trained in soap making. They only need $400 to buy the molds and ingredients for their first batch of soap. They have test marketed some of the soaps in their home villages and found that market to be more viable than in the more competitive Yola market. I hope to raise the $400 as a micro-loan when I get back to the US. I have made progress on fixing my "falling down house". The main opening that rats and mosquitoes come in through has been screened. There are two major roof problems that are washing away some of the mud bricks in the kitchen wing that will need attention soon or the kitchen wing will fall down. For the first time in the last three trips I have been able to stop and shop at Women of Hope store in Jos. I will be leaving the country broke but I purchased 71,000 naira of their merchandise. It will be for sale at the Mount Calvary Annual Fair Trade Fair the first weekend of November. I have a great tan from the elbows down and since I have driving the last month the left arm is now balanced with my right arm.


I almost forgot. After three years of sitting in Gaye Guyton's living room. The boxes of books that were collected for the Remi Foundation, the books I collected for the Bronnum Lutheran Seminary and the LCCN Deaf Centre arrived in Jos and I picked them up Saturday when we were there for the Waya borehole drilling. They were all distributed on Monday. The Deaf Centre library went from about a dozen books to almost 100. They are considering allowing the students to take some of the books home to read overnight. I have been in locked libraries at schools. Most schools to not have a library at all. The Jimeta Cathedral school has a room in their new expansion designated for a library but does not have books. The culture of reading is very small. Most students only read text books and some have workbooks.

Hong, Large concrete tank on rock outcrop on the right and small red tank.

This week has been busy. Monday and Tuesday was planning for Thursday and Friday. We were suppose to get all the parts needed for Thursday to install the improvements I designed for Banjiram. But we ran into problems and got nothing actually purchased. Wednesday we headed to Hong and Pella up north and east of Jimeta. I wanted to cancel the trip and concentrate on getting ready for Banjiram. I am now glad we did not.

Adams showing Gamakesa the old hand dug well

Hong. Hong is the seat of the Hong Local Government Area. The Government Secondary School PTA has asked us to advise them on improving the water from their borehole and improve their distribution system. Adams has gone up and flushed the borehole and had the electric pump repaired and tested. Yakubu now wants to see the distribution system. They assume it is no good after being in the ground for forty years.Nobody knows where the pipes are, sizes or anything other than there are two tanks. The original tank was  built by the Lutherans up on a large rock outcropping on the side of the hill. It was filled from a large hand dug well. The hand dug well was in a building that has now fallen down. Adams and the drillers thought it was an old borehole until they started digging it out and discovered the old well. A smaller tank was built when the borehole was added. Most of the teachers and principals are new and have little information.

Gamakesa on top of old concrete tank

This is a little unusual project. It is for improvements to a government facility. But many of the students are Christians and Lutherans. Also Gary Sande who works as the Nigerian Coordinator for Global Health Ministries was the missionary that started the school back in the 1960’s. People still talk about Mr. Gary and his Volkswagen Beetle bouncing down the roads. (I claim literary license on the validity of these statements about Gary and his Beetle.)

Hong GSS borehole

We found the 6 inch borehole with steel casing to be 77 feet deep with water at 19 feet. It was reported the when the pump runs the borehole will run out of water. They you have to stop the pump and wait for the water to return. But, no one that was there had been at the school when the pump was running.Everyone is assuming that the existing pipes in the ground are leaking. No one has been at the school since the pump quit working a long time ago. The pipe could be good. One problem is that it is all galvanized. Which means that zinc can leach out. A part of me is hoping that when a leak test is run that it will show leaks and we can install some heavy duty PVC pipe. When I started asking question about how they wanted to improve the system they had not yet thought about what they want to do with the water when the rebuilt pump is installed. I asked a few leading questions to get them thinking. I will need to sit and think a while to determine the series of questions that they need to consider before a distribution system is designed. 

Maspalma Samson explaining resistance survey.

After we had finished I decided to go back to the borehole and see how much my altimeter on my new GPS and changed in the hour since I took the first reading (2 meters). While I was taking the reading a young man in a red vest came up and introduced himself. Maspalma Samson is a geologist with the Nigerian Geological Survey who was from Pella and has lived in Hong. He has mapped and entered the geology of the area in GIS systems. He was here collecting water samples for his Masters in Environmental Science. He had heard we were coming to the area when he had been in Pella collecting samples. I called to Yakubu and Adams to come back under the tree. They were headed back to the Admin Building to have a look at the pump and were in a hurry to get finished and on the next task. I introduced them and after a half hour of conversations, exchanges of emails and phone numbers we were on our way to find old people.

Mølgaard's cook with wife, son and daughter, approx. 1977

Picture: Elisabeth Holtegaard, whose car we had borrowed to make this trip, had given us a picture of a man and his wife who was believed to have lived in Hong. The man had been a cook for various Danish Missionaries. When Elisabeth had told them she had meet the wife a few years ago at the LCCN Annual Convention they wanted to thank her for all the help she and her husband provided many years ago. They collected some money and gave it to Elisabeth to give to her or if she had passed on to her family. I thought we were on a Fool’s Errand. We found man who knew where some of the elders sit under a Neem tree in the afternoon. None of them recognized the picture. 

Pella: Our mission in Pella is to estimate the cost to clean out, cover and install a hand pump on the old hand dug well near the Maternity clinic. We had brought Gamakesa with us. He is the expert on well digging. As we drove into town on the new road we decided to first go to the Bible College where we had installed a pump in 2009. They were happy to see us and told us the pump was working good. We pumped the handle once and water started flowing. They had planted a little garden at the end of the waste trough to use the spilled water. When we went back to the car I saw this motorcycle wheel with some strips of tire tubing going to a little wheel in a mud housing. I asked what was? It is the blower for the forge for the black smith. They had taken a fan wheel out of something and formed a fan housing out of clay. It was still wet but they spun the wheel and air blew out of the little hole by the ground. This is the smallest forge I have ever seen.

Blower for the Blacksmith forge.

They gave us some groundnuts (peanuts) for a snack. Gamakesa told me they did not have a NAFDAC number. I guess most of the white people he had been working with only ate things approved by the Nigerian version of our FDA. At first the joke as lost on me. I had been eating local food for several years now. We thanked them for the snack and went back to the main part of town.

It only took us a few minutes to determine that the 4 foot diameter well was 21.85 meters down to the water and the water was 2.3 meters deep. As far and anyone knew well has never been cleaned. There could be another 2 meters of buckets, bags, rocks kids tossed in and whatever from last 40 years. Gamakesa thinks it will take 7 days to get cleaned out if he can find pumps powerful enough keep the water pumped down so the workers can dig.

As we were about to leave Helena the Nurse Mid-Wife in charge of the maternity clinic talked us into staying and having some coffee. She said the water was hot and ready. We sat under a mango tree and I commented that it was too bad that the ripe mangos were so high. A little while later we saw some kids with a long stick knocking down the few remaining ripe mango. They brought over a pot filled with mangos. Helena washed them with salt water and we ate fresh mangos. We showed Helena and others the picture of the couple we were looking for and she and everyone else said they did not know her. About then the local Pastor came up to great us. We offered him a mango but he was on his way to meet with the chief at his palace. We showed him the picture. He took one look and said he had been with them when he was in Jos. She is now a member at the Gombi Cathedral. They will be able to find her there. She is old but still very lively. Amazed we thanked him and Helena and headed for Gombi which on our way back to Jimeta anyway.

Cook's wife at Gombi Cathedral

Gombi. Gombi is the home of the Shall Holma Diocese. The Gombi Church is now there Cathedral. It is only a kilometer out of our way. We parked outside the gate because the Boy Brigade was practicing and no cars were allowed in. I told them I would guard the car so they can go into and ask questions without having to explain why they have a white man with them. As I was sitting on a large tree root an older lady walked up and went through the gate. It was the lady they were looking for. She was coming for Wednesday evening bible study. Yakubu explained to her that Elisabeth Holtegaard wanted to see her and gave her money to come to Jimeta. If we had not stopped for coffee with Helena we would not have met the pastor and the lady. If I had not decided to go back to the borehole for a second measurement we would not have met the geologist with knowledge to the area that could be of great help to us in the future.

Cook's wife and her son in Jimeta

On Thursday while we were in Bamjiram the lady came to Jimeta to visit Elisabeth with her son that is shown in the picture. She brought along pictures of all her children for Elisabeth to take back to her friends in Denmark

Ngbekendiwe - New Water Source Proposal

Ngbekendiwe: Try to pronounce that three times fast.  The "Ng" is mostly silent. With my level of hearing loss it is silent. The name means “place where grains are stored”. The village asked the Todi Diocese for assistance and the Bishop referred the project to the Health Board WASH Program. This was the WASH Team’s third trip to the village (my first). The WASH Program emphasizes community participation. In many past projects the participation was limited to contributing a little labor and collect sands and gravels for the concrete. The WASH team has learned that this limited participation did not produce community ownership. Now they are requiring a minimum of 10% up-front cash. People get serious when Naira is involved. But they have never been asked by a church or the government to participate in this way. This is something new to them. The WASH Team tries to emphasize that they are not here to give a gift to the village but to help the village to build create a sustainable project that they will own and operate.

Small Store near the LCCN Church.

This is not a very poor village, but not a rich village either. It has small stores and other local conveniences.  The village structures are mostly made of mud brick and thatch. There are a scattering of concrete block buildings with aluminum roofs. It is a clean and well kept village. There are several clay pits in the village for making mud bricks. This will be mosquito breeding grounds in the rainy season. The village lies above a tributary to the Benue River. This whole area was alluvial at one time. The village is a linear village along a small ridge line.

Dry borehole. Tank and all pipes have been removed.

The government has sent “so called driller” to install boreholes in the village. Mostly, around election time. Of the four that they told us about only one ever produced any water and the water is “salty”. Here salty means hard not necessarily tasting like table salt. Many time the driller can go deeper and get better tasting water. The trouble is that here they drill will not seal the boring between upper layer of “salty” and lower layer of water. 

Ngbekendiwe was about 1.5 kilometers long in this 2007 Google Earth Image.

 At today’s meeting the WASH Team met with the Chairman (also the local Imam), the Secretary and one committee member of the local water committee and the pastor of the local church. The other four members could not be found. They reported that they have formed subcommittees in different wards of the village and they have gone to the Local Government and received the proper papers to be a recognized social agency and can now open a bank account. They did not know how much money has been committed to do the project. Yakubu encouraged them to get the subcommittees working and collect the money needed to meet the 10% minimum. Open an account at the nearest bank and deposit the money collected. Soon the rains will start and they will be busy planting their fields. 

Yakubu , Adams, Chairman, Secretary , Committee Member and the Pastor

In earlier meetings they had been told several options creating a new water source. They had chosen to have a motorized borehole with a generator, pump, tank and a distribution system. The cost estimates they were given were general in nature. Specific, design and detailed cost estimating have not been done. I currently, have my doubts that this project will happen this dry season. The road to the village looks like a stream bed in many places. If they get the funds together by the end of April the new borehole could be drilled before the main part of the rainy season begins in June.

March 16th Dogon Dutse Guesthouse and Bats, Bats and more Bats

I had breakfast of oatmeal, toast and tea. While eating Pastor Amson called to tell me he was coming with a member of his church who works for a driller and could familiarize us with the drillers and part supply in the area. They arrived as I was finishing the last piece of toast.

The driller, Michael Josiah Sande, is a partner in the company Supel Jos. They have 2 drill rigs, 4 compressors, and their own equipment and staff to perform geo-physical surveys. He has over 15 years of drilling experience working for European and Nigerian companies. They only drill after they have completed a geo-physical survey. All of the area from Jos to Gombe is primarily “basement complex”. Boreholes with an Afridev pump installed run between 500,000 to 570,000 Naira and are normally 25 to 40 meters deep. He told us that there are few drillers in Bauchi and Gombe area. They mostly hire drillers from Jos. There are many drillers in Jos. Due to the current security situation they are not drilling in Bauchi city but will go up to the edge of the city. His company is one of the drillers that have contracted for UNICEF.

As for the availability of pump parts He told us that you can buy any pumps or parts you need in Jos but they are expensive. In Jos you pay 70,000 Naria for a Afridev pump. He has a supplier in Kano who will ship a pump down to Jos for 60,000 Naira.

I am happy to see that they are using the Afridev pump. It is a little more expensive than the India Mark II that is the common pump in Adamawa. But it is a stronger pump with less parts, the handle is adjustable for the depth of water in the borehole and it is easier to maintain. A person in the village with a two simple inexpensive tools can pull the foot valve and piston without removing the riser pipes. Replacement of the leathers and gaskets on the foot valve and piston are the most common repairs made to a pump. The India Mark II takes a team to repair the pump. To get to the foot valve and piston the riser pipes with the cylinder attached have to be removed from the borehole. If the foot valve does not leak and the steel riser pipe does not have leaks the pipes will be full of water adding to the weight. With a deep borehole it takes three men to lift the pipes and the job can be dangerous. Once above ground it the cylinder has to be disassembled to get remove the piston and foot valve.

Another problem that is solved by using the Afridev pump is that the riser pipes are made of PVC with stainless steel fittings. We have been finding the galvanized steel riser pipes used in Adamawa have rusted through and have to be replaced. In one borehole last year we replaced more than half of the riser pipes. The piston was in pretty good shape but more water was leaking out of the riser pipe than reached the top. The people had to pump hard to get little water.

Borehole with electric pump.

Yakubu Bulama, the Water Projects Director, had also asked me to look into the pump problems they were having at the guest house. The water and other programs that I have been working with have emphasized self reliance. I started the discussion of the guest house water before Michael had left. Pastor Ansom explained the situation that they had two boreholes drilled in 2004. One did not have enough water for an electric pump so they installed an Afridev hand pump. Michael had fixed the Afridev last year and trained the maintenance man in routine maintenance and repair. The other borehole had an electric pump that pumped water up to the storage tanks above the guest house. The pump is operated manually. In the dry season the pump run dry and if the operator does not shut it down soon enough it can burn out the motor. Pastor Amson has had the motor rewound before and was wondering if a hand pump could be installed. Michael said it could be done but it would be less expensive to install a pump that has a low water shut-off and overheating protections with a new controller. He said that the cost would be between 45,000 and 50,000 Naira. The Afridev would be 60,000 Naria plus the cost of the riser pipes and the building of concrete platform. Pastor Amson also took us to the pump in one of his hand dug wells that also supplies water to the storage tanks was not working. Michael suggested that the controller may be the problem here and not the pump. The guest house maintenance man who also operated the water system came over with his tools and they determined there was power going to the motor. The motor was trying to spin the impeller but was just torqueing the riser pipe. We pulled the pump and cleaned debris from the screen and from behind the screen. After reinstalling the pump in the well, the motor ran and pumped water. To keep this well operating a float system that turns the pump off before air and any floating debris can enter, should be installed. Michael said that float switches are available in Jos. Also, Michael suggested that the well should be cleaned and chlorinated. A better cover needs to be installed that will decrease the amount of insects and other debris from entering the well.

Clinton and Pastor Ansom

At 5PM Pastor Ansom stopped by with Clinton the guard dog. This picture does not show how large Clinton is. In the daylight he is menacing in the dark he must look like a monster. People do not go outside after 10 PM when Clinton is working. Later in the evening as I was waiting for the bookkeeper to pay my bill bats started to appear out of the haze of the Harmattan dust. First there were a few merging out of the haze and blending back into as they head for their hunting grounds. As I stood there the few became dozens and then more then more than I could count. Wave after wave of bats continued for the next half hour. They were still zooming over when I was driven inside by the mosquitoes.

March 14th - Day In Abuja

This morning Bishop Ben picked me up with his driver Joseph at just before 11am. We drove out past Nyanya into Nasarawa State to visit Kyungchum Drilling Services to find where they buy their borehole pumps. The technician that buys the pumps was out on a job site. We called him and he directed us to Senior Star Man International Limited. Kyungchum is owned by a South Korean company who does geophysical surveying, borehole drilling, water analysis, borehole maintenance, tank construction and other services. They have branch offices in Gwagwalada (near Pai) and Maiduguri (near the north end of Adamawa State).

After visiting with the driller for a few minutes we drove back to Nyanya to visit Senior Star Man International. The name is bigger than the shop. Bishop Ben requested the boss be summoned so we can talk. It turns out that the owner’s brother is an importer of pumps and according to him the pump sellers from Yola come to him for pumps. It is a little hard to believe because his retail costs are about the same if not higher than at Yola. His card claims he does boreholes and installation. The parts I could not get in Yola to repair the Mark II pump cylinder he had at his other shop in Abuja for 1000 Naira each ($6.40). It would only take 20 minutes to get them. Bishop Ben tried to talk him down on the price but he said he usually sells them for 1200 and had already given us a discount because we were doing God’s work. Having a white man in the room makes it hard to do the regular battering on price. We told him to get 20 of them and bring them over to the church. It was an easy walk from his shop to the church. The Nigerian 20 minutes is like the last minute of a basketball game. From his shop to the Nyanya church is a 5 minute walk or a 15 minute drive. Waiting at the church front porch was much cooler and a little quieter than waiting at his shop. The parts showed up about half a hour after we got to the church.

Nyanya church is now the Cathedral for the Abuja Dioceses. On the other side of Abuja out near the airport they have a bigger plot of land where they plan to build the Secretariat building. My talk with Bishop Ben was fairly wide ranging but we kept coming back to Pai. One thing that the Abuja churches want to do is to build a clinic at Pai. The chiefs have given them a plot of land a few hundred meters outside of Pai. They have started building a dispensary building and have walls part way up. They have run out of funds. After they build the dispensary they hope to add an overnight ward and staff house. When I asked why a clinic he told me that the child mortality rate is very high in the area. Most births are at home with traditional birth attendants. There is little or no prenatal care. If there are complications the nearest hospital is in Gwagwalada. During the rainy season the road can be very difficult to travel in anything less than a large truck or a four wheel drive. We discussed whether they should be looking for a maternity style ward rather than just a overnight holding ward. This will be a better discussion if there were medically trained people involved.

We discussed sanitation and building of VIP Latrines. (VIP is ventilated improved latrines). We encourage people to build and use sanitation facilities but many church facilities do not have them. If we seriously want to reduce childhood mortality we have to reduce intestinal/diarrheal diseases. Simple hand washing with soap will have a bigger impact than a new borehole or improved well. Using a VIP latrine and washing your hands after will have a huge effect on child mortality. This is a hard sell. People feel thirst and can equate thirst with illness. You cannot taste or feel the bacteria or viruses that cause a similar set of symptoms. The cause can be today and effect can be tomorrow the connection between sanitation and illness is not as obvious as water and thirst.
When a team from the church comes to a village and drills a borehole, installs a pump and teaches some people how to fix it when it breaks, the amount of goodwill that translates in evangelism is high. But the effect on childhood mortality is minimal. The water is collected in contaminated containers, stored in containers without protection from contamination. The big payoff for public health comes from maintaining the water clean as well as the food you eat and the hands you eat your food with.

Bishop Ben told me something new to me. That in the past the dispenser would greet their first patients in the morning with a short devotion, pray for their healing, and give a short class on prevention. The patients were pleased that they not only got some pills for their illness but someone prayed for their healing. In all the dispensaries I have visited I have never heard about this. Of course I have never been to one early in the morning and have never asked. The dispensers we have talked to probably thought the devotion as a routine not worth mentioning. But we had asked several about teaching out in the village and few have gone out. As I think about it I do remember something going on at the porch of the Numan dispensary as I walked to the guest house restaurant for breakfast. Note to self: Ask Fidelus if this is a common practice at dispensary.