Guinea-Bissau September Newsletter

Women hoeing with wooden hoes.

Rainy Season in Full Swing



A downpour in Catel

On July 26th, about four weeks ago I arrived back in Catel from my travels to North America. The place was transformed from when I left some six weeks earlier. By the end of July we were well into the rainy season and everything was coming back to life after the eight months long dry season. It is great to see how green it is and how much our plants and trees are growing with the abundant rainfall. Since the rains began in early June we have accumulated 30” which means we are about half way to our rainy season average total.

Andrew and Jonathan, together with our local guys had planted moringa tree seeds and cassava in the orchard. They also put a living fence of lemon seedlings around the orchard. All these are growing rapidly with the high humidity and breaks of sunshine between showers.
The past two months have been an intense time of planting for the villagers. Everyday entire families can be seen going to the fields preparing the soil and planting the crops that will sustain them through the next dry season. They have primarily planted rice, sweet potatoes, beans and millet.

We also have a planting of sweet potatoes. It is a trial for 24 varieties of red (or orange) sweet potatoes. Here everyone grows only the white sweet potatoes, like most potatoes they are low in nutrients and high in starch. Various agriculture agencies in Africa are promoting red sweet potatoes because they are rich in vitamin A, especially beneficial for eyesight. The Sweet Potato Research Center in Nairobi sent me these varieties to see which of them would do well in our conditions. The cultivars come from five African countries plus the U.S. and Cuba. We are eager to see which do well here and we will serve as a seedbank for our area with the successful varieties.

Our neighbor, Berta, with her new baby

A Season of Spiritual Growth

It is also gratifying to see the spiritual growth among the church leaders. Most of them have found time in this busy planting season to be involved with carrying on the work of the mission in Catel and surrounding villages. It is great to see how the leaders have stepped forward to maintain mission activities in our absence. They are maintaining contact with leaders in the villages where we have outreach even though teaching times and worship services are sporadic during this planting season.

The Catel Clinic Remains Active

Men from Catel work on the

 clinic renovation

Tening Mane operates the clinic in Catel, daily. From January to July he was trained by Annette Miller along with other visiting medical professionals. He is a fast learner and confidently goes about patient care. The number of visits to the clinic are down but still there is plenty to do every day. The most common problem this time of the year are leg wounds from machetes and hoes as the men are out tilling the fields. Provided they come in the same day as the mishap, Tening just sews them back up. There is a high risk for infections in these wounds; an antibiotic is almost always required. Because of his success as a clinic aide, he is about ready to begin a new chapter in his life.

Tening’s Nurse’s Training Program

Tening & wife Jara

During the last week of July Tening sat for his high school GED exam. He passed with flying colors. His secondary education was ended, unfinished in 1992 when rebels came to his village in southern Senegal about 15 miles from here. The rebels threatened to kill everyone unless they evacuated the village immediately. The family, along with the entire village had no choice but to grab what they could carry and flee into nearby Guinea Bissau. Here they have been treated badly because of their refugee status. For people like the Mane family who have suffered the loss of everything plus being marginalized as refugees, the Kingdom of God has been extremely good news.

On October 7 Tening will begin a two year nurses’ training course in Ziguinchor, Senegal, about 35 miles from Catel. After two years of study he will earn an internationally recognized diploma in nursing. Following that, he will return to Catel to become the director for the medical ministry of the Mennonite mission.

But we need your help for this project. The Mission is underwriting the cost of his education. The cost is going to be $4,000 per year for two years. This covers the cost of registration, tuition, books and room & board for him. Plus it will provide the family back in Catel with $150 support per month during this time when he will not be a wage earner.

 So please, before you forget- go to your desk and write a generous check earmarked for ‘Tening Mane Scholarship, Guinea Bissau’. If we receive more than the $4,000, the excess will be held until next year’s nurses’ training costs. Contributions should be sent to

EMM

P.O. 458,
Salunga, PA  17538.

Alternatively, you can donate online on EMM's website by designating your gift to 'Tening Mane Scholarship, Guinea Bissau'.

Big Plans for the Coming Months

For the next twelve months we will be bursting with activities that will involve many of our stateside partners. During that time we are expecting 4 groups of short term visitors who will be helping with numerous projects- the Catel school construction, refurbishing the cashew processing facility into a clinic, staffing for the Catel clinic and resource teachers for the Catel pre-school.

In addition we will be having a YES team arriving the first week of December who will be spending 7 months with us, under the leadership of Andrew Stutzman. Plus later this year we will be joined by two more long-term missionaries. Sean FitzGerald an EMT who will manage the clinic and Eliazir ‘Lia’ Veiga, from Brazil who will be helping implement the CHE program. Lia is being seconded to EMM by Lifewind International, the parent organization for CHE.
For more details see the ‘Work Plan’ posting on our blog- bissaumennos.blogspot.com

Domingo is an energetic youth in our church