John and Ali Bronts were going to Church in Malbaza today,
and I have never been to any church in Niger except the one across the street
from the Hospital, so I was thrilled to accept their offer of a ride. Malbaza is about 20 minutes drive west of
Galmi. The main industry there is a huge cement factory. Apparently it was started by either a Chinese
group or an East Indian group, but they ran in to financial difficulties, and
it has been taken over by Nigeriens.
They had to bring in a whole bunch of electricity for the plant so there
is a brand new substation close by. You
can see them when you are flying in to Galmi, and they stand out from all the
mud brick houses. Church in Malbaza was
in English and French and Hausa, all done by the pastor. The topic was about being prepared (actually
the same verses as last Sunday – I wonder if someone is trying to tell me
something). The pastor’s mother came in
on the back of a motorcycle (I know someone who will get a kick out of that!),
but we drove her home.
On the way to and from Malbaza we talked a bit about some of
the construction stuff that is going on in Galmi. John oversees a fair bit of that work. I was wrong thinking that the water tanks on
the hill above Galmi held all the water for the compound. When I think about it, those water tanks aren’t
big enough given how much water is used.
Turns out they have a well close to the Hospital that has been drilled 1000
feet down and they are constantly pumping water UP to those tanks on the hill,
which allows the water to be under pressure for us. Apparently the tanks hold about 1 day’s worth
of water. The hospital compound also
supplies water to the town, and someone comes in with a donkey cart and a bunch
of barrels and fills them up. The pumps
did stop once and the people from Galmi took offence that there wasn’t any
water for them. It sounds like they may
pay a nominal fee for the water. John
thinks there is a plan in place to try to move away from supplying the town
with water and getting them to pump from their own well.
A little more about the banquet last night. Apparently there is a professional athlete
(sort of) in our midst. Tom Field played
kicker for the University of Colorado back in the day and actually had the 4th
highest number of points ever for the university. Because it was American Thanksgiving, we were
treated to Matt Megill describing why American Football was central to
thanksgiving. He even had charts about
kicking accuracy etc. He brought Tom up
to the front and interviewed him.
Apparently Tom even tried out for the Denver Broncos, but was actually
relieved when he was cut. Then we went
out side and there was a command performance of Tom trying to kick the Galmi
equivalent of a football. Given the equipment
available, I thought he did admirably well.
John 4:10
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it
is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’ you would have asked him, and he
would have given you living water”.
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