by Jason Lohr
August 5, 2009
When we first arrived here in Nigeria four years ago we quickly discovered that the hospital had no reliable vehicle. After Belen formed the children’s choir, we often needed to drive the children around for concerts and outings. Since the hospital vans were the only vehicles large enough to fit 30 kids, we often borrowed them from the hospital. I clearly remember the time we broke down with a van full of kids three years ago, as we were driving them back home from a waterfall where we had videoed the children singing. We ended up stuffing 30 kids into our Mitsubishi Montero just to get them home before dark while the van was being fixed. Even this year, while driving the nursing school van full of kids back from a resort where we had celebrated Michaela’s birthday, we broke down. I still remember the smell of leaking fuel filling the van, and the fear I felt that the engine could blow up and hurt those kids. That was another time we had to fill up our car to the brim just to get them home safely.
There have been countless other times when the vehicles broke down while going to pick up needed medical supplies or equipment or even carrying visitors coming from the U.S. to volunteer. Not to mention the many times the vans are in repair, leaving the hospital without a way to do necessary and often emergent errands.
After two years of sourcing for funding for a new hospital van, we are so happy to have finally purchased a vehicle in May 2009. This brand new Toyota Hiace 15-seater van is a huge blessing to the hospital and school of nursing. Now with a reliable vehicle, we can make sure that there will be no challenges when we need to purchase items for the hospital, take nursing students to their clinical assignments at other hospitals, pick up volunteer medical personnel from abroad when they arrive at the airport, or even carry a bunch of rambunctious choir kids on an outing.
I want to express my thankfulness to those who helped make this project a reality. The National Auxiliary to the Alumni Association of Loma Linda University School of Medicine raised $15,000. Dr. Lisa Walke, a Geriatric specialist at Yale University School of Medicine and Sandra Sergeant, RN, owner of a homecare agency, helped to raise $10,000 after visiting Ife and recognizing our need. And thanks to all the numerous others who donated to this project.
