June Disaster Projects

In June, the Disaster Response Ministry of EYN was busy.

Food Distributions

They delivered food to 400 families in some of the hardest hit districts. A pastor in the area shared, “Last week, EYN headquarters gave us fertilizer and seed which we distributed to our members, today they brought us food items, this gives us joy! Truly, our main problem here is that we are prevented from farming, so no food and people are suffering.”

 

Rescued Mom and baby

After being rescued, a family held captive for several years was relocated to one of our newly built villages. The family consists of a mother and four children (ages 17, 8, 6, and 4 months.)

In addition, medical help was brought to a camp in Maiduguri where there are over 500 children under the age of 5.

Soybeans were planted as part of the special project designed to produce income along the value chain.

 

 

Solar panels were installed at Yola camp providing free water for them.

Please continue to pray for the EYN Disaster Ministry as it helps its people in many ways!

A week with the Food Distribution Team

The logistics of each food distribution are different but they are never easy. Each trip is also combined with other business and visits to family and friends. Roads are filled with potholes and military check points. Purchase of the food and getting it ready for distribution are time consuming.

Black Market Gas

Black Market Gas

Tuesday

We left for Yola at 7:30 in the morning.  Many gas stations were closed because they were out of gas. The few that were open had long lines of cars waiting to get gas. Rather than wait up to a few hours in line for gas we got some along the road from an individual for over double the normal price. This is referred to as black market gas.

 

Wednesday

After spending the night in Yola we went to the bank to get the money to pay for the food

for the distribution. The banks in Mubi are all closed, as the Boko Haram destroyed all the bank buildings when they captured the city in 2014. We spent an hour at the bank, stopped by the land bought for the Yola Care Center and then went to Mubi where we met Rev Amos (materials coordinator for the disaster team) and gave him the money.

We then visited the EYN Lokuwa Church on the Adamawa State University campus. Rev Yuguda (manager of the disaster team) pastored this church at one time. Boko Haram burned the church last year when they overran the town of Mubi. The walls of the church building are still standing, but no repairs have yet been made. A temporary structure has been roofed where church is now being held.

Thursday

We spent all day in the market buying rice and the rest of the distribution items. The rice in Mubi comes from across the border in Cameroon. For some reason the border is closed at this time so rice is scarce and hard to find; the price is also inching up. Amos was able to buy enough rice, but he had to get it from about eight different vendors. This took a lot of extra time. By the end of the day two trucks were loaded with the food items.

Food ready to distribute

Food ready to distribute

Friday

We drove almost thirty miles north of Mubi (most of it on a road that is full of potholes) arriving in the town of Michika about two hours later. The food distribution was held at the Nkaffa EYN Church. Most of the people were from the surrounding hill country. 350 families were served in the distribution. The distribution was a bit hectic, as again more people showed up than were told to come.  We still had some cooking oil and sugar left over after the rice and food was given to the 350 families, so it was left in the hands of the church pastors to give out to the rest of the people who hadn’t received anything.

Bible School distribution

Bible School distribution

The relief team went on to an EYN Bible School outside of Michika to do a 52 family food distribution. The food was for the staff and attendees of the school. Again, there wasn’t enough food to go around. There were 66 families. The school staff said to give the food to the attendees and they would wait until next time to get their food, so that is what was done.  After the bumpy drive back we arrived in Mubi at 6pm as dusk was arriving.

Saturday

It was back to the market to buy 22 bags of rice and supplies for a 22 family distribution at the T.E.E. College in Mubi, a theological school that Mission 21 is supporting. The staff were very grateful for the help given. We spent the night in the Mubi area.

Destroyed church of 1500

Destroyed church of 1500

Sunday

We attended worship EYN Giima Church in Mubi. The church building was burned out, with only the walls and tower still standing. A temporary building has been erected where church service is being held. The sides of the building are sheeted with the old burned tin from the church building with new tin on the roof. There were at least 500 people at the Service. After lunch we drove to Yola for the night.

Temporary church - Giima

Temporary church – Giima

Monday

We left Yola at 6:30 am and arrived in Jos at 2 pm. It was an uneventful, although, (as usual) tiring journey.

 

Are you as exhausted as the relief team? And they get to do it all over this next week.

Shop till I drop

By Katarina Eller, Brot und Rosen Community, Hamburg, Germany

Katarina Eller in Germany

BVS volunteer Katarina Eller in Germany. Photo by Kristin Flory.


My days mostly consist of cleaning, chopping vegetables, and food shopping. Our day begins with devotions in the chapel, with a simple prayer-song-Bible-reading-silence-song-prayer model…. Like a sandwich, or an Oreo cookie. Almost all of the songs come from the Taize movement. (You know you live at Brot & Rosen when most of the songs stuck in your head are in Latin.)

Sometime after breakfast and light cleaning or email-checking, I might start with lunch prep. Leftovers from the night before are warmed up, and some type of salad is made. More often than not, it is a green salad. My favorite part of lunch prep is making the salad dressing (I never want to buy pre-made salad dressing ever again). And the worst is washing the salad. It is usually donated to us from an organic food store and can be very earth-filled and/or sometimes tiny-insect-infested. It can be the case that there is no green salad. But not to worry, other variations are possible! Carrot salad with grated carrots and apples, and oranges with oil and lemon juice for example; or red beet salad with chopped onions, vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, and caraway seeds. Or chicory salad with apples, oranges, bananas and a yogurt, lemon, curry dressing.

Katarina Eller

Katarina Eller at Brot und Rosen in Hamburg, Germany

I usually don’t cook dinner. Dinner is very intimidating. Often around 15 people show up, and the children don’t eat anything that might contain nutrition for healthy development. So I leave dinner to the professionals (unless of course they’re not around), and chop vegetables for them. We may be unofficially part of what is called the Slow Food Movement (correct me if I’m wrong). Since I’ve been here, I have made/or experienced the making of: salad dressing, bread, jelly, orange juice, tomato sauce, pralines, mixed drinks, pizza, vegan chocolate, vegan cheese, mashed potatoes, African chili salsa, guacamole, fufu European style, applesauce etc. I’m not gonna lie, one of my initial thoughts during my very first week at B & R was: uh-oh. Yeah, sometimes I still feel like that, but it’s all good, that’s why I live in community, so other people can take over when they see me start on a crazy culinary maneuver.

It is my job to buy everything that is not donated by the food bank, organic food store, or ordered from said store. So, a large portion of my shopping includes cooking oil, lemons, noodles, tomato sauce, and toilet paper. Sometimes I have to make more than one trip, even though I use a rolling shopping-hamper-thingy. (I don’t know what we call them, but they are all over Germany.) And sometimes the cashier is like, “Oh it’s you again!” and I think “Yeah, because if you only had a wheely cart and two little chicken-bone arms you’d be back again, too.” Then there’s the whole discussion of what we should buy fair-trade, regional, and organic. And, if organic tomato sauce from who knows where is worth the price, or even really organic, and whether it’s better to buy organic sugar or the normal sugar that says on the package that it’s made in northern Germany from sugar beets but is probably not organic etc. As usual with Brot& Rosen, as soon as I ask a question as to what I should buy, I get eight different answers. So as usual with Brot& Rosen, I just do whatever I want to.

That’s Christian Anarchy for you!

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