An Opportunity

Sunday, we walked home from church and by the time we came through our gate, I was ready to rest. I was on total sensory overload and my head was swimming from drinking a warm Coke on an empty stomach while visiting with the pastor. I had one thing on my mind... lunch! When we came in, I immediately noticed our night guard standing at the gate. It was the middle of the day, so I was surprised to see him.

Right away, I could tell that something was wrong, he didn't have his normal sweet smile and I sensed that he was in pain. I knew that he had hurt his arm a couple of weeks ago and Ryan and I had been worried that he didn't have it treated properly. But, with his limited English and our limited Hausa, we couldn't ever get to the bottom of it.

G, our guard had come to tell us that he had been to a traditional bone setter that morning and he needed to have 3 days off of work. He also asked for some ice. Immediately, I insisted that we find out more about what had been done and we were able to determine that they had actually made an incision in his arm so that they could see the bone, and then two men had pulled in opposite directions to reset the 2 week old injury.

I insisted to Ryan that I wanted him to have ibuprofen and that he needed to drive him to a pharmacy and buy him an antibiotic because I didn't want this sweet man getting seriously ill from an infection. So, Ryan, Abby, and our neighbor, who speaks a good bit of Hausa, set off for the pharmacy. At the pharmacy, they were able to get the pharmacist to talk to him and determine that no x-ray had been done at any point, so they then took him to the imaging center to have that done. Bless his heart, he just sort of went along for the ride and according to Ryan his only concern was that someone would make him take the gauze off his incision, because it hurt so badly.

After they got all of that taken care of, he allowed them to take him home. According to Ryan, they headed through an area of town that we were familiar with and then kept on winding further and further from our beaten path into a distinctively Muslim area. Ryan said that at one point, the walls and building were so close to the sides of the vehicle that he could have almost reached out and touched the mosque.

When they arrived at his home, he invited them in, which Ryan considers a great honor. Abby tells me that the room that our guard, his 2 wives, and his 7 children live in is tiny- maybe the size of my bedroom. She said there were about 30 people pressing in to see the Batures who had come. They only stayed for a few minutes, but they were very excited to have the opportunity to show the love of Christ to this man. Our family has been praying that he would come to know Christ in a personal way. Every night, when I hear the call to prayer and I look out my window and see him drop to his prayer mat, I pray that he will know the freedom that can only be found in Christ. When you think of him, please pray for our friend, G.