Merry Christmas!

I know I'm just one of many Christmas blogs, but if I didn't put these pictures up now, they might never get posted and then all of you would wonder, "What does a single gal DO for Christmas in Nigeria?!?" I had this whole little diatribe about peace and Jesus and everything written in my head, but now I haven't the time or energy to eloquently craft it into a blog. SO, this time around, you'll just have to enjoy the pictures. (Some of you are grateful, I know).

Kari (my sister!), me, Dana, and Corinne enjoying our cozy Christmas Eve dinner. Yes, the hooded sweatshirts were necessary! It was actually quite chilly for Nigeria on Christmas Eve, which helped get us in the spirit and enjoy drinking our special holiday tea. It also made sleeping 3 in my double bed rather enjoyable:)

On Christmas day itself, I trekked all around Jos, visiting friends, giving them my homemade Christmas cookies (most weren't sure what to do with my bright green X-mas trees), and showing them how much I love and appreciate them. Here are a few pix from my rounds:With Larai, who later said, "René, you made my day with your visit. If you hadn't come, today would have come and gone like any other day." And all I did was come and eat a plate of rice!!

This is one of my absolute favorite people in Nigeria--Mama Ceasar (her son's name is Ceasar). She has the most beautiful, contagious laugh and smile, CONSTANTLY. When I told her I couldn't eat very much food, she "packed" a whole meal for me in containers and a plastic bag and sent me home with it. VERY important for her to feed me, apparently. Don't tell, but I ended up giving the meal to a guard who had to be away from home all day. I think he enjoyed it more that I would have.This is my Nigerian family, the Marcos's. The Mama is Hanatu, our head cook for the camp. They have 2 daughters as well, but they were both getting all washed up when we took this picture. By the way, notice how I'm the ONLY one looking at the camera. The look-away pose is in.

And now...I'm off to Ghana for 10 days with 7 friends! There's sure to be oodles of adventure and stories to tell when I return. Remain blessed!

Sai shekara mai zuwa... (=Until next year...)

Shipped out...sort of

So an hour after I posted that last blog a few days ago, I was informed that we had to come together for a compound meeting. There the crisis management team informed us that the compound I live on, plus two others were being evacuated. No, not out of the country, just away from the area. The night before we had received some reports of alleged plans to attack ECWA Headquarters and its compounds, including the one I live on. Naturally, hearing this quickened my heart beat and brought the danger of this whole situation a little closer to home...literally. After a week, the reports seem to have been just a rumor. These sorts of rumors are have been rampant in Jos this past week, serving only to instill fear and keep tensions high. Anyways, our wise mission decision makers reasoned that it was better to be safe and a little inconvenienced, than tragic victims, and thus, we were evacuated. Since things DID have the potential to escalate (and still do), we were advised to pack for the possibility that we might not come back. THAT was weird, let me tell you. I could be away for a couple nights, a week, or...forever! Now, things seem to be leaning toward me returning to my little abode in the next day or so. Don't tell, but I've snuck back to check on my cat and dump dirty laundry :) As time has passed, I've begun to process all the ramifications of this crisis. I don't think I'm quite ready to blog about it though. I will say that the safety aspect of it all, undoubtedly what many of you have been most concerned about for me, isn't that important in the big scheme of things. What breaks my heart is not the possibility that I could get hurt...it's all the corruption and brokenness and presence of evil that does nothing but destroy society. Oh, I could get on a roll very quickly, but I better not.
Adding to the craziness in my neck of the woods...it rained this past week!!! Maybe you've forgotten, but we're it the middle of dry season here in Nigeria. As in, it hasn't rained since October and we weren't expecting any precipitation until...oh...April-ish. Imagine our surprise when two nights in a row last week, we had a steady drizzle for several hours. Not imagine the irritation of my friend who was working on replacing a roof and had not reached the point of putting the new one back on. As I said in one of my first postings, T.I.A. (This is Africa).
Well, I should be heading back to the office tomorrow, and hope to be able to get involved with the relief efforts going on around Jos. There were some 30,000 internally displaced people (IDP's) staying at 13 different refugee camps. The number has decreased, but the enormous need remains. If you want to help out financially toward these families who've lost everything either in fire or being run out of their neighborhood, SIM has set up a project you can give to. Go to www.sim.org/giveusa The project number is NG 96038 (I believe you can omit the NG, that just stands for Nigeria). If nothing else, please continue to pray for peace, reconciliation, and repentance.

“The invitation of Jesus is a revolutionary call to fight for the heart of humanity…using the weapons of faith, hope, and love.” –Erwin McManus