Jamila

Please will you inspire others by donating to this year’s Christmas Miracle Matching Fund to help heal heartbroken mothers, like Jamila, so they can be freed from the life-long smell, shame and isolation of obstetric fistula…

Jesus said to her, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment. – Matthew 9:22

Thank you for your ongoing support to help people with disabilities in the world’s poorest places. Each and every gift you send is truly appreciated.

It is because of your faithfulness to the ministry of cbm that we ask you to please prayerfully consider sending a special gift to help heal heartbroken mothers, like Jamila, so they can be freed from the life-long smell, shame and isolation of obstetric fistula.

That is what this year’s Christmas Miracle Matching Fund is about and here’s how it works…

When you become a Growth Giver, and donate into the matching fund, you will be inspiring other cbm supporters to make a special Christmas gift and this year it is to help heal heartbroken mothers, like Jamila.

Every dollar you generously give to the Christmas Miracle Matching Fund provides a match to gifts from other cbm supporters, which encourages them to give too. Research shows that, when people see a Matching Fund, giving increases by up to 30%!

As a Growth Giver, your generous Growth Giver gift will go to work in Nigeria to help find and restore the health of mothers, like Jamila, suffering from obstetric fistula.

Jamila mourned deeply for the loss of her dignity, as she endured one of the worst cases of obstetric fistula I have ever encountered.

Few people in New Zealand know how debilitating living with obstetric fistula is: how a woman can go for years, decades, a lifetime – constantly cleaning and wrapping herself, separating herself from society, because she cannot stop her body from leaking its waste.

Watch the video below as Jamila describes what happened to her, and see the light in her husband’s eyes go out as he remembers being completely powerless to help his precious wife.

Jamila did at least have a hospital to go to for the birth of her second baby. However, when she experienced a third-degree tear during childbirth, she only received basic surface stitches. No-one realised how deeply the tear had wounded her.

A fistula began releasing bodily waste through her birth canal. She was deeply shocked and utterly mortified.

This is obstetric fistula and throughout history it has always existed as a real risk in childbirth, especially for mothers in places like Nigeria. Obstetric fistula is as taboo as human suffering can be. I am full of admiration and respect for people like you, who are prepared to put such taboos aside and support this life-restoring obstetric fistula ministry.

Imagine Jamila’s future without your help. She would live trapped in her room, unable to go to work, to the market or to church, because it would be impossible to hide her overpowering smell. Without surgery the leaking would never stop.

As a cbm supporter, you understand when this type of condition strikes, it can push a family, who cannot afford specialist medical treatments, into long-term disability and deeper poverty.

Jamila and her husband were determined to avoid such a challenging future – but what power did they have?

“I went to the hospital to lay a complaint,” Jamila recalls, “and they said a surgery must be done in order to address the leakage.” The impossible problem was this: the hospital did not have the specialist skills and training for obstetric fistula repair. Few hospitals do. “We asked them for a way out.” Sadly, they could not give one. 

Jamila and her husband left the hospital, with little hope. They had no idea where to find the surgical support Jamila needed and could not afford it even if they did. Jamila fell into despair and depression. Because she could not control her waste, she did everything she could to reduce it. “I stopped eating. I became very thin.”

You can understand why a woman with obstetric fistula would starve herself or become dangerously dehydrated. The very food and drink she consumes will cause her more humiliation.

It is a terrible situation for a mother to be in, especially if she is trying to keep up her nourishment to feed her baby.

“I kept on asking my husband. What are we going to do about this?” She couldn’t bear it, and her husband felt completely powerless to help.

Her husband expresses this well: “I never knew that there were so many people affected by this problem.”

Like almost everyone, everywhere, he had never heard of obstetric fistula. Yet in communities like Jamila’s, almost everyone knows a family affected by it – they just don’t realise it. It is never discussed. Obstetric fistula is too taboo!

Thankfully, this is where your loving kindness comes into the picture, to break down barriers, and help heartbroken mothers, like Jamila!

Your special gift to this year’s Christmas Miracle Matching Fund will help find and heal mothers, like Jamila, from the smell, shame and isolation of obstetric fistula.

Right now, there are many mothers, like Jamila, in need… but your generous support can change that.

Your Growth Giver gift today will help find heartbroken mothers, like Jamila. Some of them hiding at home for decades! Not only this, but your generosity will help inspire other cbm supporters to give:

• to help provide a safe place for the many mothers living in isolation because of the shame and smell of obstetric fistula;
• and to fund obstetric fistula surgeries, hospital care and after care medicine, so these mothers can heal in mind, body and spirit.

By supporting this year’s Christmas Miracle Matching Fund, you selflessly make it possible for heartbroken mothers to get the essential care they need. You will be helping to provide high quality obstetric fistula treatment for mothers held captive by the humiliation of uncontrollably leaking bodily waste

Thanks to people like you, Jamila and her husband heard the good news:

“There is an organisation,” Jamila beams, “that comes and works hand-in-hand with Kwali General Hospital to support people with such cases.” That ministry is SFHF – Sustainable Family Healthcare Foundation. They are one of several obstetric fistula care ministries in the most remote parts of Nigeria. Their wonderful work is funded by cbm supporters like you through the Comprehensive and Inclusive Mothers’ Health Project in Nigeria.

The scope of this ministry spans all the way from publicity and awareness; training of healthcare staff around the prevention of obstetric fistula; specialised surgery and care; through to livelihood and social programmes to restore rejected and abandoned mothers back to their standing in their family and community. 

Jamila’s story is an amazing testimony of the difference generous people like you can make. Please help support this remarkable ministry for mothers who are mired in misery, by sending your Growth Giver gift to the Christmas Miracle Matching Fund for obstetric fistula today.

SFHF is the ministry that cared for Jamila. “They came and the surgery was successfully done,” she says, beaming with a smile so broad and joyful. “I’m out of that terrible experience!” Likewise, her husband’s eyes light up as he too delights in the great gift people like you have given to his precious wife.

Jamila’s husband is so very thankful. He said, “I am touched by what has happened. We are grateful and we pray that Almighty God will keep on strengthening this ministry to do more and more, so that the lives of others will be touched.”

We are thankful to God too. Without people like you, there can be no cbm, no expert help for mothers suffering this humiliating disability. It is a rare person who even knows about obstetric fistula in our time. Please prayerfully consider giving a Growth Giver gift to help bring joy back to the hearts of mothers, like Jamila.

But right now there are so many other mothers, like Jamila, who are needing to be free from a lifetime of smell and isolation, and to have their dignity restored.

Jamila is doing what she can to support mothers living with obstetric fistula. She has been meeting with women who dared not dream that surgery really could deliver them from their endless distress. “I visited them. I encouraged them and assured them that since mine was successful, theirs also will be successful,” Jamila says.

It seems early to be talking about Christmas, but we need to inform other cbm supporters how much is available in the Christmas Miracle Matching Fund for matching. Please will you send your Growth Giver gift by 18 October to help heal more mothers, like Jamila, freeing them from obstetric fistula and helping them live independently again.

As a Growth Giver, you will be an inspiration and a blessing. Other cbm supporters are more likely to give when they see people with generous hearts – like you – leading the way.

With your generous support mothers, like Jamila, will no longer be a burden to their families. They will no longer live in shame and isolation, unable to live independently.

Please will you help heal them and restore their dignity. So many mothers are waiting right now for help.

We believe that whatever you offer to God through your generous support of cbm’s ministry… the Lord will multiply. That’s what it means to become a Growth Giver!

Other cbm supporters, inspired by your generosity, will know that for every dollar they give, two dollars of impact will result. But for you, as the inspiration for such gifts… the impact of your gift grows with each person you influence.

Once God puts your gift to work… inspiring others to sow into the lives of mothers who are suffering from obstetric fistula… you will be a double blessing!

Thank you for prayerfully considering your special gift as a Growth Giver for the Christmas Miracle Matching Fund.

You will be a blessing to heartbroken mothers, helping to free them from shame and allowing them to live independently. Your generosity will help restore their dignity and inspire others to give, and will allow many mothers, like Jamila in Nigeria, to be free from the smell, shame and isolation of obstetric fistula.

Mothers living with obstetric fistula will be so grateful to you, as Jamila and her husband are. With her wide smile Jamila exclaims, “We thank cbm New Zealand!” Her husband sighs with earnest relief and offers you a heartfelt benediction in Hausa, his heart language: “May God bless you all.”

Thank you for your ongoing support and faithfulness to help free more mothers from obstetric fistula.