Billy and Linda Abwa work in HIV/AIDS education and

care with STILL WATERS.  They are based in Abuja, Nigeria.

 

Background

 

Billy and Linda met shortly after Linda went to Nigeria with Mission Africa in 2003.  They were married in 2006.

Billy had become a believer at the age of 10 under the guidance and teaching of his mother.  His parents and siblings are strong in their faith and active church members in the Evangelical Church of West Africa in Nigeria.  Billy made his personal step towards Christ after encountering the truth in the movie ‘Burning Hell’.  He was challenged by the movie and after watching it his mother led him to Christ.  Linda was in a similar situation in Northern Ireland, having been brought up in a Christian home.  She was attending a Christian holiday programme at Capenwray College Lancashire in August 1989, when she was personally challenged to make a choice about Jesus during one of the messages by Roy Crowne. 

 

Due to both having Christian upbringings, the notion of compassion and assistance to the needy were not strange to either Billy or Linda.  Billy’s childhood was spent in a highly populated, poverty burdened community in Jos where he daily saw the reality of material and spiritual need.  This affected his vision for the future, making him eager to study development and help Nigerian society change.

 

Linda did not have the same first hand experience of poverty in Northern Ireland, but became acutely aware of the suffering on the continent of Africa during the Ethiopian famine in the early 1980’s.  She developed a desire to make a difference in communities which suffered the lack of basic necessities.

 

God's Call

After giving their lives to God, both Billy and Linda found that this desire to ease the suffering of others intensified and expanded.  It now also included the deep desire to bring the hope of Christ to those who seemed beyond hope. 

 

With her desire to serve God in Africa in mind, Linda studied nursing and graduated from the University of Ulster, Coleraine in 1997.  At that time the Nursing degree course required students to carry out an overseas elective for three months.  Linda spent the elective in the Gambia, and from then on was in no doubt that God would call her back permanently to West Africa.  After University she worked in North London, and travelled as much as possible: experiencing other cultures convinced her further that it was West Africa that she was called to.  Having made further enquiries about useful skills for mission she returned to N. Ireland to study midwifery, this time at Queens University, Belfast.  Meanwhile Billy was studying Zoology at the University of Jos, Nigeria, majoring in parasitology.  After graduating in 2000 he turned down opportunities to apprentice in the field of finance, still convinced of his calling to make a difference.  He started work in a hospital laboratory in Jos and later in a UNDP development project.  It was from there that God opened up the way for him to serve as he had hoped; he was accepted to work in the HIV ministry with the ECWA AIDS Ministry in 2002.  Billy has also worked as a youth leader for nine years in the areas of evangelism, programme development and resource mobilisation and has 15 years experience of working with children ages 7-15 years in the ECWA Children Ministry of his local church.

 

By 2002 Linda felt that her midwifery experience was adequate to consider working outside the UK, so she began looking for opportunities with mission organisations.  Various opportunities presented themselves, some in West Africa.  Of those, the opportunity to work at Spring of Life HIV/AIDS counselling and care centre in Jos was where God was pointing.  She was accepted by Mission Africa and began work at Spring of Life in July 2003.

 

Billy was involved in the prevention and education ministry, travelling to churches throughout Nigeria teaching on HIV prevention and the church's role in caring for the infected and affected.  His work also involved sensitizing church leaders, advocating for better responses at local levels and project design and development.  Linda initially spent time learning the culture, and counselling those who came for testing, or assistance.  After a few months she was able to join the Home Based Care department.  This involved counselling and basic nursing care for the infected in their homes.

As they worked together in The ECWA AIDS Ministry Billy and Linda got to know each other well, and found that they shared the same vision to awaken the church to their responsibility to society’s less privileged.  Billy and Linda were married in Northern Ireland in 2006 before returning to serve in Nigeria.


Current Work

Billy and Linda both work at STILL WATERS which stands for Supporting The Infected Life Long, Warning All To Eliminate Risks.  STILL WATERS seeks to work with the QIC/UEC church in Nigeria to support those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and to educate and thereby prevent those not infected from contracting the disease.  For more information on STILL WATERS click here.