Dear friends

We would like to share with you the next step in our journey. In January, we will be saying a tearful farewell to the wind, rain and sleet of Sheffield and saying hello to the humidity and mosquitoes of south eastern Nigeria.

We feel that God has called us to this for the next (one year) season. We have been offered voluntary jobs with Amaudo (pronounced A-moo-do), a Methodist funded charity reaching out to people with mental illness. The word “Amaudo” means “Village of Peace” and where we are going is exactly that. In Nigeria, people with mental health problems are often rejected by their families and communities and left homeless and destitute. Amaudo offers these people a home and a place to belong – somewhere where they can live in peace, be part of a community, receive treatment and therapy, learn new skills and eventually be ready to return to their own homes.

Hazel will be working as a therapy co-ordinator, managing a team of therapists working in Project Comfort, a project for children with learning disabilities and one of a number of projects under the Amaudo umbrella. Andy, meanwhile, will be employed as a finance officer. Both of us are moving into quite unfamiliar areas of work so please pray that God would fill the gaps in our expertise. We will be living side-by-side with the residents and the other staff, worshipping, working and eating together. This will be a very different lifestyle for us so please pray that we would embrace it and that the community, both inside and outside the Amaudo village, would embrace us and have patience with us as we settle in. We would also like God to give us opportunities both to learn from the people there and to share with them what we have learned from TOM and St Thomas’.

For us, simplicity will mean no on-site access to email or internet. We will have sporadic email access when we travel to the state capital so please keep in contact on brycetowers@surefish.co.uk. Alternatively, if you still remember how to use a pen and lick a stamp, you can write to us at Amaudo Itumbauzo, Centre for Mentally Ill Destitutes, PMB 1020, Bende, Abia State, Nigeria. Letters would be gratefully received but we would not recommend posting valuable items as these may go missing.

Love and blessings to you all!

Hazel and Andy Bryce