Boxing Day

Growing up, I always saw Boxing Day printed on the calendar on Dec. 26, but I had no idea what it was. (My knowledge of history is so weak I probably thought it had something to do with the Boxer Rebellion.) Since I have lived in a former British colony for many years now, I have come to understand that Boxing Day originated as a British holiday, a day when people gave boxes or gifts to one another.

In Nigeria, Boxing Day is a public holiday and has come to be known as one of the biggest visiting days of the year. Typically we don't exchange gifts on Boxing Day, but we do go out visiting one another.

My mom, being so logical, once asked me, "How do you know if you should go out to visit others or if you should stay at home and wait for visitors?" Hmmm. Good question.

After the Christmas Eve bombings in our city which claimed more than 30 lives, we stayed home all of Christmas Day. However, we did venture out to church today on Boxing Day. The day seemed almost normal except that traffic was a little less than usual, but church was full. So, on arriving home, I got out the frozen samosas and spring rolls to thaw. I figured I would just fry them up when visitors arrived. I planned this menu about three weeks ago because I knew we would definitely have visitors--and something must be served. Most people I know would serve rice, but I wanted to be a little different this year. Besides, many times when people have already visited other homes before coming, the last thing they want to see is another plate of rice!

Today was a quiet day at home, the day after Christmas. We read; we watched movies; we napped. But something wasn't right: no visitors arrived for Boxing Day.

Clinic Progress

We have been building a medical clinic for a number of years now. Recently we were able to begin work once again. Here's a look at some of the current progress: 

This is one of the electricians. First he has to chisel the cement wall where the wires will come down into every room.

The masons are doing a lot of different jobs throughout the clinic. They just put in this internal door which will section off one wing.

 Here the masons are plastering the outside of the building. They are also doing plastering in the inside.

This lorry brought a load of ceiling panels. (That's Bezer Home in the distance.)

Here the ceiling panels are being installed.

More to come later!

Christmas Eve

I have missed this blog! I love writing and reflecting and sharing. Unfortunately our internet goes off when the power goes off, which is the norm around here. So I'll write while I have power to do so. We happen to be having our "Christmas Electricity" right now so I'm taking advantage of it.

Last week I realized that we have made it through the last few months of the 2010 without an incident in our city. Well, tonight, immediately following the Christmas Eve service, we heard that a few bombs had gone off in various locations around the city. We have not had bomb incidents before. Generally we just have rioting. We really don't have details yet, but a number of people were killed in the explosions.

It was disappointing to cancel our Christmas Eve dinner plans, but we needed to be home. I was able to whip up a decent Christmas Eve dinner for our family and our two guests. I won't mention what the kitchen looks like at this point.

I'm anticipating that we will be homebound for a few days at least. Christmas in Nigeria is associated with lots of visiting, but that may go by the wayside this year.

Orphan Sunday

A father to the fatherless

a defender of widows,

is God in his holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families.

Psalm 68:5-6a

In honor of today being Orphan Sunday and November being National Adoption month, I want to dedicate this post to the orphans around us. In Mashiah Foundation we work with orphans and partial orphans 365 days a year.

Pictured are five precious girls, each with her own unique story.

One comes from an intact family.

Another received an intact family through adoption.

Two have mothers but no fathers.

And one lost mother, father and twin sister to AIDS.

Here are some books on my shelf that I am currently being challenged by:

Adopted for Life~Russell D. Moore

Castaway Kid~RB Mitchell

Fields of the Fatherless~Tom Davis

Reckless Faith~Beth Guckenberger

Small Town, Big Miracle~Bishop W.C. Martin

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew~Sherrie Eldridge

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...James 1:27a.

Dear Lord, Help us to take your Word seriously as we see the needs of orphans around us. Amen.

I'm Still Here

Life is just very full right now.

Every day I'm involved in the nitty-gritty work of coming alongside others. Surely there is a need to pull away at times and reflect and evaluate and get some computer work done, but the more I get involved, the harder it is to pull away. I'm sorry for my absence here and will try to improve.

Here's something I've been mulling over in recent weeks:

In the last few weeks I have come across students who have finished 6th grade, 9th grade and 12th grade, and they all have two things in common: they cannot read and they cannot do the most basic math. Mind you, I did not say they were 12, 15 and 18 and had never been to school; rather, they have been going to school ever since they were 5 or 6 years old. Their parents have sacrificed to scrape together their school fees. They probably have average IQs, but they have simply fallen through the cracks when it comes to their education. In fact, I don't think 'cracks' is the right word, I think it's more like 'gorge' or 'Grand Canyon' simply because there are so many of them. I have not even gone searching for the lowest of the low; these are simply children who have crossed my path. How many more, like them, are out there?

When I heard the 18-year-old try to read to me, I felt like sobbing. What subject can you do without knowing how to read? What kind of survival skills has she learned in order to somehow pass to the next level year after year?  Is her whole life made up of dodging and copying and cheating, and who knows what else? That's her own normal. But now that we have identified the problem, we are going back and teaching her how to read just like a 1st grader. I weep for the wasted years.

If I look at the number of children in a similar situation, I won't be able to cope. For now we will have to be satisfied with reaching the children within our grasp.

The children I have mentioned here are in our Orphans and Vulnerable Children program. Their parents either have HIV or have died of HIV/AIDS complications.

A Clumsy Day

Today was a very clumsy day.

I can't say that's a Nigerian expression because I've only heard it once, but it certainly fits the bill for today. As I kept penciling in events for Aug. 21, I could see that it just wasn't going to fit together very well.  But that's not really something to stress about here. I just decided to take it however it happened to come together--or fall apart.

By 9 a.m. I was ready to take David and Lily out to buy eggs and meat, but then a visitor showed up at our door. I prepared tea and visited for a bit and then left the visitor with Bayo.

By the time we came home at 10:30, that visitor had gone and a new visitor was in our home to spend the weekend. But he's been here before, and he's more of family than a visitor.

I took Tobi to a birthday party at 11. I still had a few minutes to spare before attending a going-away party at 12, so I went to a missionary garage sale. Even though I was quite late to the sale, I still found some delightful bargains. As I examined the dresses on the rack, I saw a really cute one that I just knew I had to buy. It was a size 6 so it was obviously not for me! I thought I might re-size it for Lily, but then it struck me: a perfect gift for petite Esther who turned 40 today!

I got home about 12, threw the dress into a cloth gift bag, figuring I'd see Esther later in the day. Turned the key in the ignition and Bayo called: "Can you come to Bezer Home right now? The children have thrown a surprise party for Esther, and we need you to come and take a few pictures." Not in the plan, but important. Have to swallow my pride because I had specifically instructed the five other people attending the going away party that they should not be late!

Zipped over to Bezer Home in 7 minutes. Had a fun 5 minute celebration. Zipped over to the going away party. Had to apologize as I walked in the door--everyone had a good laugh at my expense! Had a delightful time of conversation and fellowship with the other women. Left at 2 p.m--right when my next event was supposed to start. Told my passengers that I couldn't drop them at home because I was already late to my next meeting...but the sky was threatening to open up at any moment so I zipped them all back over to Bezer Home.

Came home, found people in my house, got out the icing sugar and glazed the donuts that were made in my absence. Got to the meeting about 2:35. About half of the people came after me so I didn't have to apologize this time! Had a delightful two hours of reading and discussing and sharing with other Nigerwives (foreign women married to Nigerians).

Got home at 5. Determined to do one more thing today. The daughter of Tobi's Tae Kwon Do coach turned 2 today. She's been sick and the parents have been so concerned. Glazed some more donuts. Gathered some little birthday gifts together with Tobi. The rain was pouring, but we went anyway. Discovered that Tobi really has a heart for encouraging others through gifts. Determine to find a way to foster this characteristic. The family was very happy that we had come. In fact, our 15 minute visit was the entire birthday celebration for the day.

Home again. Time to figure out supper. We have a visitor so I cook spaghetti. If not for him, it would have been a smorgasbord from the fridge!

Crash on the couch for awhile. Read to the kids. Call Grandpa and wish him a happy birthday. Have devotions. Pray.

Yes, it was a clumsy day indeed, but a very good day.

Fresh Food

For about a year, David and Lily have been selling eggs to our compound neighbors. Today I took them to buy eggs from a place that has about 500 chickens. We asked for 7 crates (30 eggs in a crate). The young man wasn't sure if he could fill our order because a buyer had come from Abuja the day before and taken nearly everything they had on hand. In the end, he did manage to get 210 eggs for us. He commented that the eggs were still warm because they had just been laid.

After we went to the chicken place, we headed to the meat market. Since this was my first time in the meat market this year, I greeted my usual seller with "Happy New Year!" That brought a laugh. I complimented him on his re-furbished stall. He shared that the whole place had been burned during the January crisis. Oh yeah, that's why I don't come to this market anymore. Strange that I had forgotten about that when I made my plans this morning.

I often send someone to buy my meat or I contact a man who will deliver it to my door, but today I just felt like buying it myself. I'm trying to buy the meat that I think we'll need for a month. I'm hoping this will help with menu planning and budgeting.

The seller asked which piece of meat I wanted. I said, "Show me the one that was slaughtered today." He pointed to one large piece, and said, "Can't you see it's still quivering?"

While we waited for him to cut the meat into pieces, David and Lily got a biology lesson from studying the dead goat on the next table. I was pleased that they could both look at it objectively without thinking it was gross. They saw a kidney, liver, lungs and stomach. I think the stomach is the most amazing organ with its thousands of surfaces for absorption.

Later in the car David commented, "That table was SO dirty." All of the meat is displayed and cut on wooden tables.

I responded, "Yes, David. That's why we wash it and cook it really well."

Then we went in search of the pork. I kept stopping, searching, and asking. One woman sent me back the direction I had come. After a few minutes I knew that wasn't right. She saw me coming back and asked if I found it and I said, "No, I'm still looking for the pork."

"Oh! I thought you said you wanted a pot!" Then she sent me off in another direction.

We saw some live pigs, but we never did find the fresh pork meat. Now I've decided just to ask someone to go and buy it for me on Monday.

Next week my helpers will mince, slice and chunk the meat the way we like it.

I really enjoyed my outing with the kids this morning. I wouldn't want to do it every Saturday morning, but once in awhile it's nice--and it's nice to find food that's really fresh!

Mango Worms

*Warning* This post may be considered gross by those who have queasy stomachs.

'Tis the season for...mango worms. Ugh.

During the rainy season flies lay their eggs in damp, moist places. The eggs/worms burrow into skin and begin living off of the host's body.

Our three little kittens had a rough bout with these invasive creatures when they were just a couple weeks old. This little guy had it the worst. We thought he had a bad eye infection because of this huge pustule-like thing crowding his eyeball. Turns out a mango worm was sharing the eye socket with the eye. This photo was taken one day after we squeezed and tweezed that nasty parasite out.

Perspective: here's a squeezed out mango worm next to Tobi's index finger.

This same little guy had two mango worms in his jaw as well. I popped one out--see the hole, but I couldn't get the other one out at that time.

Small animals can die if they are infested with mango worms. The worms simply consume everything that the animal needs for life. Our kittens were already in a weakened state with their 4 to 5 mango worms a piece.

Of course, humans are not immune to mango worms. I've only had one, and I got it out while it was still quite small.  The worst story I ever heard was of a foreigner who was a runner. Every day he would take off his sweaty shirt, put it on the clothesline, then throw it on again the next day. His back was completely infested with mango worms.

We take extra precautions with laundry during the rainy season: all of it is either ironed or run through the dryer in order to kill any of the worms that have been laid in the seams.

Why are they called mango worms? I don't know. Maybe because they come out during mango season which is also the rainy season.

By the way, our little kitten appears to have completely recovered his eyesight.