At 9 am people began coming in to the grass shelter where the Fulani believers meet on a Sunday morning to worship and listen to God’s word. It was just like any other Sunday. The men sat on one side and the women on the other with all the children sitting and wriggling in the middle. Then one lady came in with a metal bucket. ‘Strange thing to bring to church, I thought!’’ On looking inside the bucket I noticed it was full of grain. ‘Ah Maybe she was going to get it ground after church, that’s it’. But before sitting down she places her bucket, full of grain, in the centre of the meeting. Then the penny finally dropped. The previous week this lady had received grain when we gave it out to those most in need. What this bucket full of grain was - was her tithe. Here was this desperately poor lady, partially blind herself with a blind husband and a dilapidated grass hut for a home, and out of here absolute poverty she brings her offering out of thanks to the Lord. For us this was such a joy to see, as well as being a incredible testimony and challenge to all of us who sat there and watched this lavishing display of giving.

I would like to say that all those who received grain were as thankful as this lady. I would like to say that no one was dissatisfied with what they received on the nights we gave out grain. But I guess that’s not very realistic, and maybe not even something we should expect. When people are starving the Ps & Qs often get forgotten.

It was the Tuesday night prior to us departing for Ouagadougou in order to attend our annual SIM conference when the phone rang. To my surprise it was Robert who was helping us with the purchase of our grain for our Djibo famine relief effort. “I have two lorry loads of grain setting off for Djibo tomorrow, should be with you in a couple of days ”. Although very excited about the prospect of the grain finally being on its way, all I could muster was an Oh! Didn’t the man realise that this was the time of our spiritual life conference! Well, I guess there was no reason why he should have known, and so I asked if there was a possibility if he could postpone this until after the weekend. “I’m sorry Mr Gibson, but all the lorries are loaded and need to set off tomorrow morning”. Oh! Okay, I guess I will see the grain in a couple of days then. Au revoir.
And so the following morning I sped off down to Ouaga with Cheryl and the children only to return a day later in order to await the arrival of the grain. Or so I thought! On arrival with just the company of the cat I patiently waited, and waited…. and waited. Four days I waited until finally I returned to Ouaga to bring the family back to Djibo only to find our grain lorry broke down on the side of the road 80 km out of Djibo. Well, at least I knew the gain hadn’t been sold.
One week later, the grain finally appeared, all 45 tons of it.

In the weeks that followed, much of my time was spent organising how best to distribute the grain to those who most needed it, not the easiest task in the world, and organising people who were able to help distribute grain in some of the surrounding villages.
Finally, on February 24th, we managed to distribute two thirds of the 45 tons of grain we had received with the help of another Christian organisation called CMA. All seemed to go very smoothly on the day, which we really do thank God for. The weeks that followed I spent quite a bit of time visiting some of the villages where the grain had gone out to and giving a bit of an explanation as to why the Christians in the west had wanted to help in this way. I must say it was quite a delight to discover that the instructions that I had left with those responsible for the village distributions had been followed more or less to the letter. Those who have worked in places like this will know this is quite remarkable in itself.
We would like to say that we have now resolved most people’s problems with the famine in the Djibo are, but we haven’t. To some extent our contribution really is a drop in the ocean, but for those who received grain it did make some difference, and maybe the gesture of love will have a larger impact than the relief in their hunger. A number of those in the villages who received grain aid said that it meant a lot to them that they didn’t feel forgotten in their suffering. They said that suffering is one thing. To be forgotten in suffering is far worse. We hope that this act of compassion will lead to a real openness to the gospel in those villages. It’s often very difficult to preach the gospel to empty stomachs, but the door is wide open to demonstrate the gospel in these kinds of situations.

We are now in the process of purchasing more grain, with the funds that are still coming in with the aim of doing another distribution mid May. A very big thank you to all those that have been praying for the situation here in Djibo and a big thank you to those who have been able to help us financially in purchasing the needed grain.