ECWA Camp Youth Alive (ECYA) Update

So this week has had some rather big ups and downs. Wednesday morning, after a very late night downloading clip are at awfully slow speeds, the Morning Watch books were completed. Claudia was excited and so was I. They were a day late for our deadline, but the printer assured us we could still get it done in time for the Edo-Delta camp which we leave for in a week. Meanwhile, one of Claudia’s camp staff, Akim, and I have been working on a promotional video to advertise the camp. Some footage of the camp was shot last year during the 2005 camps, and we went through the video to pull out the different parts of the camp day. Wednesday afternoon, Akim and I went to the house of the missionary who’ll be helping us compile the video as he needed to know the timing of the video. It all went smoothly, and hopefully it’ll only be a short time before we can get the rest of it lined up and ready to compile.

Thursday evening, the camp committee met to discuss business for the coming summer. The primary goal of the agenda was to determine how much to charge campers for a week of camp, and I soon found this to be an extraordinarily frustrating task. Claudia had done a lot of work to narrow down the costs of the camp, and when all was said and done, it came to about $38 for a week of camp. It included $24 for 3 meals a day for 7 days. It included a camp t-shirt. Also included was the craft fee, which was $4.50, and the crafts aren’t the same you’d find in an American camp. Instead, they’re things like sandal making, reed art, and knitting, all of which are things the campers can take home with them and actually make some money off of. They’re skills that empower the campers to try starting a small business. Other fees included were related to other camp activities, as well as maintenance of the campground.

Well, suffice to say the committee was none too happy to see $38 on the bottom of the page. Last year, campers were asked to pay $21, and the actual cost was quite a bit more than that. As a result, the camp is still in debt from subsidizing the extra cost. Not only that, but for a person to make $50 in a month isn’t uncommon here, so paying ¾ that much for a week of camp simply isn’t possible for people. Even at $21 last year, most of the campers were sponsored by other missionaries because they couldn’t afford to come. The 2-hour meeting soon ran to 3 and still the committee was having a hard time. Ask people to pay the full price in order to keep the camp running, or ask a lower price and hope that the extra money will come via donations? It’s awfully tough to understand what to do. The money simply isn’t there, but the camp is such a great place for kids to go. Many of the current staff are former campers, and many have gone on to better places as a result of things they learned at camp. The people involved see the benefits, but it’s so hard to know what to do when money issues come up.

While Claudia and I were frustrated by the committee’s indecision, they did empower her to make a final call on what to charge. In addition, they also called for some fundraising to begin ASAP. As a result, I spent the entire day today working on an ECWA Camp Youth Alive brochure to make available to churches and organizations. It included pictures and a description of the camp’s goals, needs, and program. We feel like it came out really well, and I’ve never done anything like it before so it was rewarding to be able to pull it together in just one day. We really need to have some results come out of it, though, and Claudia needs wisdom in her decision about the finances.

Hospital Life

Thank God for the weekend! Nigeria's currently holding a census, and it has been occurring pretty peacefully for five days now, and everything has been slow. As we expected, the travel curfew for the census has been extended for two more days, so everyone is expected to stay home tomorrow and Monday as well. Of course, the hospital continues to work but everything else is pretty much closed. I still hear a lot of traffic and noise outside of the compound, so I’m sure there are many people not obeying the curfew, but I’m not surprised. Who is going to catch these people, anyway?

I myself was counted yesterday. Though the hospital is officially on a “holiday” schedule, still the urgent care and emergency room must be running. So I was taking call with one of the doctors when the census takers came. They were actually quite nice and it only took a few minutes. I was surprised that he wanted to count me but he said they counted everyone who was in Nigeria for longer than a week and was here during the census. I had heard they were asking questions about what languages you speak, how many cars you have, what religion are you, etc, but he didn’t ask me any of those questions. He mostly asked questions about where I lived and education and career, if I was married, how old I was, etc. Then he fingerprinted me and marked my thumb with a permanent marker, almost just like they did in Iraq to show they voted!

Yesterday was also a rough day for Marion, Becca, and I. We had been trading calls Thursday and Friday and had been seeing many interesting things. We see a lot of malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, rashes, work injuries, road accidents, urinary tract infections, and fevers from who knows what. It’s different from the US in that when you come to the ER, few tests are done here. Most people can’t afford many tests and there are few facilities to have them done anyway, so usually we just do a physical exam and treat based on the history and our findings. Sometimes we do lab work, but only if we really think we need it. Plus, the lab wasn’t working yesterday! In addition, everything must be paid first by the patient before it will be done, even lab work, so sometimes they have to find the money first and this can take a while.

Anyway, yesterday was slow but we did have a little girl come in who was very ill. Blessing (not her real name) was 1 year old and was severely malnourished. She was painfully thin, dehydrated, lethargic, and breathing in very fast, noisy little gasps. Her mother explained that four days ago, Blessing started having diarrhea and vomiting. They took her to the doctor and she was given an antibiotic. The antibiotic didn’t help, and last night Blessing began to breathe in those little gasps. The father said Blessing didn’t sleep all night. I was very puzzled, because the parents looked rather healthy and well fed and was very concerned about her, so I couldn’t understand why Blessing looked so underfed and why they had waited till the morning to bring her in. However, there are so many factors that could account for it. One thing is that they were first time parents and might not have realized Blessing was quite sick last night and should have brought her in as soon as she started breathing strangely. After all, everyone gets vomiting and diarrhea here and usually antibiotics make it better. Another thing is that some tribes here don’t believe in giving children high protein food because they think it might bring something bad to the child; for instance, children might not get poultry products because the tribe thinks they’ll then have a tendency to become a thief. So even though the child is fed, he/she might be lacking the right sort of nutrients. Finally, I wondered if the child might have HIV. The family had never been tested. She was admitted to try to hydrate her and give her IV antibiotics.

This never happened. She was taken away to pediatrics, and because she was so little, no one could get an IV in her, though everyone tried for a long time. When they finally did get one in, it was into a small vein, and it is hard to get more than a trickle of fluid into a small vein. When the chief resident tried to inject some fluid into the IV, the fluid couldn’t go in and instead splashed over Marion’s and Becca’s faces. The mother was quite worried; no one had told her what was going on but she knew something wasn’t going well. Becca was able to talk to her and pray with her. Unfortunately, the child died soon after. The mother was hysterical and ran outside, and no one could find her.

To make matters worse, the lab soon reported that Blessing had been HIV positive. This means she most likely had gotten infected from her mother, and the father was therefore probably infected too. This whole young family probably had HIV but no one knew, until now. And, since the fluid that got splashed on Marion and Becca contained some of Blessing’s blood, they now had the tough decision of deciding if they wanted to take anti-HIV medications or not, which is a big decision; the medications are expensive, have lots of side effects, and you have to take them for a long time. Based on their individual exposures, Marion decided to, and Becca did not, but both were quite shaken.

And where was I? I wasn’t even there. I had gone home to get lunch. Usually, we try to keep it to two of us at a time, as three medical students in one situation can be a bit excessive. But I felt bad about everything. I felt bad I wasn’t there. I felt bad that I hadn’t thought to stop and see Blessing before I went to lunch. There is a certain blasé attitude about death and pain here. In the US, we spend lots of money trying to save people in everyway, and if someone dies, it’s almost like it’s a failure. Here, it’s the opposite. If someone is very ill, it’s almost like they feel, why bother? We don’t have the resources to really try to save them and they’re probably going to die anyway, so no rush. I don’t know how to deal with this attitude, I feel we should probably have something between the US’s and Nigerian’s attitudes. I find that I’ve very easily fallen into an attitude of, “I know this is not the way it should be, but I don’t know how I, a lowly medical student, can do anything to change it, or how to be different, so I’ll just follow their lead.” I think I need to learn to fight this, to learn that I can love these people no matter what goes on around me. I can take the time to pray with them, and talk to them, and counsel them, even if it’s hard to communicate due to language and cultural issues.

I also wonder if my own attitude towards death is right. I have been volunteering with HospiceCare for 3 years now, and all of my patients die. Yet, though it is sad, it is not terrible to me. I see death as a natural part of life, and everyone is meant to die. It is sad that some people die in pain, or die when they’re young, or die a “preventable” death. Yet, we can’t save them. We aren’t meant to save anyone, only God does that. And if He chooses to take someone, it is not our mistake, or our failure, it is His way. So though Blessing’s death was very sad to me, it wasn’t depressing. It makes me feel heartless, though, to be so prosaic about it. What did keep me up all night was wondering if anyone told Blessing’s parents that she had HIV, and if anyone counseled them on what it meant, that they had to get tested and the implications for the family. I kept waking up, wondering how I could have loved them more, and wishing I had been able to pray with them and be with them as Becca had. So please pray for Becca and Marion, for Blessing’s family, for the doctors, and for me, most especially that we might let the Lord work in us through this situation and the next crisis we encounter be handled with more grace and love.

Tumu

Hello! It has rained for the first time since we came to Nigeria today. Perhaps it means the start of the rainy season, but I hope not. My understanding is that during the rainy season, it pours for like an hour, then stops, and it’s hotter and muggier than ever afterwards, and the bugs come out! On the other hand, everything grows and flowers like crazy, so that is something amazing to see. It’s certainly true that the dust hasn’t been nearly as bad in the last few days. The rain was extra nice today because we didn’t have water today for half the day and I thought that would be how I’d have to showever but praise God it’s working again. We’ve been lucky and though the electricity has gone out almost everyday since we’ve been here, often many times a day, it always comes back on just a few minutes later. Still can’t get our internet to work at home, though!

So I thought I’d tell you about our village trip this weekend. We went to the village of Tumu, which is where our friend Kauna, whose job is partly to take care of us short term assignments (STA’s), is from. Her immediate family is here in Jos but the rest of her paternal family is in Tumu, about one hour outside of Jos. It is a very bumpy ride in a very hot van. The village is exactly what you think African life would be like. It is a small village set in a valley ringed with tall rocky hills, with scrubby trees and lots of agriculture. They live in mud and brick buildings that look like huts but are bigger, and some have thatched roofs and some have tin roofs. Most houses are actually a compound of several buildings all in a square with a courtyard in the middle. Often, there'll be a small granary in the courtyard. There is no electricity or running water, and there are chickens, goats, sheep, dogs, and lizards everywhere. There are also lots of kids, and they are funny in that they are shy and don’t want to actually talk to us or touch us, but they want to follow us everywhere and stare at us. The village is so nice compares to Jos. In Jos, everywhere you go, there are cars, motorbikes, vans, people, people, people, markets, rubbish, noise, etc. It also smells terrible from all the car pollution. People in Jos on the streets, even though they see white people a lot, still stare at you and yell out to you and often you feel like you’re a circus attraction. At the village, they make you feel like you’re an honored guest. They don’t stare and yell out, but instead they talk to you and greet you and bring you to their home to have a drink. When we go walking to see the agriculture (They are growing yams, green peppers, tomatoes, etc), the men stop in their jobs to look but wave in a very friendly fashion when we greet them and suggest places for us to visit. We see a natural bubbling spring, which is their source of water for the crops. We walk along a dusty path into the rocky hills and around the corner is a small lake made from a dam. There is a man fishing; he is floating on a barrel, and when he catches a fish, he throws it into the barrel! There are many fish jumping in the lake and it has a red clay beach. It’s so hot, we want to throw ourselves in, but the parasites waiting for us in there make us all think better of it!

We go back to visit a blacksmith who has a little boy fanning the flames for him with what looks like a woven mat, and he is planning to make some farming tools, I believe. Then we have lunch, which is a potluck of things we have brought. Of course the grandmothers want to feed us their porridge but we’re afraid of getting sick. Did I explain that there are two grandmothers? Kauna’s grandfather had two wives, and though he has died, they live together in the same house with one of the wives’ sons and his family. They are as cute as anything. They don’t let you take pictures unless they are all dressed up, so they go get changed into their best outfits, and they come out wearing the exact same outfit! Kauna’s uncle uses a very long stick to shake some lemons out of their tree for us, and we head back after about 4 hours at the village. It doesn’t sound like long, but when you’re outside in 95 degree weather, it’s a very tiring experience!

This week, Nigeria is conducting a nationwide census. It hasn’t had one since 1991. It is quite the thing. Apparently, the local governments have trained special people to go to each household and count people and ask all sorts of questions. It’s quite confusing, because as you can imagine, in a place where many people don’t have electricity or phones, and if you do, it’s unreliable, and there’s not really a postal service, how do you relay information to the mass public? And, nothing’s ever organized here so no one knows what’s going on. We understand it’s somehow a very political thing; for instance, there’s something about figuring out who speaks what language (Most everyone speaks some Hausa, English, and their tribal language), and what religion you claim to be, etc, but we don’t fully understand the issues. Nigerians identify themselves more by tribe than as a Nigerian, and this can cause all sorts of tension in government. Here in Jos I have seen a lot of Fulani and Ibo people, but of course there are like 250 tribes in Nigeria! Also, religion here is interesting. There are a lot of true Muslims and true Christians (At least, as we think of “true” Muslims and Christians), but also many whose Christianity and Islam are, as one doctor put it to me today, “neither here nor there”, and is all mixed up with their tribal religion. Also, they don’t always correlate the truths they believe in their religion with the way they should live their lives, so there are many Christians, for instance, who say they believe in Jesus and live by the Bible, but are also having unprotected pre-marital sex and don’t think twice about it.

Anyway, the census is supposed to last from the 21st to the 25th, and we’ve heard various things, that there should be no movement at all and everyone should stay home during this time, or no movement only during the last two days, or maybe it’ll get extended two more days. But in any case, many people are staying home and businesses are closed because no one knows, and there’s no good way to get information around so it’s like a week long holiday. Of course, I still hear all sorts of traffic and the hospital is still going. But even the hospital is calling Thursday and Friday a holiday and will run like it’s Christmas. Frank is working from home as a result. Also, the Christian organizations in Nigeria are having a two day strike next Monday and Tuesday to protest against the violence in the Muslim northern states regarding the Danish cartoons, so there’s a whole week for Frank to stay home! It’s nice for him. Also, apparently there will be people posing as census takers but are really thieves, so we’re supposed to be careful who we let in during this time. I’m assuming they won’t come count us but who knows. I don’t intend to be home to find out, as I will still be working anyway (I’m helping to deliver babies this week!), but maybe Frank will have the fun. Well, that’s enough for now, bed time!

Camp Ministry

Here’s a picture of me playing basketball with some of the kids at Gidan Bege. Note that we don’t have a hoop, so we’re really just passing the ball around and dribbling around people, but it was fun. We’ll write more about Gidan Bege in the future. I’ve been working with Claudia for the past week now on the ECWA Camp Youth Alive (ECYA) ministry. ECYA is a youth camp with a vision somewhat like summer camp back in the States. The camp is designed to be a 6 day camp, although depending on who the camp is for, it may be shorter. The concept of summer camp didn’t really exist in Nigeria a while ago. There simply isn’t the money or leisure time for that sort of thing here. However, people are starting to see it as a really good way to reach the youth of the country, so since the mid 1990’s, Claudia’s been running camps in the summers.

We’re located in Plateau State, which is in north-central Nigeria, and this coming April, the first ECYA camp in the south will take place. It’ll be near Benin City, and with camp only 3 weeks away, we’ve still got a lot of work left to do. As a Christian camp, there are bible studies and morning quiet time booklets that need to be finished and printed before camp. Camp t-shirts need to get made, and there are a host of administrative issues that require organization and cooperation between Claudia and the district council in which the camp will be held. I’ve been working with Claudia on getting the devotional booklets and bible study material typed up and formatted in the computer over the past week, as well as writing some of them myself.

When Americans think of summer camp, they think of something a litte different from what camp is like here in Nigeria. First, the concept of youth is different here. In the US, we mostly think of youth as being under 18 years old. Here, the camper age range is suggested as 12-22, but campers as old as 30 will come, too. It’s very difficult to find a job here, and many folks under 30 are still unemployed and living with their parents, so they’re still considered youths.

On Saturday afternoon, I was to go out at 2 pm to the ECYA grounds just outside of Jos where Claudia had the Urban Frontiers Mission spending a weekend retreat. The First ECWA Church of Jos had sent a group of people to help smooth out the bumpy, dirt access road. Claudia had purchased some laterite, a clay-like material that they use to fix roads. In the rainy season, the road becomes a riverbed and much of it washes away, making it very rough. By filling in the large holes with rocks, and then surrounding with laterite, we were hoping to resolve the problem at least somewhat. Laterite also has the added advantage that instead of washing away, it sticks together when it gets wet, so it doesn’t wash away quite as easily.

Claudia decided that she would like to use the ECWA pickup to help move some of the materials, so we headed back to Jos and picked it up. Unfortunately, the truck didn’t have any petrol in it, so we had to get some fuel. It was about 3pm, and something Claudia told me that I didn’t realize is that it’s very hard to find an open gas station in the middle of the day. They’re open in the morning when it’s cool, and they’re open later in the day, too, but not in the middle of the day. The first two places we tried were both closed, and we found a Texaco station that was open but had a very long line of cars and motorbikes waiting. We drove on, and after checking 4 or 5 more stations, went back to the Texaco.

The Texaco station was organized disorganization. Only one pump was being used. A row of cars stretched out of the station into the street. A row of motorbikes was next to them, and a second row of cars formed a motorbike sandwich. With just the one pump open, the wait was long and slow. They’d fill a car on one side of the pump, then fill one or two motorbikes, then fill a car on the other side of the pump and so on. Occasionally, a car would pull in from the front of the line and back up to the pump, effectively cutting the line. Claudia told me that these folks are typically friends of the station owner, and it was annoying to see happen but there wasn’t really anything we could do about it. After a long 30-40 minutes, we finally got our fuel and were set to head back to camp. Claudia had phoned ahead to have the work on the road begin with the wheelbarrows due to our delay, so hopefully, we’d be there in time to help with the truck.

Then, as we were pulling out of the station, the engine died. Claudia tried restarting it several times, but I eventually had to get out and push it back into the station so we wouldn’t block the exit way. After about 5 or 10 minutes, we were able to get a mechanic to take a look at it. He checked the spark plugs and various cables and hoses and none of those seemed to help. Then the started playing with the carburetor and that seemed to be the problem. He made some adjustments with a screwdriver, cleaned out some dirt and grime with the same screwdriver, checked the pressure with his hand, and did a lot of other simple checks. An hour later, the truck was again running, and a half hour after that, we’d paid and were convinced the truck wasn’t going to stop on us again 10 minutes down the road.

We finally pulled into the camp at around 5:30 pm, on time enough to see the hard working group putting the final touches on their contribution to filling in the road with laterite and stones. It was not encouraging. The amount of work, and the improvement it made seemed like a drop in the bucket compared to what needed to be done. However, that’s how this type of a project needed to be completed. The money and manpower simply isn’t there to get it done all at once. To really fix the road, it needs to be elevated and have grass planted on the sides to prevent it all from washing away in the rains. Considering how hot and dry it’s been since we’ve arrived, that’s hard to imagine without looking at the ruts the rains have already created.

And The Winner Is...

Portland! Friday morning we learned that Barbara will be spending her Internal Medicine Residency in Portland, Oregon with the Portland Providence Medical Center. Portland was a program that she really liked, although we’re a bit sad that it’ll be so far away from our family and friends. Thanks to all of you who’ve prayed and encouraged us in this time.

A special thanks to Hillary for checking on it and being willing to take care of any potential match issues that might’ve come up. We look forward to seeing you and Ryan in Jos in April!

Barbara's Thoughts On Our First Week

Dear friends,

It is hard to write in a succinct fashion everything that has happened
in the past week since we've left for Africa, but we'll try some
highlights for now and expand later on, as we've got six more weeks to
talk about what's been going on here!

First of all, thank you so much for all your prayers. Our flight from
Charlotte to Newark to Amsterdam to Abuja (25 hours in total!) was
totally uneventful. Everything was on time, and our baggage, which we
worried about a lot, was totally fine. We were esp worried at Abuja
that they would search our bags and we'd have to explain the medical
equipment, computers, books, etc, that we were bringing for Evangel
hospital (where I am working), but as soon as they heard we were with
SIM/ECWA (Serving in Missions, the group we are with, and Evangelical
Church of Western Africa, their native sister organization) they let us
go quite easily. Praise the Lord!

The first night, when we arrived last Wednesday, we were in Abuja, the
capital of Nigeria. It was hot, humid, and the electricity went out
three times during the night---it made it hard to sleep! SIM has a few
private drivers and cars, so they had sent a driver and a car to pick us up in Abuja. We stuffed the back of the station wagon to the brim with luggage (no looking out the back window!) and drove the 3 hours to Jos on Thursday morning. On the way to Jos, we passed many roadside markets selling fresh carrots, tomatoes, cabbage, and yams, which are a potato-like staple here in Nigeria. People were stopping their cars and talking to people on the roads constantly, everywhere. Even though it was the middle of the morning, people all seemed to be wandering around outside. No one seemed to work inside, and indeed we find that is true, few people have “office” jobs here. We learn that the people, congestion, and market areas are very common all over. Roads are very scary, as no one seems to obey traffic laws and there are many, many motorbikes which are driven very, very dangerously. Along the way, we passed several military checkpoints, which are there to deter armed robbery along the highways, and we passed out small Bibles we had brought to some of them. They love books in Nigeria, as they are very expensive, and the military men look quite bored often, so something to read is great for them. I really hope they read them earnestly!
The countryside is quite dry and scrubby, but it is amazing what will grow even in the dry season. For some reason, the weather has been strange and it had been raining when it shouldn’t have been, and unseasonable hot a month ago, and unseasonable cool now. But still, we saw lots of big mango and lemon trees, very brightly flowering trees with flowers of all colors, my favorite are the orange-peachy ones. There was lots of open land. It appears it is true that the Nigerians do not really value their agricultural abilities, and much land that looked like it was once farmed is now empty. We did pass many yam fields---big, root-like tuberous starched much like potatoes. It is a staple of the country and they eat them either boiled and deep fried, or pounded into a soft, doughy, more bland style. There were many little goats roaming around and gaunt cows with big horns, wild dogs, wild cats, and kids everywhere.
So, we arrived in Jos, which is cooler than most of Nigeria because it is high above sea level. Evangel compound, where we are staying, is actually behind Evangel hospital, which is itself quite a few buildings. There are guards at the hospital gates, and then when we reached the living quarters, which is a fair way past the hospital buildings, we reached another set of gates, also guarded day and night. There are about 30 families who live on the compound, about 10 white families and the rest Nigerians. The houses are surprising spacious and comfortable. Our apartment has fours rooms, a tiny kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living/dining room. It is next door to another apartment with two other STA’s (short term assigments) who are medical students from Ireland and Britain (Maryon and Becca), and also by the watch dogs’ kennel (who I can hear barking all night long). It would have been quite clean, except with the Harmattan, EVERYTHING was covered in dust.
How shall I describe the Harmattan? Basically, sand storms in the Sahara end up blowing dust all the way across sub-Saharan Africa, and it ends up looking like a lot of smog/fog. It’s terrible---it gets on everything and doesn’t come off. You can clean a surface, and a few hours later it looks like you didn’t clean at all. By the end of the day, if you’ve been outside at all, your hair is grey, your feet and hands are dusty, your eyes are burning, and it’s just gross. The only nice thing about it is that it only happens when it’s not too hot, so in Jos, it has been quite nice---probably only in the low-mid 80’s and it’s not humid at all, so it actually feels quite cool in the shade and at night.
We spent the first 5 days getting adjusted---meeting families in the compound and the other SIM/ECWA workers, learning to shop at the market (more about that later!), learning to bleach our food, boil and filter water, learn to take a taxi, tour the SIM headquarters, etc. We started officially working this Monday. Yesterday, I started out at morning report at the hospital, where the doctors grill the residents on what happened to the patients the day before. I'll have more on the medical work later. The hospital is a big compound of many interlocking buildings. It is a combination of general wards, which are big rooms with many people in it, semi-private and private rooms, depending on their money. In Nigeria the care of the patient often rests on their families instead of the nurses, so there are people lounging around everywhere. The only room that has air conditioning or a fan is the X-Ray room. There are about 5 white doctors and I can't tell how many Nigerian doctors and about 5-6 residents. There are no medical students except Maryon, Becca, and I.
However, I actually started working at Spring of Life, which is their AIDS counseling clinic. They do not do the “medical” things, but instead do home visits, pre and post testing counseling, HIV testing, and decide if people need to go to the doctor. I go on home visits with people from the clinic to check up on patients, and also have started doing some HIV testing. It is actually quite easy technically, BUT. During that time, I thought with a lot of amusement how Nigerians would laugh their heads off at the patient privacy ideas that we hold so dear in America. Imagine what they’d do in the US if I tried to do a quick blood HIV test on someone with an audience of 30 other patients all giving words of advice and laughing at them when someone winced or if one of us messed up. Well, that is what happens in Nigeria. But like I said, more on medical stuff later!

One thing I have learned is to give an extra 10 minutes to allow for the guards trying to teach us Hausa! There are guards everywhere here, as unfortunately there can be armed robberies anywhere here, and I usually pass about 2-3 on my walk to the hospital. In Nigeria, when you greet someone, you greet them extensively. It goes something like this:

Good morning!
Thank you, good morning.
How is your tiredness?
There is no tiredness!
How is your work?
Thank God for our work.
How is your husband?
Good, thank you.
How is your family...
and so on, and on and on.

You can imagine that if we have to do this every time we meet someone, it takes a while to get anywhere! So the guards stop us and try to get us to do the proper greetings every time I pass. It is quite rude not to stop and do this greeting with people you know and pass, no matter where you are, and Nigerians don’t believe in hurrying, so you always have to stop, no matter how late you are. Nowadays, I have to also greet the gardeners, the men who dig the ditches, the laundress, the personal drivers, etc, etc, etc…who would have thought so many people would be out and about along the way to work??

First Leg of the Journey

We left for Charlotte, NC yesterday at about noon, and the weather in Madison was pretty rotten. It was snowing and the temperature was right around 30 F. It was very odd to think that in 3 days, we'd be experiencing weather more than 90 F. As we sat on the Dane County Regional Airport runway, the de-icing crew was hard at work spraying us down to prepare us for the flight to Detroit, where we would stop over on the way down to Charlotte. Sitting in the plane, we'd already avoided our first minor difficulty that we expected to encounter. Two of our bags were over the 50 lb limit that the airlines impose on domestic travel, but with the reconstruction efforts at the airport, the ticket agents didn't have any scales with which to weigh our bags. We could tell that the attendant at the counter, although easily strong enough to lift all of our bags, knew we were carrying the extra weight, but he couldn't charge us for it considering there were no scales. While we were prepared to pay if needed, it sure was nice to know that it was one minor thing we didn't have to deal with. With all the snow and ice, we left an hour late, but didn't have any trouble catching our connection in Detroit for the trip down to SIM headquarters.

After spending today in Charlotte, learning about Nigeria and some of the experiences we might face during our two months there, it's awfully good to know that therre are so many people praying over our trip. We spoke about it this evening before dinner, and though we know our experiences in other countries to this point are useful in shaping how we'll respond to our new surroundings, things will still be very different in Africa. Our experience in Honduras two years ago with Blackhawk Church has prepared us somewhat for serving in a community with drastically lower standards of living, but we also recognize that the rural setting we were in there will be different than the more urban setting of Jos. Neither of us have ever travelled to any part of Africa, either, and the cultural mindset is quite different than in South America. One of the SIM staff here challenged us to think about our world view. He argued that the easiest way to learn to deal with a culture from a dramatically different world view would be to first understand ours. He also warned us to be cognizant of when our cultural American world view influenced how we developed our biblical world view and vice versa. While the bible was written to specific groups of people, it was written for all people of all times. That means that a biblical world view should be extensible to all cultures, although an American world view wouldn't necessarily be the same. Often, it's hard to differentiate between the two. Some areas overlap, but others are in direct conflict. We pray that we'll be given the wisdom to discern when our American world view is being challenged but our biblical one is not. Those are the situations where we need to show grace and learn to love Nigerian culture.

We are a little nervous about what will happen once we get to the airport in Abuja. We leave Charlotte tomorrow at 1:45, and after stops in Newark and Amsterdam, will arrive in Abuja at 8:55PM their time on Wednesday. We have been warned that we might find the airport a bit of an experience and pray that we will collect all our baggage, get through customs, and meet up with our driver safely and swiftly. We will stay in Abuja overnight as it is not wise to drive at night, and on Thursday we will drive out to our final destination, Jos. We'll breathe a big sigh of relief once we are there! We'll be in touch again once we're settled in.

Snowy Madison

I thought it might be fun to show a picture of our house less than two weeks before we leave. It's been sunny of late, but we do still have a good amount of snow on the ground as you can see in this picture.

I'd also like to send a shout out to my friends and coworkers at Epic who are following this Blog. Yesterday was my last day at work there, and while I've been too busy to really think about what it means to be temporarily unemployed, I'll certainly miss the folks I worked with when I get a new job.