“Soeur Suzy, will you do a health feature each night for the evangelistic series we are going to do at the end of November?” asked Bony, the evangelist working here in Natitingou. I said I would think and pray about it, but I thought I could.

After many problems with conflicting dates from the mission, we finally decided to move ahead with Bony as the speaker instead of the district pastor, who had other responsibilities with the mission. The series was to be held at the public school in our neighborhood, which is the poorest part of town.

I had two weeks to get my health program together. Uli suggested that I print out a little booklet for each night to pass out at the end. I worked out a rough outline of subjects and started to work on the little booklets. At the same time, I made the invitations and got them copied and prepared advertising signs.

Two Sabbaths before the campaign, we split up the neighborhood among church members and went from door to door inviting people. The next weekend, we did the same with the invitations. Bony did lots of running around trying to get the necessary documents to have a gathering at the public school. At the same time, he was trying to get his sermons written.

I spent a lot of time on my computer writing the brochures and guides for each night. I was able to borrow from other booklets I’d made before, but other material needed correcting and updating. Each brochure went under the expert editing eye of Uli three times. I was often working on four to six brochures at a time, making corrections and working on new material. Having lived here for six years helped lots in putting these together and touching the problems of the people. I did 15 brochures: drinking water and its effects on the body, hydrotherapy l and 2, use of charcoal 1 and 2, need for sleep and the effects of sleep debt, hand washing (we had lots of fun with this one), stress and its effects on the body, fatigue and its causes, diarrhea and treatment, smoking—its effects on the body and how to stop, alcohol and the 12-step program, development of the fetus with pictures (many here think the fetus is only blood until the fourth or fifth month, and abortion is very common), and mental health 1 and 2.

Thanks to a couple articles in past issues of Adventist Frontiers, I got some ideas for the stop-smoking lesson. I had one already written, but I wanted to have a small pledge to give those who really wanted to stop. Mary Qualls in Guinea gave me the idea of handing out certificates of completion at the end.

The mental health subjects were the hardest to address. It is a big problem here, and there is no help for those who really need counseling. Most people think anyone who needs counseling is crazy. This subject is not one of my strong suits, and the reference materials I wanted were unavailable, but after several days in prayer, I started to type. It took me a whole week to get the two lessons done. One dealt with the past, how it affects how we deal with life, and how to let go of anger and ask God to heal old wounds. The other dealt with asking God to cleanse your heart and how to keep it from getting impure again. These are hard subjects, and I pray my messages sank in. If they only help one person, then everything was worth it. Someday, I hope to enlarge the two brochures into a seminar.

The meetings went very well. Each evening, we arrived around 6 p.m. to set up the loudspeakers and music, haul in the benches, and put up the lights. We would carry the benches on our heads with rolled-up fabric for padding. Through the loudspeakers, the messages could be heard for a long distance. Only God knows who was listening each night and what seeds were planted in their hearts. Each night, we loaded the loudspeakers, CD player, mixers, and lights into the truck for safe keeping until the next evening. At the end, the visitors and members hauled the benches back.

I presented often to a group of kids and a handful of adults. Bony did a good job presenting the message each night as he and Basile, his Ditammari interpreter, fought the bug population that tried to fill their shirts. Uli and Emile, another church member, were at the reception each night to greet the people and fill in their attendance cards. Comlan, Toussaint, and I spent the evenings trying to keep the kids and teenagers from getting too loud. At the close of each meeting, we passed out the brochures.

The series lasted two weeks and attendance each evening was steady at around 80 visitors plus kids and church members, and it even went up toward the end of the series. Two attendees took tobacco pledge cards. Another stopped all use of tobacco. He was still tobacco-free by the end of the series, so I gave him a certificate.

Many people made decisions for Christ, and we ask you to keep them in your prayers as they learn to walk with Christ in their daily lives.

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