Ch-ch-ch-church time!

(Corinne-Swiss buddy who arrived on the same flight, Kauna-gracious mentor about culture and shopping, and Shannon-fellow US of A native who is sadly only here for 3 more weeks...I love these women!)

A post about church experiences has been in order for a while. Today was the first time since I arrived that I haven't been to a new church. I wanted to get a taste of various congregations before I settled on one. The thing is...when you're a visitor at a church here in Nigeria, it's not just a matter of being asked to fill out a visitor card or something. No, no. I've had to stand up, get sang to, introduce myself and why I'm here in Jos, be asked to come down front so the entire church could come shake my hand, and pretty much be welcomed in ways that would scare the majority of first-time church visitors in the states to death. Over all, I really dig church here.

Right now, I'm shamelessly going to allow a dear partner in crime over here, Shannon, to tell the story of our church experience last week. It took me several days to sit down and journal about it and since Shannon described it so well, why make a futile attempt to do better?

"Another really bizarre experience I had this week was attending an African Pentecostal church, which was called, ahem, Church of God Mission International Inc. Solution House. The name "Solution House" gives you an idea of what kind of church it was, the whole sermon was a litany of prosperity theology, the preacher loudly proclaiming that if you can just earn "divine approval" you will achieve "open heaven" and you won't have to pursue miracles, your miracles will pursue you! Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Basically, the gist of it was that if you can just situate yourself properly with God, he will give you anything you want, whether it's a promotion, a good marriage, a child, a new car, a boat, a cell phone network that actually works, whatever it is, God is all about giving it to you. But the fundamental problem with that kind of message is that no anointing is going to force God's hand into giving us what we want. The whole point of Christianity, from my perspective is "Thy will be done," not "MY will be done." But part of the reason that the Pentecostal church is one of the fastest growing denominations in the Southern church is because many of them preach exactly that.

But even if the sermon wasn't problematic enough, I was also disturbed by the degree of control that the preacher had over the congregation. The volume and demonstrativeness of their response was basically directly proportioned to his shouting and vehemence on the stage. After the sermon he actually had us all standing with our hands folded on top of our heads and our mouths open! I'm sure if he asked everyone in the church to stand on their heads they all would have been bottom up in a blink. He actually said if you don't do it exactly the way the "man of God" tells you, you will not get "the result." But it was by these bizarre poses that he was trying to spread his anointing to as many in the church as possible. Not satisfied with the number that were slain in the Spirit on their own, he actually went through the church knocking people over himself. Then, to ice this cake, he actually had every one who had been brought to the altar stand to their feet and a little clump while all the ushers stood around them like a human barricade. Then he waved his suit jacket over them and made a popping noise into his microphone and every last one of them went down. But just when I really thought that I had fallen completely off the map of sense and comprehension, he told us that he was trying to raise money for a plane ticket and if those in the congregation would come to the front and give him money, they could step in the anointing oil that he had poured on the floor and he would pray for them to receive the same anointing that he had. I am telling you, I have never before witnessed the kinds of things that I saw at that church. Which, for me, begs the question, how many more are there even just in this city that are just like it? I really honestly shudder to think. "

More on other church times later...stay tuned!

Word of the day: koyi = learn

worth 1,001 words

With all due respect to the inventors of our languages, I find them lacking every evening when I come home from a day of smells, sounds, sights, and feelings. I've not only neglected this blog all week, but also my personal journal because it's so taxing to put words what Nigeria is putting into my heart every day. Take the above picture, for example. These kids are watching a Christian wrestling show by a team here for 2 weeks from Texas. Some other time I might talk about this "wrassling-gospel" ministry, but what I want you to notice is how entranced these kids are with the (not shown) very large batures in spandex pounding on the wrestling ring. If this was a video, you'd see the kids shrink back from the rope when the "bad guy" came out of the ring and ran toward the crowd. Note also the little girl with the plate on her head, selling the last few bags of groundnuts for the day. She watched entire show without taking the plate off. I wasn't all that mesmerized by the dudes jumping on each other, but my heart was enriched from observing the precious reactions of these kids.

Now this guy... tell me he doesn't give you warm fuzzies all over. Not much needs to be said here, just a cool freakin' bug in Africa. Also, I'm glad I found him outside and not in my shoe or on my toilet seat.

Something else that words just don't do justice to is my cooking. Stop that laughing! Look, cooking in Africa is TOTALLY different, so just because you've eaten my creations in the states has no bearing on your right to chuckle at the idea of my cooking here. **sigh** In all seriousness, even the simple things, like rice, take extra work here. Not to be one to shy away from a challenge, I've busted out the mixing bowl a few times. It's actually a goal of mine to learn some culinary skills over here. With no shame I admit that I've made my first carrot cake, icing, batch of coleslaw, yogurt (now a weekly afare), and a couple stellar variations of banana bread. I've also cook and cut up my first whole chicken, but have yet to kill and pluck one. AND, today I learned to make the classic Nigerian dish, jollof rice, thanks to my friend, Myriam (see picture). Basically, it's minced meat (=ground beef), oil, onions, peppers, carrots, green beans, cabbage, tomato paste, curry, garlic, salt, and peppe. Myriam then got excited about my other spices and decided that they could all go in. I'm pretty pumped about having leftovers for next week. I have had a number of blunders, but I'm willing to wager that Betty Crocker didn't bake the perfect cake her first time. Maybe soon my cooking/baking will leave partakers speechless...in a good way.

And of course, the quintessential sunset that so often beckons us to silence. Selah.

Phrase of the week: Ban sani ba =
"I don't know"

Yep, you know I say this one a lot:)

Not too near, but not far away...

I make this post with a little bit of trepidation because I don't want anyone to freak out and start contacting Amnesty International or something. This is just a piece of Nigerian news that I found notable and I want to share it with you. Remember, Nigeria is a BIG country with millions of people. That said...
In case you didn't know, we are currently in the Islamic month of Ramadan where Muslims take 30 days to fast and seek enlightenment from God. It's a holy month and with Nigeria being 50% Muslim, I'm well aware of it. Every Friday night I can hear the call to prayer from the loudspeakers at the mosque. As one can imagine, in a country divided staunchly between Muslim and Christian, a time like Ramadan has the tendency to tense things up a bit. Such might be part of the reason for the incident in Tudun Wada near Kano (up north) last weekend, but then again, religious differences have long been an issue here in Nigeria.

Allegedly, a cartoon was found with Mohommad's head on a dog's body and it was though to have been drawn by a Christian student in one of the schools (Later, after some investigation, it was discovered to have been done by a Muslim boy in Bangledesh). This set off a riotous group of teenagers who went around rampaging shops and known Christian homes. The fairly small group turned into a much larger mob once word spread and by the end of it all, churches (nearly all in the area) were burned to the ground, 9 people killed, and over 130 Christian homes were looted while families were driven out without any belongings in hand. In an attempt to "protect" went around to Christian homes, asked where they would like to go, and helped to ship them out to other towns. In reality, this served the Muslim ideal because they'd rather have it segregated anyways.
Article about the incident.

Now, you may be wondering why I am waiting over a week to write about this to you. I heard about this by word of mouth and kept looking for something in the papers about it. This article I refer you to is some of the only coverage of this terrible travesty. Can you imagine something like this happening in the states and not hearing about it? But censorship prevented any newspaper from publishing on it, partly out of fear that it would only fuel reactionary violence. One can understand that, I certainly heard a few Nigerians voice their strong opinions about what actions should be taken, but the lack of coverage also help to cover-up the grave injustice that took place. Not just the looting, the "help" provided by the authorities.

Other conversations and mentions of it during prayers, the incident last weekend in Tudun Wada has not had any affect on life in Jos, as far as I can tell. I don't fear for my safety when I walk past a Muslim kneeling on his prayer mat, and neither should you. I share this news with you just to help you understand an underlying issue in Nigeria and ask you to pray for profound peace and for Christ's love, light and truth to be stronger than the hate, darkness, and lies that reside in the human heart.

Hausa word for the day: Semi = love

http://allafrica.com/stories/200710011288.html

Fields of Gold

I realize that Sting was actually talking about fields golden with wheat in his song, but the golden fields here in Africa are worth singing about too. These yellow flowers have blanketed the mountain sides and meadows here in Jos for the past couple of weeks. It's absolutely beautiful and I wish I could tell you what they're called but I'm a far cry from a botanist and everyone I ask calls them "the end of rainy season flowers." I'll give you one guess what time of year they bloom :) Yes, yes, these droplets of sunshine pop out along with some orange buds during the last few weeks of sporadic rain. It's as if they are the giving everyone a final burst of color before dry season sets in and everything turns brown for the next 6 months. When I say dry season, I'm not just talking about having dry skin and no rain. There is this amazing phenomenon where the winds start blowing more from the north, bringing with it dust and sand from the Sahara. I remember flying over the Sahara a few weeks ago thinking how incredibly huge it was. Well, the vastness is not without consequence. I'm told a haze settles and the views of the mountains I currently enjoy just outside my gate will be hardly visible. Oh, and there's a name for this wonder of nature: harmattan. Sounds like some monster from the Odyssey if you ask me. Then again, considering the increase in dusting I'm going to have to do, the harmattan is a bit of a monster. Word is, mere hours after dusting you can have a layer of reddish/brownish dust on your furniture. That does NOT motivate me to even attempt. You know what other havoc the harmattan can wreak...boogers. Enough said.
But for now, I'll just savor God's beauty in my fields of gold. Ahhh...

Happy Independence Weekend!

This weekend I really connected with this country for Nigeria celebrated 47 years of independence from British colonial rule. Together, Americans and Nigerians raised up our voices saying, "No taxation without representation!" Ok, so maybe that's not exactly what my local friends were saying...I don't even think there is a tax here...but regardless, I rejoiced for Nigeria's Independence Day, October 1. To celebrate, I took some fun little adventure trips. I didn't want to overload my blog with pictures, so please check out my photo album for more.

Shere Hills

Water packed, sun shining, trekking shoes on, and a crew of us set off to spend some time up in Shere Hills, about 1/2 and hour outside of Jos. It's really amazing how quickly we can go from conjested street city to beautiful, lush, mountainous terrain. I'm a big fan. Of course I had no clue where we were going but we had a few people with us that have lived here for 20+ years and they guided us way out to park in this random village. One guy fluent in Hausa asked some boys to watch our vehicles and off we went. Now, these "trails" aren't exactly well marked; it requires a bit of guesswork, but I couldn't have cared less, it SO beautiful. These pictures really don't do justice, of course, but maybe they'll persuade you to come check it out someday. We trekked up this one overlook and then went down into a valley in search of a waterfall. Once we found it some people parked it at the bottom to have a snack but I followed the lead of this wonderful lady, Beaj, and climbed up the sucker to the top. (Mom wouldn't have been too thrilled EXCEPT, her and Beaj grew up together in Liberia! Small world, huh?) Anyways, I stood there looking out over this awesome terrain of fields and rock outcroppings and praised God for the beauty of his creation here in Africa. As they say in Hausa, Kai!

Jos Wildlife Park

Now, don't get TOO excited because this was a "wildlife park" not a "wildlife game reserve." Big difference. Parks have fences and cages around their animals, game reserves don't. Nevertheless, I had a blast yesterday scoping out all the animals native to Nigeria with my buds from the office, Shammah (picturesd) and Akim. Lions, elephants, and headless vultures (see picture for proof). The sad thing was that many of these animals looked really skinny. PETA people would go nuts here but really, when you think about, it makes sense. With most of the population living on less than $1 a day, making sure Mufasa over there has a fresh antelope each week really does not make it very high on the priority list. So as bad as I felt for the critters, I feel worse for the people I see every day who also won't have much for dinner tonight.

Golf Ball and Cobra Rock

THIS was a cool day of hiking. We may not have covered 20 miles, but today was not for the faint of heart. A totally different crew of adventurers convened and decided there was no better way to celebrate Nigeria's freedom than to take advantage of her natural beauty. Particulary the state we live in, Plateau State, is known for its unique rock formations. We first went to Golf Rock, who's name sake should be pretty obvious from the picture. But this was just a mild 15 minute hike. While up on top, taking in the surrounding beauty, some of us spotted this other rock that looked like a giant cobra's head. 5 of us were in the mood for a challenge so we hopped down and began forging our way to the cobra. If trails had been hard to come by before, this one took the cake. George, our leader, trailblazed the way through some pretty thick jungle and briar patch. At the end of the day his arms were shredded with cuts and scratches (of course when someone pointed it out, he just said, "Ah, a price worth paying for the adventure). I'd have to agree because once I finally got on top of Cobra Rock, I forgot about the 2" long thorns that had dug into my legs and the stinging nettle plant that left a myriad of bumps on my forearm. This was a GROOVY cliff with an INCREDIBLE view of the area. We hadn't even known that just a little ways away was a little village of about 10 mud and thatch huts. Some of the kids spotted us at the top and yelled up, "Hello Baturis, how are you?" haha! They're probably wondering why the heck we're climbing on rocks like this for fun. Luckily, we met a Fulani man (Fulani's are a nomadic tribe of people who heard their cows and goats all across western Africa) and were able to ask him for a suggestion on a better way down. Turns out, there was a more reasonable trail than the torture foliage we swam through.

So those are a few of my adventures thus far. I can think of no better word to teach you today than "Kai," pronouced "ki" with a long 'i'. It is used in a variety of ways but mostly to say, "wow." Sitting on those mountain tops drinking in the views, with the breeze cooling off my face and the symphony of noises in my ears, I could only praise God and remark, "Kai!"