Nigerian Family Committed to CRC Outreach

Nov. 6, 2009—With just a bit of tell-tale gray around the temples, a glance at John Orkar tells you that he is a strong, vibrant 60-year-old. Although the average life expectancy in his native Nigeria is less than 47 years, it’s a challenge for a much younger person to keep up with Orkar’s speaking schedule as he travels through North America this month.

Dr. Orkar, a development consultant with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee for 26 years, is booked at colleges, churches, and schools in Chicago and the Midwest, California, the East Coast, and across Canada, talking about the challenges of poverty, the environment, and AIDS in his country—and celebrating the success in which he shares a significant role.

"Because of unrest, drought, and floods, there is a place for relief aid in the developing world," Orkar says.

Patsy Okar, John's daughter, is also deeply involved in the mission of the church. She has served on the board for Christian Reformed World Missions and has been named the new international tier Program Consultant for CRWRC working in Chipata, Zambia with the Southern Africa Ministry Team.

She has previously worked for CRWRC in Mali and Haiti among other countries. She will begin with CRWRC on Jan. 1, 2010 and will head to the field with her husband, Ephraim, and two daughters in early February.

"I have been a member of the CRC my whole life and have worshiped with fellow CRC members in different parts of the world (Africa, Canada, US, Carribean). I did my undergrad at Calvin College," she says.

Like with her father, she says, the CRC has taught "me to put my faith into action. Transformation needs more than our prayers for it to take place. It needs us to be willing to step out and be used by God to bring healing to the world. Whether that be in your local community or in an international setting."

Following the teachings of his faith and his commitment to CRC outreach, Patsty’s father has been working In the Kambari area of Nigeria, just 200 km from the Sahara, where children die before their fifth birthday at a rate double the national average (40 percent). The land, which receives scant rainfall, consists of a thin layer of clay over bedrock. The people are industrious and hard working, but "they have serious challenges that make their lives difficult and short, their health tenuous, and their productivity low," John Orkar explains.

Over the last seven years, through local and international partnerships, Orkar has helped 150 communities drill sustainable water boreholes. Integrated with other development programs, the people of the Kambari are seeing progress, not only in the availability of potable water, but also in immunization rates, lower mortality rates, better nutrition, and increased literacy.

Orkar says that adding a business development focus to CRWRC’s income earning programs in 2002 has helped create an even more stable, integrated approach to development among its partners in Nigeria that not only "teaches a man to fish" but "helps him buy the pond."

CRWRC partners with local churches and faith-based organizations to bring about economic, physical, spiritual, and community-based change. For more information, visit CRWRC.

CRWM has also been, and continues, to be active in Nigeria. For more information, visit CRWM.

—Beth DeGraf, Christian Reformed World Missions, CRC Communications