July Nattier News

As we sit to write another ministry update, we are excited to share that we have seen God at work here in many ways. First, we are overjoyed to update you on Nafi's surgery that happened this past February in Kenya.  We are so thankful for those of you who were praying for her and even gave towards her travel and surgery.  It was pretty amazing to see how God showed up in many ways during the process.  From little things like the visa finally being approved the night prior to our trip, to the ways we saw God give us grace during all the details of travel.  It was also great to see how our two PAACS residents and other Togo colleagues became a part of the team helping get her from Togo to Kenya and back. There was a surgeon there for the PAACS conference from Iowa who has extensive experience with these types of tumors and who was able to help with the surgery.  Nafi also had to overcome a significant language barrier given that her French was limited and Kenya is predominantly an English speaking country. But even in this we saw how God provided through an Anesthesiologist friend our ours from language school who spoke French, a PAACS resident working on the ENT service who also spoke some French, and  various others who helped in so many different ways.   We are very thankful for the opportunity to collaborate with a missions hospital in Kenya called AIC Kijabe.  They were extremely welcoming and even helped reduce some of the costs of the surgery.  Her surgery went exceptionally well, and maybe even better than expected.  Within 8 days of having surgery, she was able to walk on her own and return to Togo. This is incredible given that part of her surgery included removing a bone from her leg (the fibula) to rebuild her mandible. She is now back home with her family and 4 year old son.  We have had several visits from her and her family thanking us, and it has been a great opportunity to have some wonderful gospel conversations with them along with one of our chaplains who has been very involved in the whole process.  Please continue to pray for Nafi and her family.  Here is the most recent photo from when she came back to our hospital for a followup appointment.

 

The last 6 months have been very full with many high points and some pretty significant challenges and struggles.  While we would love to share with you some of these difficulties to pray for specifically, it is not possible to share in this format.  However, we would greatly appreciate your continued prayers for our family and the ministry here in Northern Togo.  We know that the Lord is at work here, but often that also seems to be met by spiritual attacks.  For this reason, Ephesians 6:10-20 is a great guide to prayer whenever you pray for us. 

During the first four months of 2023, the surgery department had some pretty significant changes.  We added our first two PAACS residents (Sweni and Yannick), who we introduced in our last update.  What a glorious answer to many years of prayer and preparation this has been. We also had two surgeons who were interested in long term missions join us for 4-5 months to do some additional training in areas like orthopedics. This was a huge blessing, and they were such a great help.  One of them, Dena Ferguson, will be returning in the fall with her husband Sam and new baby Lyla for a 2 year fellowship with Samaritan's purse.  We are very excited to have them joining our team and are anxiously awaiting their return!

The end of January, we had a team come from our sending church, UBC in Beavercreek, Ohio. They were able to participate in and experience many of the various ministries here.  They also helped us with our first annual PAACS Togo spiritual conference, which was a great time together fellowshipping and studying God's word. We are so thankful for the ways God allows us to partner with so many people from many different backgrounds to accomplish His plan here in Togo.  It was especially encouraging to have our worship pastor lead us in some pretty amazing times of worship at the retreat and even in our home! Our hearts were encouraged. Two members of the missions committee and our missions pastor were in the group.  Each of them was used in unique ways to minister here, and it really was a great example of how God gives us all different gifts to build up the body of Christ.  

The PAACS Togo retreat was a great opportunity to increase our collaboration with our sister hospital in southern Togo, HBB.  We have been working together to get the program started.  In January 2024 they will be welcoming two of the residents to their site.   Dr Jack Kehl and his family were with us in Kenya, and then spent the month of June with us in Mango.  It is exciting to be increasing our level of collaboration between the two hospitals.  Both have different histories and opportunities to grow the residents during their time in the program here.  Here is a picture of the 2 faculty from HBB, as well as our PAACS secretary (middle), who were able to join us for the retreat.

Finally, PAACS is a combined surgical training and spiritual training (discipleship).  For that reason, each year we will recognize the new residents with a white coat ceremony as well as a foot washing ceremony.  This was my first opportunity to participate in a foot washing ceremony, and it was encouraging to reflect on Jesus' example to his disciples during the last supper.  We wait in expectation to see how God is going to use these young doctors for His service.

We recently completed our interviews and rank list for residents in 2024. We will announce in our next newsletter who will be joining us this coming January.  

            

                    

While our surgery department stays busy, so does our maternity department. We provide care for a an ever growing number of pregnant women. I'm constantly amazed to see the large quantity of women gathered around our clinic rooms, and I find much joy in connecting with these women during their repeated prenatal visits. In April, we had a set of triplets born at our hospital. This patient showed up to our clinic, full term, having no idea that she was carrying multiples and by that night, all three were delivered safely and in good health. The mama and grandma were excited to plop a baby in the arms of three of my daughters who went up to the hospital with me to visit them. It was a sweet moment for us all. This month, we have been praising God for the safe deliveries of several "precious babies". Obviously, all babies are precious and gifts from the Lord, but a "precious baby" here is one who is born after a series of loses. We often have women who present in our clinic having had 4, 5, 6, or more losses and many only have 1 or even no living children. We've had several patients come to us lately who have had a string of late term losses with previous pregnancies, meaning the babies died in utero at the end of pregnancy or at birth. When we identify these high risk patients, we follow them much more closely, and in doing so, this gives us opportunities to share the gospel with them on a more personal level. One such patient had previously lost multiple full-term babies but was finally able to deliver a thriving,  healthy baby girl. We all rejoiced together, praising God for this special blessing. 

As we conclude this update, we wanted to let you know that our family will be returning stateside for a short furlough the end of October for 4 months.  We are excited to see many of you in person.  We will be doing some college visits with Elliahna among other events like the global missions health conference (GMHC) in November.  If you would like to meet up with us for a more personalized update, please let us know.  Our last trip stateside filled up very quickly, and we have no doubt that will be true this time as well, so help us get you on our calendar by reaching out to us. It's a great joy to have opportunities to update you in person on all God is doing here in northern Togo. As always, thank you for your continued love and support for our family and for the ministry here in Togo.

Prayer Requests

Our family: Please be praying as we make plans for the upcoming furlough.  Our oldest will be looking at and potentially visiting perspective colleges.  This will be her last chance to do that before she returns for college.  Please pray for us as we navigate this with her.  

Surgery: We are thankful for the two PAACS residents God allowed to join us here at HOH.  Please continue to pray for Yannick and Sweni as their training is challenging.  They are also away from their families and home countries which can be challenging as they both have significant responsabilities in their families.   Please pray for their spiritual growth as well as their growth in surgical skills and knowledge.  

Our team: Please continue to be praying for the security situation in West Africa.  With the recent coup in Niger, we do not take this for granted.  Please pray for wisdom and intentionality for the many ministry opportunities God continues to give during this time of relative peace and security. Also, many of you know that we have had significant water challenges for quite some time now. We ask for continued prayer for a more constant source of water and more stable power to run the pumps necessary to deliver the water to the various parts of town, including our hospital compound.