Tying a Quilt

I had the opportunity to give the sewing ladies a little history lesson on quilting the other day. We were repairing an old quilt for one of our customers. I asked them to guess how old this quilt is. They guessed between 10-18 years. It's actually about 35 years old. They were amazed.

This quilt was originally tied in order to keep the top, batting, and back together. We untied it and replaced the batting as well as fixed a number of threadbare seams. The women had never seen a tied quilt before. We either do top-stitching with a sewing machine or machine quilting.

I also talked to them about how quilts were made from scraps of fabrics. People didn't just go out and buy yards and yards of cloth in order to cut it all up into a quilt.

We put a new binding on the quilt because the previous one had disintegrated. A lot of quilts can be preserved by simply putting a new binding on. I've started to do that with quilts around our house. We can get a lot more wear out of them in the years to come just by replacing the binding.

It was a privilege to work on this old quilt and to learn something about quilts of the past. It also feels really good to repair something instead of tossing it out.

Hope

About two months ago 11-year-old Hope* came to live at Bezer Home. Her parents had both died of AIDS as well as her twin sister. She had been living in the village with a woman who was taking care of many children. Some youth corpers took it upon themselves to take care of her feeding. When one set of corpers would finish their term in the village, they would ask the next batch of corpers to help feed the little girl. Eventually they got to know about Mashiah Foundation and brought Hope to Bezer Home.

Hope appeared to be a very withdrawn child when she first arrived, but now she has begun to smile more freely and to move closer to people. She's quite small; heightwise she is between my 4 & 6 year-olds. Her stomach is a bit distended, probably from malnutrition.

Today we finally had success in getting Hope enrolled for anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). These are the drugs that will supress the HIV virus and help to prolong her life. One of our staff members had to attend four sessions on drug adherence at the hospital before they would release the drugs. The drugs on the picnic table in the photo must be taken faithfully, every day at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Hope will finish these drugs in one month and then we will take her back to collect another month's worth.

* Name has been changed.

Changing Seasons

The other day I tore the Christmas wrapping paper and big bow off my home office door. My son David was indignant: "Mom, why did you do that?!" I left it there when we moved into the new year because I thought I would find time to do some of those fun Christmas activities that December was just too busy for. Then we had 'rioting activities' in January and lots of plans were tossed to the wayside.

Over the weekend I decided that it would be nice to have a change of dishes for awhile. I put away the white-with-blue-trim stoneware and got out a set of deep purple plates. David, my aesthetic child, said, "Mom, these plates are really nice."

"Yes, let's call them our summer plates." Even when I said that it didn't quite sound right because I think of summer colors as bright and perky.

David had a better idea: "Actually, I think we should call them Rainy Season plates." Ahh...he got it exactly. That's a much better term for the deep purple.

Although it's summertime, it's actually quite a bit cooler now than it was in February and March. We went swimming over the weekend, but that was the first time in about two months. We just have to watch the sky and go whenever it looks a bit clear.

I've been enjoying our slightly lengthening days as we approach June 21. Our daylight only varies about one hour on each end of the day throughout the year. It's now getting dark at 7 p.m. In December it will be dark at 6. Many people hardly notice the change here because it's so subtle. By the way, there's no such thing as Daylight Savings Time here.

Death

In April and May we experienced a number of deaths around us.

Victor, 20, was on his way to work in the Mashiah Foundation Youth Ministry computer school early one morning. He was riding on a 'motorcycle taxi.' A speeding car approached the motorcycle from behind and did not realize they had stopped. The motorcycle driver and Victor were severely injured by the crushing impact. Victor went into a coma and died five days later. His funeral service was held the day after he died. There were easily 1400 people in attendance. I was shocked at the turnout.  I had not realized the vast reach Victor had already obtained with his young life.

A few days later the father of one of the Mashiah Foundation accountants died in a head-on collision. The father had recently retired and was enjoying running an egg-laying business.

Then came the death of Samson. We had found Samson propped up near one of the major intersections in Jos. He was HIV+, hungry and homeless. We took him to Bezer Home where the medical team cared for him for 2-3 months. His health fluctuated from week to week. At times he appeared to be improving, but then he would languish, and we would have to take him to a hospital for more intensive care. He died while under the hospital's care. He was buried with dignity with only members of Mashiah Foundation as the mourners.

Then on May 5, we learned that Nigerian President Yar'Adua was declared dead after a six-month illness. Thankfully the swearing-in of Vice President Goodluck Jonathan went smoothly.

Email Scam

Over the weekend a hacker got into my Yahoo account and sent out an email to my entire mailing list. This was a scam, and I just want to let everyone know that I am NOT in London, NOT being held at gunpoint, and NOT asking for money.

I have now regained control of my Yahoo account thanks to a very helpful Yahoo tech support who spent 40 min. on the phone with me.

Thankfully I was able to get into my account and warn would-be donors before they sent any money to the hacker. The only real damage that was done was that the hacker wiped out all of my email contacts in my address book after sending out the fake email. Because of that, I can't send out a mass email letting everyone know that I'm o.k.

Thanks to everyone who has expressed concern in the past few days.

Stories from Nigeria

Sorry I've been away from this site for a couple of weeks. Here are blog posts from some missionary friends that I found to be very moving.

Kelly writes about a boy who was abandoned for 13 years outside a village.

Beth writes about a massacre at a village near Jos and the physical and spriritual healing that is beginning.

God's Provision

Living in Nigeria, we often have to do without a lot of things that would be available to us in the U.S.

But it's amazing to me how God does provide for our needs from all around the globe. Here are two examples of his provision last Friday:

1) David has some speech difficulties, particularly with the letter 'r.' Awhile ago I became concerned and wondered what I could do. Well, at a birthday dinner for a friend, I 'happened' to sit next to a missionary from Tasmania (Australia)* who is a speech pathologist. I mentioned David's situation, and she came over to evaluate him (unbeknownst to him) and gave me some exercises to help him with his 'r' sounds. She reassured me that his speech difficulty is not severe and that 'r' is one of the last sounds to be perfected.

2) A teenage neighbor had a panic attack for the first time in her life. She just could not get her breathing under control after the attack. She couldn't walk because oxygen wasn't flowing into her extremeties. She received medical attention, but she still wasn't calming down. Then an American psychiatrist (missionary), living in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso**, who 'happened' to be visiting Jos, gave the girl a breathing exercise to do, and within minutes, she was back to normal.

Thank you, Lord, for how you provide for all of our needs.

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*She told the children all about Tasmanian devils, and no they don't look like the Tasmanian devil on Bugs Bunny!

** Pronounced wah-ga-DOO-goo. Burkina Faso used to be called the Upper Volta back when I was in school memorizing all the capitals and countries.

The Newest Couple in Town

We attended the wedding of Lucy and Ivan (e-VAHN) today. I enjoyed it from start to finish.

Here the bride is dancing down the aisle. Some of her friends joined her in the aisle and danced with her. Dancing down the aisle can take from five minutes to 30 minutes. (Generally, the bride is not escorted by her father or uncle.) This is my favorite part of any wedding because there is so much joy that is evident and overflowing.

Lucy is from Nigeria and Ivan is from Denmark. They will be making their home in Brazil as missionaries with YWAM.

When the couple came in for the reception, I noticed that they had changed clothes, which is not a common occurrence here.

The more I thought about their attire, I realized the powerful message they were sending. During the wedding ceremony, Ivan had worn a suit and tie while Lucy wore a caftan-like wedding gown with embroidery. I didn’t think anything of their dress at that point. As the reception began, I noticed that Ivan was wearing a maroon caftan and Lucy was wearing a typical wedding gown. At first I thought, “Why is she wearing that wedding gown now,” but then I got it:

For the wedding, they came wearing clothing from their own cultures.

For the reception, they made a powerful statement as they adopted the attire of their spouse’s culture.

Not a word was said, but their clothing made a strong statement. Well done, Lucy and Ivan!

Lily looked forward to this wedding for a long time. I didn’t have to ask her if she wanted to go. In fact, she was out in the car waiting for me to finish getting ready. Lily had a wonderful time hanging out with the other little girls at the wedding. Now the boys on the other hand weren’t the least bit interested. Tobi got to go to a friend’s house, but David had to tag along with me. He wasn’t too happy about that, but at least he found a friend at the reception. His friend really saved the day.

My good friend and colleague, Sarah, sang a song in Hausa to the newlyweds. I love this photo because this is what happens so often in cross-cultural marriages: Lucy is interpreting the Hausa words into English for her new husband. This is just the beginning of a lifetime of translation!

I’ve adopted many Nigerian ways over the years: once we heard about the wedding, I promptly invited three other couples to come to the wedding. This is a very appropriate thing to do in Nigerian culture. I just hope I’ll remember to ‘behave’ myself when I go back to my home culture!

We pray God's blessings upon Lucy and Ivan as they begin their married life together.