Christmas in Eku is mission of mercy for missionaries’ daughter

By Barbara Bedrick (11/22/06)

DALLAS –Christmas is usually a time of sharing with family but none could be sweeter than the one planned by Mary Kay Posey.  For her, Christmas in Nigeria means saving the lives of her people with a Texas-sized holiday gift from the Lone Star State.

“We were expecting a miracle,” said Posey, an independent missionary. “But what we got was so much more.” 

Two 18-wheeler sized containers full of medical operating room equipment and supplies is expected to arrive in Eku in southeastern Nigeria by December 3rd. Even with the equipment delivery, patients, doctors and staff at the hospital are on shaky ground. The staff has not been paid all year and $25,000 is needed to provide staff salaries, according to Posey. She is praying that the funds arrive in time for her trip home. Born to medical missionaries in Nigeria, Posey’s heart is with her homeland.

More than 60 years ago, her missionary parents helped start the Eku Baptist Hospital in southeastern Nigeria about a mile from a leper’s colony and a tuberculosis camp. By enriching the medical outreach, Posey’s parents hoped to truly show God’s goodness and his plan of Salvation. 

“I remember reaching in with my small hands to pull two twins from their mother during a Caesarean section,” Posey said. “When I was old enough, I taught little girls about Jesus in Sunbeams class.”

As a child of medical missionaries, she experienced what most people read about or watch on TV – the pain and the suffering of poverty, ravaging diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis, cancer, diabetes and hypertension and the devastation of hunger. 

More importantly, the missionaries’ daughter has also seen the work of God bear fruit again and again in Nigeria. Many have accepted Christ after they saw God’s work through the hospital or after viewing the Jesus movie.

The life-changing experiences have led Posey and her missionary husband Fred to form a non-profit Christian organization in 2005 called Walking in Love Ministries to help share the love of Jesus Christ and help unreached and underserved people in Nigeria.

“This ministry is to encourage the mission-mindedness of our forefathers,” said Fred Posey. “We want to ask people to be in prayer for the ministries’ outreach, both medical and spiritual, to further the Great Commission we have.”

“It’s the dream of a missionary kid,” said Mary Kay Posey, “to go back to Eku and share the love of Jesus.”

The Posey’s have returned to Nigeria four other times in the past two years with supplies. Their current plan is to develop criteria for three visits a year, two to four weeks in duration to Nigeria. These trips will include volunteers that could be doctors, medical personnel, teachers, and/or other people that have a heart to share the love of Jesus and minister to the needs of people.

“It’s been heart-wrenching,” Posey said. “With the loss of support from the International Mission Board, the hospitals have struggled to stay alive.”

A shift in the IMB’s strategy in 2000 dramatically reduced funding for the Eku Baptist Hospital in Nigeria which left the hospital without financial support to hire doctors, nurses and other staff or fund operations. In a country where hospitals must often relay only on power generators for doctors to perform surgeries, the loss of funds was extremely detrimental.

The Eku hospital serves one third of Nigeria which is twice the size of Texas. The nearest Baptist hospital is eight hours away.

But this December, the missionaries’ daughter returns to her homeland with a huge medical mission of mercy long overdue – a mission facilitated by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Healthcare Outreach Network, Texas Baptist Men and Walking in Love Ministries. . Instead of arriving with suitcases full of medical supplies, the Posey’s will deliver an entire transatlantic shipment. 

“Two huge containers full of hospital equipment and supplies are expected to arrive by the third week of December,” Posey said. “The four anesthesia machines are a miracle.”

This gift from Texas Baptists will help save lives at three Nigerian hospitals – Eku Baptist and Baptist medical centers in Ogbomoso and Saki.

The shipment was a facilitated by Healthcare Outreach Network, an organization whose creation was facilitated by the Institutional Ministries Office of the BGCT.  For several years, some of the Baptist hospitals offered used equipment to the Baptist hospital in Guadalajara through medical missionary Lee Baggett.

With the project’s success, hospital administrators and the BGCT began discussing how they could expand their effort. After changes in IMB funding, the global medical outreach need grew urgent as hospitals and clinics overseas struggled to survive.

The HON concept grew from a meeting facilitated by Keith Bruce, BGCT Director of Institutional Ministries with Texas Baptist hospital administrators. The BGCT also contributed some “start up” funds for HON, an organization formed to involve Texas Baptist hospitals in mission efforts with surplus medical supplies. Ben McKibbens, former CEO of Valley Baptist Health System serves as volunteer executive director for HON.

“We’re trying to bridge the gap left behind,” Bruce said. “At least nine Texas and national hospitals are ready to offer support motivationally, financially and physically through medical supplies and equipment to hospitals like those in need in Nigeria.

With support from Texas Baptist Men, HON and the Posey’s Walking in Love are sending two eighteen-wheeler sized containers to three Baptist hospitals in Nigeria, including Eku Baptist.

“These are the first large containers of medical supplies and equipment we have sent to a developing nation,” Bruce said. “We were aware of the need of the Baptist hospital in Ogbomoso, and we’re glad to be able to provide medical assistance to those desperately in need.”

BGCT Medical Missions Coordinator Shirley Shofner also worked to bring the medical resources together. Baylor Medical Center, Valley Baptist Hospital, Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, the Christian Action Center in Lewisville, Heart to Heart of Kansas City, and Supplies Overseas of Louisville are responsible for some of the large medical equipment donations.

“It’s awesome what the Lord has done,” Shofner said. “Children’s Medical Center was remodeling its operating rooms and provided us operating room suites including tables and lights.”

There remains an extraordinary need for doctors at the Eku hospital which only has two physicians on staff. Nourished by only beans and rice, the hospital staff is loyal and compassionate but extremely overworked and underpaid. The Posey’s often wire $1,000 checks to feed the unpaid staff for a month.

“We’ve found the names of four doctors who are willing to come,” Posey explained. “But we need $30,000 for first year salaries for each one. More than 200 people are currently on staff but the hospital only has funding for one month’s salary, $25,000, excluding the doctors.

We are really needing a miracle. I just believe as miraculously as ever that has been through the past two 2 years that He has an answer.”

Posey said she would give anything if she could take the funds for salaries with them in December so she could say, “You’re not forsaken. God has not forgotten you. God has not abandoned you.”

Helping with the medical mission, the Texas Baptist Men built crates for the supplies and loaded them in containers. The missionaries’ daughter is working with them to get an orphanage built between the IBM Bible seminary college and the hospital.

But for now, Mary Kay and Texas Baptists feel blessed that their Christmas gift will arrive in time to dedicate it to the Lord in celebration of his son’s birth.