First day in the office!!

Yahoo!! Today I had my first full day in the ECWA (Evangelical Church of Western Africa) Camp Youth Alive (all of that abbreviated to ECYA) office with my 3 other co-workers: Claudia, Akim, and Shama. The three of them took last week off after finishing a full camping season and I read through camp evaluations and settled in. But today we came together as a team for the first time and it was glorious. Claudia is the captain of our team, having been the pioneer of this camping ministry for over 12 years. Akim and Shama have both been campers and counselors and now are on paid staff. Both are incredible men of God, ability, and passion for this ministry. I had been praying that we would all be unified in the Spirit from the beginning and I'm happy to report that it seems that God has answered that prayer. Because our team captain will be leaving for fulough in in November for 6 months, it's really important that Akim, Shama, and myself are in sync with each other since we'll be running the show. Please continue to pray for the handing over the baton process.

LANGA LANGA

OK, I know I have been putting the word of the day at the bottom of the blog, but this one was just too much fun. "Langa langa" is the phrase used to describe the action done to cut the grass. Now, don't substitute "mowing" in for grass cutting...no, no. To langa langa is to take a sickle-like tool and swing at the grass just so to cut it. I wish I had a picture of it to show you. Perhaps I'll take one sometime in the near future, but recently this "langaing" has intersected with my life. Saturday morning I wake up to the sound of a gardener outside of my window. Alarmed at first at the strange noise being made, then just curious, I peek out and see him langa langa the grass. This looks like it would be fun for all of 5 minutes. We don't have a whole lot of grass in the yard of our compound anyways, so I didn't feel TOO bad for our kind gardener. (By the way, he did a great job:) ) Then today, as we were discussing what needed to be done for the campsite to be ready for a sports team to come this weekend, Claudia says, "Yeah, and I need to ask the guards to langa langa the soccer field." I don't know what I reacted to more - the coolness of the word or the idea that 2 guys were going to have to clear an entire soccer field with a sickle! You people who are all into landscaping, can you imagine?! I guess that's why there aren't any fitness clubs in Nigeria and everyone is still so buff.

Anyways, I know that may not sound terribly exciting, but I got a kick out of it. I plan on writing a bit more about the camp but just to wet your appetite, pictured is the dining hall/meeting area/central building of the camp. Also, just to the right of the muddy drive is the aforementioned field.

One more big piece of news. As far as I know, this is not related in any way to Nigeria, but coinciding with leaving the states, I have acquired the ability to wiggle my ears. I've NEVER been able to do this before despite my sincere attempts. All of a sudden though, I can access the right muscles and it's quite entertaining. Sometimes, when I'm listening to someone, I wiggle them just a bit to see if it helps. Check out the video for this cool new René phenomenon.

And stay tuned for more African Annals!