Ending a challenging year and looking ahead

Dear friends and supporters,

    I want to thank you all for your generous and steadfast support over this very challenging year. Because of the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, we have not been able to conduct our annual medical outreach missions. Nor have we been able to travel to Nigeria to consult with our partners. And the lockdowns in Nigeria have exacted a terrible toll on the economy and especially on the very poor at the bottom of the economic scale.

However, in spite of all of the added challenges, our clinics have persevered and continue to provide medical care to the poorest of the poor (see page 2).  We have continued to work with our partners to provide medical care to everyone who needs it. And we have continued to work with the Diocese of Kaduna to help provide food for starving people in refugee camps as well.

    Looking ahead, we are now developing plans for building more medical clinics to serve the rural poor in extremely underserved areas. We are in the discussion stage with three different dioceses to build small clinics where there is currently no health care available.

    As we build more clinics, our greatest ongoing challenge is to pay our growing number of employees: doctors, nurses, midwives, lab technicians, community health extension workers, sanitation workers and security guards — about 67 in total. It costs about $100,000 per year to pay all of these people.  They serve about 23,000 people every year.

    This is how I hope you will help us. We really need your help. Please keep donating as generously as you can.  

    Sincerely yours,
    The Rev. Tom Furrer