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Nigerian ?mission impossible? becomes possible

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article reprinted from the United Methodist Connection
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September 4, 2002

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VOL. 13, NO. 17

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Nigerian mission impossible becomes possible

For the second time in less than a year, Theresa Alaeze is spending a month in her native Nigeria helping to set up an educational program to prevent the spread of AIDS. She doesnt always believe she can accomplish the impossible, but shes forging ahead in faith.

Last December she set off for Nigeria, armed with the Holy Spirit, a wealth of information, expensive supplies, and well educated in her field of expertise, said the Rev. Henry C. Thompson, her pastor at Loch Raven UMC in Baltimore.

The mission of Alaezes newly formed Associated Health Resource Center is to improve the quality of life of Nigerian citizens by reducing the high incidence of disabilities and diseases resulting from preventable causes.

Its a multiple task, said Alaeze, a nurse and HIV-AIDS counselor, because you want to deal with public health by teaching, educating people on preventable causes and at the same time the epidemic of HIV and AIDS is just ravaging the communities.

I know I have to narrow that down, said Alaeze, so I plan to help (AIDS) orphans first and take care of preventable diseases through education.

About 4 million of the countrys nearly 122 million people (Nigeria has nearly one-fifth the total population of Africa) are infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus; 350,000 have full-blown AIDS. There were 126,282 AIDS-related deaths in 2001.

UNICEF estimates that by 2010, Nigeria will have 2.5 million orphans because of AIDS.

To accomplish her goals, Alaeze plans to mobilize her Nigerian home town by providing education on the causes of many diseases and how to prevent them. She is planning to build a center for free medical services, including a 20-bed unit for children with chronic diseases, including HIV and AIDS.

According to Alaeze, in her region of Nigeria, there is only one nearly inaccessible hospital for 400,000 people.

The most challenging problem is continuity, said Alaeze.

During her December visit, she set up a network of 12 doctors and others eager to help her cause. But the question remains as to what active role they play once Im gone, with no resources at all, she said. The human resources are there, she notes, but without the material resources to back them up, they cant do anything until she returns with supplies.

Alaeze has many specialized skills to help her accomplish her task. She is a nurse with a graduate degree in health education/health care services from Towson State University and has been a prevention case manager and HIV-AIDS counselor. Currently she is a director for a tobacco use prevention and cessation program in Baltimore.

The many contacts she has made during training, conferences and at work form a network of supportive resources that is helping make her mission possible. In addition, the people of her church have helped raise $5,200 for this summers trip. Interchurch Medical Assistance of New Windsor provided 12 boxes of supplies.

Until recently, Alaeze did not see herself as equipped to do any job God called her to do. Ive been a long time running away from it, she said.

As a nine-year-old child, she began feeling a tug to help people when she joined the Red Cross in Nigeria. Her mission didnt begin to take on a shape until later, when she was in her third year of nursing school and was sent to work in the childrens ward. The overwhelming numbers of children with preventable diseases caught her by the heart.

Tetanus, marasmus (a wasting disease), kwashiorkor, T.B., typhoid, Alaeze ticked off the list as if praying a rosary of human misery. You know, at that time children with cleft palate were put to sleep, she added.

Still, she found herself walking around saying, No, no, to a voice that was calling for her to do something more. My husband would say, Whom are you talking to? and I would say, I dont know.

In 1997 Alaeze and her husband traveled back to Nigeria. While I was there, you know, I just couldnt help it. I began some outreach work. Instead of saying, no, no, she found herself ready to say, okay.

But I wouldnt say it, until 98, all of a sudden I just said, Yes!

She began to hear the words rescue mission over and over, without any understanding of what they meant. Then, when she began reading the Bible at random, she came upon 1 Corinthians 12, which she interpreted as telling her that she had been given the gifts and talents she needed to do Gods work. Now, in preparing for the latest phase of her mission, Alaeze admits no impediments.

Its bigger than me, she said. I do not have any fear, because God is opening the way every time.

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