A farewell to Chad

A farewell to Chad

Celebrating a season of mission

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This summer we’re waving goodbye to three of our mission couples serving at Guinebor II Hospital (G2). Hear from the Shrubsole, Spears and Chilvers families about God’s work in their lives and ministries, and why the next chapter is only just beginning for BMS World Mission healthcare work in Chad.

Hi Bethan and Gareth, Mel and Tom and Brian and Jackie! As you come to the end of this season serving at G2, we’d love to take you back to where it all began. What were your first impressions of serving in a Chadian desert hospital?

Gareth Shrubsole: The challenges of Chad are known to anyone who’s done any research on the country. I think what surprised us more was some of the blessings of Chad, like the fact that our children have absolutely thrived. It’s not to say that it was always easy for them, but they have really thrived and they’ve really been blessed through it, and I believe they’ll become a blessing to others, either immediately or in due course, as a result of their experiences in Chad.

Bethan Shrubsole: I think because it’s such a challenging place, the people who go there are 100 per cent invested. So you don’t find people who are just there because they like Africa. You find people who are there because they’re passionate about Africa, and about Chad particularly.

A Chadian lady has her arm around a male relative as she helps him along a hospital walkway in Chad.
As a country, Chad is ranked second lowest on the Human Development Index globally, with an average life expectancy of 52.5 years.

And how did you see those challenges of life in Chad play out amongst your patients?

Jackie Chilvers: Traditionally, our idea of poverty in the UK is when you don’t have enough of something. But in Chad, poverty exists where people only have enough for “today”. And when people don’t have stability politically, financially… when even the climate is changing, that ability to pay for what’s needed “today” can change very quickly. Sometimes it’s more subtle than what we typically think of as poverty. You might be able to get water from a well, but that water isn’t treated. You might have the smartest clothing or the most raggedy clothing, but if you get cancer, there’s precious little we can do except cut out the tumour as there’s no chemotherapy or radiotherapy available in Chad.

Were you surprised by how God ended up using you in such a fragile context?

Mel Spears: When I went out, I didn’t really know what my role [as a Public Health Practitioner] would look like, and I ended up spending a lot more time with patients in the hospital than perhaps I would’ve imagined. That was definitely very rewarding, but also very heartbreaking. [Working alongside Chadian colleague] Achta was amazing. She really cares about the patients and I learned a lot from her. It was never one-sided. Jackie or I might’ve read more about what perhaps certain standards should be, but she really had the practical experience of what actually works and what had been done in other places.

A Chadian healthcare worker dressed in maroon scrubs chats to a local woman in a headscarf with a young baby on her lap, in a mint green clinic room.
Mel, Jackie and a Chadian team of colleagues Juliet, Salima and Achta [pictured], were able to establish an on-site clinic to treat life-threatening malnutrition, as well as equipping colleagues to diagnose it and raise awareness in the community.

And what were some of the biggest encouragements?

Tom Spears: It was encouraging to see some of the nursing staff who do outpatient consulting really take on board some of the advice that others gave them and improve their way of doing things because of that.
I was encouraged by our colleague Moussa [who featured in BMS’ 2020 Harvest appeal, Operation: Chad]. He’s been there since the hospital opened and he’s a really good guy. He cares about his patients. It was interesting to get a bit more of perspective from him about larger scale issues in Chad and where some of the sticking points are. I look forward to hopefully working with him again in the future.

A British family gather for a photo with two parents and two children in front of a leafy green background.
Mel and Tom are returning to the UK to invest in further medical training, with a view to potentially returning to serve in Chad in coming years.
A Chadian practitioner sits at a desk in his clinic wearing blue scrubs and a stethoscope.
“Moussa is someone that I would really like to be involved more in the strategy of the hospital. He's someone who’s got a good head on their shoulders, and a good heart,” says Tom.

Brian Chilvers: The support from the UK was so encouraging too. When you’ve had a bad day or a difficult day – perhaps a patient is very sick or a child has sadly died – to know there are other people who are still behind you, supporting you and wanting you to go out and do the work makes such a difference. We couldn’t have been in Chad without the financial and prayer support. It reinforced the idea that I’m doing what God wants me to do.

It's clear that you’re leaving the work in Chad in some really capable hands – both those of Chadian staff and also BMS mission workers Claire Bedford and Kalbassou Doubassou. But we know the financial and prayer support of UK Christians is still absolutely critical in keeping G2 running and able to save lives.

Gareth: Please keep praying. G2 is a young hospital, it’s only 12 years old, but I can foresee its need lasting for decades. Whichever generations of mission workers and even Chadian workers pass through, it will still be God’s hospital doing God’s work. It needs to be held in prayer. It’s in a difficult, tough, place. [Head of G2 and nurse-surgeon] Kalbassou is the heart and soul of the hospital, and without Kalbassou, it wouldn’t function. So people need to continue to support BMS to support what he does, and to support what Claire does.

Tom: In the UK, the focus is often about ‘how can we improve the quality of life?’ But for most people in Chad, the focus is on survival. Actually, the cost of living has increased proportionately more in Chad than it has in the UK. Last year the cost of bread rose by 25 per cent overnight, as an example. Even in times where people are seeing their budgets squeezed, there are places like Chad where the amounts of money that affect our quality of life here affect people’s survival elsewhere.

Two Chadian healthcare professionals wearing scrubs smile as they examine a patient.
The incredible team at G2, led by Kalbassou Doubassou, still needs your vital support.

Thank you all for the incredible investment of your time, skills and lives during your time at G2, made possible by UK supporters. We’ve loved welcoming Jackie onto the BMS staff team in the UK as our new Safeguarding Lead, and we look forward to staying in touch.

Three critical ways you can continue to support the work of G2
  1. Pray

    Prayer is critical to the running of G2 Hospital. Why not sign up to Kalbassou and Claire’s prayer letters, and pray for the critical surgical and pharmacy provision you’re making possible at G2?

  2. Give

    None of the work at G2 would be possible without your generosity. Find out more about becoming a 24:7 Partner for Kalbassou or Claire.

  3. Serve

    G2 is particularly in need of qualified surgeons, paediatricians and GPs to serve alongside Kalbassou and Claire. If that’s you or someone you know, do check out the vacancies listed here.

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Interview by Hannah Watson, BMS World Mission

Celebrating Alice

The businesswoman sharing out success in Uganda

Celebrating Alice

After marking International Women’s Day earlier this week, we’re celebrating Alice, the entrepreneur baker who’s made it her mission to support other aspiring businesswomen in Uganda.

As with all the best stories, it started with a cake. Picture the scene: a group of women gathered around, assessing the first batch of sweet-smelling treats emerging from the oven as together, they set up their new café. But Alice’s story isn’t the idyllic tale of a group of friends fulfilling a long-awaited dream. Jambo café was born out of necessity – and the journey to success certainly wasn’t easy.

Alice lives in Kasese, a town in Western Uganda. It’s home, but that doesn’t mean life there is without its challenges. Those challenges are ones Alice sees up close through her husband Alphonse’s work as a pastor. “Alphonse does a great job,” explains Alice. “He works with people on the streets, like those who get drunk. And sometimes he works with street children, helping them.”

A typical night for Alphonse might look like transporting people under the influence of alcohol or drugs back to a safe space at his church to recover, or getting accommodation and a means of income to children on the street who had been orphaned or who had run away from home. That’s in between his day job of equipping pastors to share the Bible. “When I look at him, I can really see that God gives some people to do tasks that you can’t manage,” says Alice.

It’s this same work ethic displayed by Alphonse that infuses all that Alice has achieved too. In fact, Alphonse’s work is intricately tied up with Alice’s plans to start the café at the centre of this story. Although Alice was already selling beaded jewellery at home and working as a mother to six children, with Alphonse’s work as a pastor taking up much of his time, money was hard to come by. Alice could see other hardworking women at her church struggling to make an income too.

Two women outside a café in Uganda
Jambo Café was a lifeline for Alice and other women in her community.
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A chocolate brownie
Alice's chocolate brownies are the only ones available in the western region of Uganda!

“To tell you the truth, we didn’t have that culture of saving,” explains Alice. “I was doing my crafts and I would get customers once in a while. So you’re always hungry. There was never enough money and there are a lot of things you would love to have.”

It was BMS World Mission worker Bethan Shrubsole who first changed Alice’s mind about what she could do with even a limited amount of savings. Bethan (now serving with BMS in Chad) was at that time serving in Uganda, and soon a group of women formed around her, looking for a business idea to invest in. “So when Bethan came up with the idea of a café, I saw it as an opportunity,” says Alice. “I could sell my crafts from there, and indeed it happened. I’ve been selling crafts since Jambo was started.”

Crafts weren’t the only thing available at Jambo Café. Alice’s menu was filled with mouth-watering treats, from her famous chocolate brownies and pumpkin pie to pizza and cookies. While a grant from BMS supporters bought Alice her oven, it was savings from the ladies themselves that purchased the fridge, plates, cutlery and cups for Jambo’s grand opening. It wasn’t long before traditional Ugandan fare like matoke and pilau made it onto the menu too, making the café truly accessible for locals as well as for tourists and passers-through. More recently, Alice has also offered a service making wedding and celebration cakes, a favourite with families from Kasese.

When you ask Alice what makes Jambo special, the answers are wide-ranging. Perhaps it’s the chocolate brownies, the only ones available in the whole western region of Uganda. Perhaps it’s the warm welcome you receive from the Jambo team, always with smiles on their faces and a listening ear. Perhaps it’s the Alpha course she was able to run at the café with the help of Alphonse. “Because of what I have seen, how I’ve been loved, how I have good friends, that’s why I share my faith,” she adds. But for International Women’s Day, we’d like to focus in on another aspect of what makes Jambo Café so special: the way Alice has used her proceeds to bless others.

Two women in a café.
BMS worker Bethan Shrubsole originally gave Alice the idea of starting Jambo Café.

“We saw that other women had helped us to begin Jambo. So, we thought that skill should continue to help others also,” Alice explains. “Like recently, there was a widow whose husband used to stay here in Kasese before he passed on last year, in July. So she had a hard time because when her husband died, he had children from another woman.” When Alice and her team saw the situation this young widow was in, with four children to look after, their hearts went out to her. “She had no help from the husband’s side, so we sat down and thought that it would be better to help her. She’s only 26.” Alice saw the young lady had tailoring skills, so together, the women of Jambo Café purchased her enough fabrics to get started. Helping this young lady reminded Alice of how she started out with Jambo Café. “If it wasn’t for BMS supporters, then we wouldn’t have been helped. If it wasn’t for Jambo, then the young widow wouldn’t have been helped. Even she is also going to help others now… That’s the blessing of giving help,” Alice explains.

As Alice reflects on her hopes for the future, she talks about the sunflowers she hopes to plant outside of Jambo Café, and the wish she has for every woman in Uganda to have the chance to earn something for herself. Her final words, however, are for BMS supporters. “To the people in the UK, I say thank you for your good hearts,” says Alice. “If it wasn’t for BMS, Bethan wouldn’t have come to share this idea with us. Now women [in Kasese] have seen that there is nothing even a small money can’t make possible.”

Jambo's legacy

Jambo Café opened on 4 March 2013 and has just enjoyed another anniversary. During the pandemic, it was the custom of local people that kept Jambo going and that allowed Alice to help vulnerable women in her community. Thank you so much for helping make Alice’s café a reality, one where the impact of mission has lasted far beyond the initial act of generosity. Thanks to you, the blessings have continued to be handed on even now, woman to woman.

Words by Hannah Watson.

Pray for Chad

Heightened tensions

Pray for Chad

Please pray for Chad after the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises British nationals to leave the country due to conflict over the weekend.

An armed convoy belonging to an opposition group has been engaged in fighting with Chad’s Government security forces over the past week, leading to the death of Chad’s president, Idriss Déby. On Saturday 17 April the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) advised all British nationals to leave Chad.

We are in touch with all BMS World Mission workers in Chad, and all UK-based workers have left the country safely, in close co-operation with the FCDO.

We are also in careful discussions with our partner, Guinebor II hospital, as to how best to maintain the safety and well-being of all its staff and patients.

Map of Chad

Please join us in prayer for:

  • a peaceful resolution to this situation.
  • the safety and well-being of the staff and patients at Guinebor II. Pray that the hospital would be able to stay open, with minimal disruption to its activities.
  • all affected BMS mission workers. Pray for their continued safety and well-being during this turbulent time.

BMS World Mission has been working in Chad since 2010, delivering life-transforming health ministries through Guinebor II hospital in the capital, N’Djamena, and more recently further north, in Bardaï.

The Power of Play

The Power of Play

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I could have spoken with them for hours. Creative therapy is making a difference across the world, from Lebanon to Mozambique, Uganda to Thailand, and although each context is different, with every BMS World Mission worker and partner I spoke to, I discovered the same thing: children who have been through unimaginable pain. And how you’re making new ways of healing possible.

She sat in the corner and stared at the wall in her first session. Fatimé was completely disengaged from the world before she started music therapy. Her epilepsy medication makes it difficult for her to stay awake for a whole session, but at least it stops the fitting. BMS music therapist Bethan Shrubsole has been working with Fatimé for seven months. She’s made real progress since the beginning: now she can look directly at her family.

For the uninitiated, music and play therapies might seem like a modern fad, only available to those in the West, and involving expensive, luxury items like sensory toys. But by speaking to BMS therapists from Chad (where Bethan works with Fatimé) to Thailand (where Judy Cook works with Sam), I’m finding the truth is much more encouraging.

Thousands of miles away, lives a little boy whose experiences are very similar to Fatimé’s. Sam is blind and has epilepsy. He also has a brain condition similar to cerebral palsy. He’s been at Hope Home for almost all his life, where BMS worker Judy Cook can give him the support he needs. He’s non-verbal and doesn’t know how to play with the other children. But he likes feeling different textures in his physical therapy sessions, he likes laying on his mat and making scratchy sounds with his fingers. And he loves music. More specifically, he loves The Beatles.

A boy with severe disabilities receives therapy.
Music makes Sam's physical therapy so much more effective.

“He’s quite hard to calm down sometimes,” says BMS worker Judy Cook, who founded Hope Home. “But music has always helped.” And for a boy with wild emotions like Sam’s, who can sometimes get so cross he hits himself, keeping calm is an incredibly important part of his therapy. “We put Hey Jude on and it was like a switch went on in his head,” Judy says. The music makes him smile and laugh, and stops him screaming. Playing Hey Jude isn’t going to cure Sam of his epilepsy, but, along with the other therapies Judy and her team are giving to Sam and the other children under her care, it is already making his life better.

A sensory playground helps support trauma victims in Lebanon.
Play therapy is helping children recover after the devastating blast in Beirut earlier this year.

And it’s not only children with additional needs like Sam and Fatimé who can benefit from creative therapies. BMS partner the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development (LSESD) has been helping children in Beirut in the aftermath of the devastating blast that rocked the city earlier this year. Many of Lebanon’s children have never experienced trauma like this before and don’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with it. So LSESD has started with one of the basics: play.

Daniella Daou and her team at LSESD have set up a sensory playground for children in Beirut, with stimulating play stations, art and storytelling spaces. “The point of the playground is for children to have fun, to de-stress and to express what they’re feeling,” says Daniella. They also have a psychologist present who watches the children’s behaviour and looks at their artwork to see if they’re showing signs of trauma. And the playground isn’t only there to help the children, it’s there to give respite to their parents.

They can take a break while their children play, and can speak to the on-site psychologist to see how their children are coping. Giving their children the opportunity to play in the face of such a tragedy is a key part of their healing process.

Play therapy can also help parents and children to bond and to express love and care in a beautiful way. BMS speech therapist Lois Ovenden tells a story of a mother and son who came to a play therapy session she was running in a clinic in Uganda a few years ago. The boy’s condition was too severe for Lois to give him all the help he needed. “He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t see,” says Lois. “He couldn’t have been more than two.” But for one session, Lois showed his mother some play therapy techniques she could use to interact with her son. “It was so beautiful watching them together,” she says. “The incredible love she had for her child – it almost filled the room.”

A child receiving play therapy Uganda
Lois Ovenden was able to show parents in Uganda how play could help them bond with their children.

Lois only showed the mother some simple techniques, like how touching her son’s face and letting him feel different textures could establish a connection and help him experience fun and beauty. Small things. But they made the boy smile and he started to make soft cooing noises. Lois could tell that he knew his mother, how much he loved her. The beautiful bond they shared, expressed in the only way he could.

Many other parents were sceptical though. They thought that play therapy was only available to those who could afford expensive western toys. But according to BMS play therapist Liz Vilela serving in Mozambique, the opposite is true.

“The best way to connect with a child is for them to use what they’re used to,” says Liz. And BMS therapists are showing this across the world. In Uganda, Lois encouraged parents to make toys out of banana leaves so they can play together with their children. In Chad, Bethan uses an Arabic song in her sessions with Fatimé, because it’s the language her family uses, and it’s what she engages with the most. Meeting people where they are helps families build stronger relationships and it makes creative therapies accessible to so many more people.

A child in Chad receiving music therapy
For children like Fatimé and Mohammed (pictured), Bethan's music therapy sessions have made a real difference.

Talking to Lois, Judy and Liz, I was constantly reminded of Fatimé. A child disengaged from the world, brought to a fuller life through music and play. Before she started therapy, she did nothing but sit in the corner, separate from everyone around her. But after seven months of sessions, she can now look at her siblings. She claps along to songs. They’re small steps, but for Fatimé and her family, they mean hope. I ask Bethan about her hopes for Fatimé. How would she like to see her progress? “I want her to be able to say ‘Mama’,” she says. For Fatimé, that’s a huge ask. But for a mother to hear her little girl say ‘Mama’ for the first time? That makes all the effort worth it.

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Words by Laura Durrant