DIVINE FACE ORGANIZATION
(Concern for the needy)

Newsletter -July 2002

Dear Friend of the Divine Face,

          HONOR TO THE DIVINE FACE! I can hardly believe that it is already one year since I wrote to you last. How time flies whentl1ere lSIiiiiCfi'TO be done. Uncea-ga1n TMlngyou hearty greetings from our peopre;(yours Wid mine) in Nigeria. I wonder when I am ever going to be able to "send" rather than "bring" you these greetings from my country. Hopefully that will happen one day when things settle down and we succeed in setting things up in our institution to run by their own in-built dynamism. Please help pray that we may see that day.

          In the parish where I serve, the bishop paid us a pastoral visit in December last year, and in January this year I got a new associate. That is the third one in less than two years. The parish is relatively new, so it needs attention in order to get a good orientation put in place, as well as structures like the Church building and parish office block to complete.

          In our Divine Face Family, we thank God for his favors. We did not have any deaths, except the grandfather of one of our Stewards who died in April. Our adopted families are doing well within the context of life back home. The protracted non-payment of salaries to workers and teachers by the government and the frequent scarcity of gasoline within the past year have worsened the strangling hold of corruption on the population of our country .Please pray for that country .

          This situation has affected practically every aspect of our services to the people. Much more is required to support them; many more people need help. Even some parents have had to withdraw their children from our school because they can no longer afford even the very little school fees that we ask for. This past year, the vehicles we use, one of 1982 for the Stewards, the other of 1983 for myself, and the school bus of 1975 have spent more time in the repair shops than in our service. Understandably that has not been friendly to our finances.  Because of the very irregular services of the bus, we also have lost some of our pre-school and primary school children who used to come from very far away. The parents are quite sad because they know what they are missing. As a matter of fact, we nearly had a disaster with the bus in late May this year. The students were on board coming back from an excursion. Something went wrong with the oil supply system. All of a sudden smoke filled the inside of the bus. The students thought it had caught fire. In their fright, some jumped out in different directions on a relatively busy road. In spite of all that, divine providence spared them any serious injuries. But the motor of the bus went stiff completely and even the engine block got shattered. I called home some time ago, and was told that the mechanic had found out that it would need about $3,000.00
to replace the motor.

          All that notwithstanding, I have some good news for you. This may seem ironic but while some parents find it difficult to pay the equivalent of $30.00 a year for their children in primary school, more and more are willing to make the sacrifice to pay the equivalent of $40.00 monthly to have theirs in our high school. Consequently, instead of the number of 30 new students we expected last year, we had 35. And for next year, it is likely that we will not be able to admit all those who have applied. Word has gotten around about the school. A couple of days before I came out this year, precisely on June lO, government officials came to inspect our secondary school for approval. In the end they assured us that we would get the approval.