WATERLOO -When a malnourished mother offered to trade her baby for a Bible, Jim Gillett knew his life was forever changed.

Gillett, who was a pre-med student at Wheaton College, encountered the woman while on a short-term mission trip to Bolivia.

"We were visiting people in the market area in La Paz and offering Bibles for 25 cents. An Indian woman, who was quite emaciated and weathered, had a baby she was trying to nurse, but she couldn't because she was so undernourished herself," said Gillett, of Dublin, Ireland, formerly of Waterloo. "When she offered to exchange this baby for a Bible, I knew God was using that to impact my heart."

A year before, a missionary had spoken to a group at Wheaton College, and 200 people, including Gillett, responded to a call to serve God overseas.

"That was still on my mind when I was in Bolivia. Back at school I went to another conference and realized I wasn't going to be happy unless I followed that call, so I dropped out of school," he said.

Gillett went to missionary training, where he met his future wife, Jean. They married in 1969 and began praying about where God wanted them to be. God seemed to be pointing them to Nigeria, a country of contradictions: enormous wealth, thanks to its oil-rich delta region, yet devastating poverty, disease, corruption and violence. Half of the country's estimated 200 million people have no access to clean water, health care, education, jobs and other basic needs.

It took several years and living in France, Ireland, Iowa and Ireland again before a glimmer of their Nigerian mission materialized. In 1971 they founded Ireland Outreach International. In 1982, through a partnership with Emmaus Correspondence School, IOI began providing Bible study courses to Irish nuns.

"The nuns would go to Nigeria to distribute them to students, and other students wanted the materials. We had a whole crew of volunteers in Ireland grading materials. By 1992, we got 100 letters a day wanting materials," Gillett said.

When postage increased twenty-fold in 1994, Gillett went to Nigeria to train nationals in their homes.

"What a better way to get Scripture to people than through people. Jim went to train, motivate and encourage native Nigerians. Many became Christians, then Jim trained them to become 'correctors' (mentors). There are now more than 1,200 in Nigeria and 200-plus in Ghana with thousands taking the courses," said IOI board member, Duane Wessels, 71, of Waterloo. Wessels met Gillett in 1962 when Gillett volunteered to transport children to Bible meetings in Dewar. "That impressed me; he was a teenager and not many other teenagers would do that."

In 2002, nongovernmental organizations (NGO) in Nigeria had to purchase land within two years of registration to prove its commitment to the country. IOI had been shipping container loads of Bible courses and other provisions but needed a place to store them, so the organization bought land for a warehouse.

In 2003, construction began on that land for Haven of Hope, the headquarters of the Emmaus Bible Centres Mission. The headquarters now houses Hope Bible College, a literacy school; Hope Academy, a medical clinic now serving 3,000 patients; a library; offices; a residence hall for 100 students; and an agricultural school to teach Nigerians to grow their own food.

Last year a church in Wabasha, Minn., donated a tractor, plow, end loader, backhoe, seed and other provisions, shipping it to Nigeria in a 40-foot container.

"The people there subsist on one meal a day, and it's mainly carbohydrates. During the dry season, people starve to death because there's little or no food available," Wessels said.

Wessels has been part of the organization for more than 12 years, but it wasn't until last year that Gillett convinced him to go to Nigeria. They spent eight weeks traveling throughout Nigeria and Ghana, where the two conducted Emmaus graduation ceremonies, seminars and training workshops.

"I thought it'd be a one-time thing, but when I came home last year, I had a passion to go back," said Wessels, who leaves Feb. 13 for Ireland, where he will join Gillett at IOI headquarters in Dublin.

On Feb. 18, they will travel to Lagos, Nigeria where they will spend six weeks conducting graduation ceremonies, seminars and workshops, visiting area hospitals and the Hope Medical Clinic. They also will spend two weeks in Ghana doing similar activities.

"People - young and old alike - walk many miles to come to the clinic, where they may wait for hours for medical attention. The water people use comes from polluted streams, so many suffer from malaria, malnutrition and other diseases. A lack of antibiotics and doctors makes the situation almost unbearable," said Wessels, who brought nine suitcases of medical supplies last year, donated by Mayo Clinic and other hospitals.

Wessels' motivation is to "encourage the 1,200 to 1,400 correctors who are there; they get bogged down, and they get tired. To do it full time at my age is impossible, but short term I can do."

Correctors come from all kinds of backgrounds, including high court judges, police officers and villagers.

"Our goal is to help people come to Christ. Through this program, we train them to have a ministry in their home and mentor them in discipleship. We can do the job far less expensively than a missionary could. If we had gone in the early '70s, our sphere of influence would have had a 50-mile radius. We are now in other African nations and this year, my wife and I introduced the program in China. We can see God's hand in this," Gillett said.

Ireland Outreach International, based in Dublin, an independent mission organization, is not supported by any church, For more information, go to www.irelandoutreach.org

Contact CJ Hines at newsroom@wcfcourier.com.