Thursday Jayme and I are off to Nigeria.

The last time I was there, the poverty overwhelmed me: it was the first African country outside South Africa I had visited. Of course at that time I had seen tremendous poverty in South Africa (I thought, ‘how much worse can it get than AIDS patients dying alone in shacks?’), but the difference in Nigeria was the omnipresence: poverty was everywhere—open sewers in the streets, dozens of people living together in small shacks, prostitutes held up like prisoners, and children running everywhere barely any in school. It was hard to take it all in.

Since then, both Jayme and I have travelled a lot around Africa, so I think I know better what to expect. Still, Nigeria is daunting to me.

As some of you know, with Hands at Work we are trying to care for 100,000 orphaned and vulnerable children by 2010. 30,000 of those kids are planned to be reached in Nigeria alone (1/4 of Africa’s population lives in Nigeria). That means that over the next 24 months we’ll be stirring new projects in 75 Nigerian communities: 3 per month.

When we say “care for” these kids, what we mean is to provide three basic services: health, food security, and education. And we can do that for about $15/child. Simple math says we’ll need $450,000 per month by the end of 2010 to care for that pile of kids.

As many of you likely don’t know, the Hands at Work goal is to see the international church providing 80% of the money to care for these kids, because we believe it’s the church’s job to do that. The church has the money to do it, and they ought to have the will to do it. So it certainly can be done. And I believe it will be done.

But, still, Nigeria is daunting to me. So, if you can, remember us for the next couple weeks. We’ll need your prayers.