· Physicians. Most specialties, any length of time. Your participation in the work would be helpful and needed any time of the year; it would be especially appreciated during our annual spiritual retreat (dates variable) and the biannual mission medicine conference in Kenya, sponsored by the Christian Medical & Dental Associations in even-numbered years.
· Dentists. We usually arrange a mobile dental clinic, visiting two to three villages per day, doing cleaning and extractions with our national staff. You would work in the office one to two days per week.
· Prayerwalking teams. Venue is variable, depending on the needs at the time and the Spirit’s leading. May include Nalerigu, surrounding villages, and local schools. Sometimes these teams incorporate showings of the Jesus film and/or evangelistic crusades.
· Pastor/lay leader training. Many of the rural village churches have no pastor; most of what pastors there are have little or no formal training. These church leaders do not have the money to attend even the regional Pastors Training Centre. We need teams or individuals to bring the training to these men = Theological Training by Extension, or TEE. As most are illiterate and have no prior study or training, you would not need a seminary degree to be qualified to do this and do it well. Would need to be done during dry season (January through late April) to have the best attendance.
· Nurses. Various opportunities for participating in the work – at our Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit, with our own Public Health dept. including village work, in the surgical suite or labor & delivery, on the wards – but one of your greatest contributions would be to provide in-service training for our nursing staff.
· Business manager. This is an ISC position (one to two years, salaried); will be open at the end of the Miner’s year of service (i.e., April 2002).
· Pharmacist. You would assist with managing a busy hospital pharmacy and/or providing relief coverage for our pharmacist to allow her vacation time.
· Construction teams. Various projects – remodeling, expansion, etc. – are being planned.
· VBS teams. To conduct week-long Bible schools for local children and training local leadership to continue this ministry.
· Physical therapist. In addition to working with individual patients, can include training our national nursing staff how to provide the needed therapies.
· Medical/dental/nursing students & residents. The IMB has a receptor program for sending fourth-year medical and dental students and medical and surgical residents to our medical facilities around the world for eight weeks; travel, room, and board are paid.
· Bandage & envelope project. Our budget does not permit us to purchase manufactured dressing materials for wound care. Our bandages consist of bed linens torn into strips and rolled. We are totally dependent upon stateside churches to provide these for us. This is a critical ministry, as without this, we simply could not do what we do. Likewise, we use old/outdated/unusable church offering envelopes as containers for the medicines we dispense from our pharmacy. Most church members have leftover envelopes at the end of each box and most churches have boxes or even cases of these sitting about, useful to no one. A church in Georgia will ship these to us if other churches will collect them.
· Discipleship training. New believers need to be taught how to be a follower of Christ. They especially need prayer and encouragement so as to resist the always-present temptation to return to their culture’s deeply ingrained animistic ways. In particular, we can use youth workers, especially those with musical skills.
· Endowment funds. Our goal is for BMC to become self-sustaining or funded by alternative sources, thereby freeing up IMB funds for other ministries. At this time the best prospect for this appears to be by way of an endowment fund, two of which have been set up in the U.S. specifically to fund the work and ministries of BMC, Nalerigu.
· Computer software tutor. BMC is using computers in a very gradually increasing manner. Our office staff, all of whom are nationals, have no prior experience with computers; all instruction must be done in an “OJT” fashion. It would be of great benefit to have someone who could not only teach our national staff but also assist the missionaries with the inevitable computer problems that arise periodically. We have no computer gurus here!
· Chaplain assistant. Our chaplains need someone to help them be better chaplains; someone who could work with them over a period of time or could provide some in-service type of training.
· Church planter. Many villages do not have a church within their confines; many don’t have one even a reasonable walk’s distance away. We have a standing career personnel request for someone to be a church planter for our region, especially targeting certain unreached people groups.
· Literacy training. The Bible is being translated into the local dominant language, Mampruli; the New Testament is being printed now and should be available late 2001/early 2002. As a large percentage of the people in the north of Ghana are illiterate, we need to teach them how to read their own language so that we can then put this new Bible into their hands. A translator would be provided to assist you. Likewise, there is ongoing interest by many northerners in our area to learn to read English (Ghana’s official language), especially the younger generations who have been taught some English in school.