In Their Words

After over a year of praying....

After the submission of 917 applications....

After 46 initial interviews...

After testing and exams, a month long rotation of hospital departments, and 33 follow-up interviews...

20 students were selected and have started the 2021-2024 nursing program. They are eager, earnest, and excited... but they also feel the weight of being one of the chosen. As part of their application process, the students wrote a reflection on significant events in their life. One of my tasks this week was to translate them into English. I'm going to stop my own rambling now and let just a few words from their testimonies speak for themselves. 

"I went to primary school 8km away from my village. None of the other children from my village went to school because it seemed to be too far away.....It was a matter of saving my energy to be able to walk this distance at 8am and 5pm every day to get back and forth from school. The test to graduate from primary school was a cross for me to bear. This is because the center was in a town and my parents didn’t know anyone in the town for me to stay with. I spent two nights at the center before seeing the examiner to explain my situation. He found me a place to stay for my test in secure conditions. In middle school, I was always late and received lashes for being late or absent. In 2017, a tragic event happened. A tribal war was started in the village, and our house was burned. We left the village with empty hands and only our hope. It is because of these difficult conditions that my parents did not allow me to continue my university studies even though I had a proven love and an intellectual capacity to continue."

"I am a man born into an animist family. One day, I met Christ through the showing of a movie by an evangelistic group. It was there that I made my conversion. After this, my animist parents refused to give up their sacrifices in order to follow Christ, but one day, God touched the hearts of my brothers and my mothers, and they are also converts to Christ. "

"My father died in 2000, the year of my birth. When I was five years old, my mother enrolled me in primary school with funds from her business and her work in the fields. It was with her business and work in the fields that we struggled through until I graduated from secondary school."

"I was born to an animist and polygamist family. I was living a life that I believed was the best one, yet I was wrong. It was when there was a convention in my home village where the message of the gospel was preached. The speaker said that “a person who has not yet received Christ is dead. They do not live.” He added that all men are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. Therefore, Jesus came and died on the cross for my sins. For we are not able to escape this death ourselves and we have to believe in Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. And so I gave my life to Christ. I went to school in 2005 at the age of 6. I received my BAC 1 in 2017 and my BAC 2 in 2019. Wanting to continue my studies at the University of Lome, I had to go live with my brother who lived there with his family who was all Muslim. One day, he called me and said that even though I was a Christian, he would not prevent me from following my Jesus. I thanked him and praised God. Despite living in a Muslim family, that did not put any obstacles in my Christian life. I am and I will stay a Christian in the name of Jesus."

"From my adolescence, I had noticed an inequality of options and supplies in my social circle. Although I was passionate about my studies, I was often confronted with difficulties in obtaining materials due to the lack of financial means. I had a desire to become a doctor one day which led me to study science. After taking my BAC2, I had to continue on another career path instead of medicine. My passion to be a doctor was because of two reasons. First, I wanted to actively participate and maintain the health of my population- especially children. Secondly, I wanted to help pregnant women through their pregnancy. I had even passed the exam to receive doctor training, but unfortunately, I was not selected for the program. From that point on, I decided to look at other studies and training opportunities."

"I am the youngest child. My parents already had three boys and four girls, so I am the eighth in my family. I started my schooling in the same village when I was five years old, and everyone appreciated me from the start because I showed excellence in my schooling..... (Years later,) My dear father left us, and everything changed. My excellence clearly fell. But despite everything, I passed my BAC2. At this point, I realized that the disappearance of a father can change the future of his child. After my BAC, I wanted to study medicine in Burkina Faso, but what could an orphan do to obtain such a large sum of money to study medicine? "

"All throughout school, I worked in the fields during my vacations to pay the school fees every year because my father already had 2 wives and 13 children. Little by little, I kept making money and enrolled at the University of Lome and studied physics. Supporting myself in Lome was a problem, and I just had to do my work day by day in order to get by. To rent a room that I could afford, I lived 20km from the campus. I always rode my bike"

".....While I was at university, something happened to my mother which cost her her life when she was giving birth. It was a great misfortune in my life that forced me to leave university for a year to recover and have the strength to continue. A few months later, I restarted negotiations with my father with the support of the elders of my village to convince him to let me marry my girlfriend. In 2018, I won the acceptance of my father for my relationship, and I was married to my wife. She had replaced a part of my life that my mother had taken. After 2 years together, she is now a mother to a young boy who made me a father.  Thus, it was not always easy, but I managed little by little to get my education that has made me stronger today."

"I thank God that he sent certain people who voluntarily helped me grow in my knowledge of the word of God. Thanks to their support and prayers, I finally discovered my gift to use for the glory of my God. My prayer is that God helps me to continue to serve Him and to speak about Him to others who haven’t had the chance to know Him. God created us in His image and has permitted me to know Him. It is my turn to talk about Him to others because Jesus commanded His disciples to go and make disciples of other nations."

Testimonies have been edited for length

This is the shortest amount of time it has ever taken me to write a blog, but that's the benefit of plagiarizing 😜. I've known them for about a week, and I can't help but love them already. There's a group chat for the students on Whatsapp, and the other night there was a barrage of motivational texts and memes coming in saying things like, "It's going to be hard, it's going to take time, it's going to demand sacrifices, but it will all be worth it." And as cheesy as that might be, they're not wrong. 

Please continue to pray for the students as they start anatomy and physiology class next week. Please pray for me and the other faculty members as we have the chance to invest deeply in the lives of these students. Please pray for the Hospital of Hope and the opportunities we have to be the hands and feet of Christ to Mango and the surrounding area. 

Because they haven't heard,
Caroline