Meeting Bishop Edward Ishaya of the Yola Diocese

This morning we finally met with Bishop Edward Ishaya of the local Diocese in Yola where we are staying.  Mr. Ishaya had been in South Africa during our previous trip finishing his PhD.  The Bishop; Mr. Kadala, Chairman of the of the School Board for the Primary Academy of Jimeta; and Mr. Shambirna'ah, the Principal of said Academy.  For the folks back in Massachusetts, Jimeta is to Yola as Cambridge is to Boston in that it's part of the greater Boston area, they are intimately connected, but outsiders generally consider the entire area "Yola."

After a few minutes of discussion The Bishop was quite interested in the project and pledging his full support in helping us obtain accesses to human resources within the church community as well as financial.

This was great news, and the final piece necessary for our current work.  There is still money to be raised by Mission Afrika (from the private sector in Denmark), but we have a few months yet to secure it.

Proof of support was delivered immediately.  Within 2 hours a young man named Bulus who we had met briefly in June at the Arch Diocese in Numan (a few trechorous hours outside of town) was knocking on the office door wondering why the Bishop had requested his attendence.  Upon recognizing us he was quick to put the pieces together for himself.

Bulus is a long time church member who received his scholarship from the LCCN Church and has provided IT and Mechanical Engineering Support to them for over 10 years.  He had recently left to work for MTN, one of the 3 major Mobile phone service providers in Nigeria.  Mobiles are HUGE business here.  The Bishop was disappointed that he was no longer employeed in service to the church, but of course understood that a young man needs to follow his ambition.

After discussing our plans with Bulus he quickly called his friend Nathan, also a long-time member of the LCCN in Numen.  Nathan, very conveniently, received his official SolarPower Installation Certificate not 2 weeks ago after years of schooling in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.

We arranged to meet him tomorrow to go over the schematic that I had tentatively put together.