Beautiful Colors

A couple of weekends ago, four of us missionary ladies walked down the road behind our apartment building to visit a lady who sells cloth from her home. Her husband is the president of an important Christian organization here, and she sells cloth as a hobby and an extra source of income. We spent quite a while picking out cloth from her beautiful selection. Here, women have beautiful dresses and outfits made out of this cloth, and tailors are easy to find who will make an outfit for you according to a picture or your own description. The four pieces of cloth pictured above are what I bought, still waiting to be taken to the tailor. I'm waiting for creative genious to give me an idea for an outfit for each one of them!

You Know It's Dusty When...

Right now, it's been terribly dusty. We are in a certain season they call "harmattan" which is the time of year when dust, supposedly from the Sahara, blows down into our area. I wake up in the morning to a gray sky- not from clouds, but from dust. You might think I'm exaggerating in the statements below, but I'm not! These are things we experience daily during this time of year.
You know it's dusty when...
1. You dust your house in the morning, and in the afternoon it looks like you haven't dusted in a week.
2. You turn on the shower, and the water in the bottom of the bathtub turns brown because of the layer of dust in the tub.
3. You wash your face at night and your washcloth turns brown.
4. You can only see a couple of blocks down the street because of the dust haze.
5. The hills that surround the city completely disappeared a few months back and now you've forgotten that there even are hills nearby!
6. A friend washes your car and leaves it to dry, and the next day it looks even worse than it did before he washed it because of the dust!
7. You've given up on wearing clean clothes. By the time the laundry is dry on the line, it's already full of dust.
8. All of your light brown clothes used to be white.

Speaking Literally

As I learn the Hausa language, the other students in my class and I are discovering that some things cannot be translated literally from English to Hausa and visa versa. But there are some words and phrases that, if you translate them literally into English, they are quite humorous and they describe the English word in a way we never thought about. Below are some examples for your amusement:

China plate or any dish that is breakable- in Hausa it is "fadi ka mutu" which literally means "if it falls, it dies!"

Fork- the Hausa word is "cokali mai yatsu" which means a spoon with fingers.

Bed sheet- "zanen gado" literally the bed wrapper.

Pillow- "matashin kai" or the head raiser.

We won (like a game)- "mun ci su" literally meaning "we ate them!"

Continue- "Ci gaba" or eat forward.

Electric Adventures

The electricity here is fickle, to say the least. Sometimes we have it, sometimes we don't, sometimes it's too much, and sometimes it's too weak. Our large appliances, like refrigerators, get plugged into voltage stabilizers, like the one in the picture to keep the voltage stable (when the electricity is on, that is) and to keep the refrigerator from suffering an early death. If you look closely, you can see that the needle is pointing to 0. That means that we have no electricity.

Saturday morning, I woke up to no electricity. No problem, this happens all the time, almost every day. (You might be asking why we lose electricity so often. We'd like to know the answer to that question, too!) Then I realized that both of my computer batteries were low. Oh well, the electricity will come on in a few hours, like it normally does and I'll recharge then, I thought. About 9 am, I heard the click of my stabilizer and the hum of the fridge, so I quickly plugged the computer in. About 10 minutes later, it went off. I was a little frustrated. Usually it stayed on longer, and I really wanted my computer charged. I had a friend coming over to help me learn some more Hausa langauge and to translate the wordless book into Hausa, so I put my computer away, and put the water on to boil for tea. After she came and we started translating, the power came back on. Great, I thought, as soon as she leaves, I'll plug my computer in! We finished our project, and I walked my friend to the gate, then went back up to my apartment to get some lunch and plug in my computer. As I opened the fridge to get out the tuna for my sandwich, I noticed that something was wrong. Then I realized- it was dark. The power was out again! This time I began to wonder. When the power only comes for brief periods of time like this, it means something is wrong at the power plant. It also means that it might not come on again for a long time.

All afternoon, I kept an eye and ear out for the power to come back on, but soon it was growing dark and still no power. I lit my four little candles and went to the fridge to get some dinner. It was already getting warm inside the fridge (I have a minature fridge right now because I'm in temporary housing, which means that it doesn't hold cold very well). I knew that if the power didn't come on in the morning, I'd have to start throwing away food. After eating my dinner, using the very last of my computer battery to watch a movie, and staring into the candlelight wondering what to do in the semi-darkness, I went to bed, reassuring myself that the power would come on in the morning. The next morning I woke to darkness and silence- no power! I had wanted to take a shower, but I knew that because the power had been off so long, the water would only be warm, not hot, the pump that pumps the water from the tanks wouldn't be working, and we'd be out of water soon. Even worse, it meant that I probably had spoiled food. Before I did anything else, I went to the fridge and opened it. It had a very pungent smell, that smell that's not good but not bad either, just the type of smell that tells you that your food is just hours away from going bad, so you'd better do something now! I contemplated the situation as I got ready for church, then something came to me. My dad had told me that when he was a boy, he had gone to see his grandmother at her house. She didn't have a fridge, but she kept things cold in the the creek near her house. I went my double kitchen sink and filled both sinks partway with cold water then placed all the containers in my fridge into the water.

Thanks, Dad, for the story! It came in handy! When I came back from church, my food was nice and cool in the sinks, but I gathered it up and put it in a friend's deep freeze just to make sure. As darkness came on Sunday evening, I cleaned out the last of the things in my fridge, lit my candles, and washed up my dishes- feeling very gloomy all the while. It's no fun being without power! What can I do in the semi-darkness, I thought to myself. I got out my Hausa book to study by candlelight, then I heard it. The most wonderful noise in the world. The buzz of lights coming on outside. The click of my stablizer. The hum of my fridge. Glorious! Within 30 seconds, I had plugged in my computer and phone to charge. My neighbor in the same building called, squeeling with delight. Almost 36 hours without electricity. We got through it okay, but we're sure glad it's back! You never understand how much you love the little things, like electricity, until they're gone. So as you're reading this blog, stop and listen for a moment to the hum of your fridge...and be thankful.

Reconciliation

There are 70 boys who formerly lived on the street who I worked with when I used to live here three years ago (and have been reunited with since I've returned). They live at a home for former street boys and are loved by missionaries and local Christian workers. We cherish them like our own children. They are unique and beautiful, each with his own smile, laugh, personality, and sense of humor. When I first came, I had such a hard time telling them apart and barely knew their names. Now I know each face by heart. I wish they knew just how much I love them.

Many of these boys live at the center because they had a falling-out with their families and had to leave home, whether it be from their own bad behavior, involvement with the occult, or a family problem. Some of these boys have families who love them and are willing to forgive them and welcome them back home. So last week, 18 boys left this particular center to return to their homes permanently, with 12 leaving another center outside of town. The staff had visited their families and local pastors and talked about what reconciliation with their children should look like. They also talked to the boys about what it would be like to go home finally. Some boys were excited, while others were nervous or even upset by the prospect.


Since these boys are so precious to us, we had a special party for them to send them forth as missionaries to their own families. We told them that they are new boys, changed from the inside out by Jesus, and now they can show their families how they have changed.


One of the special things about this party was that some of the boys who were staying at the center could share advice or encouragement with their friends who were leaving. We were able to see how these boys have matured beyond their years in spiritual insight and Godly thinking as they candidly shared their thoughts.


Boys that wouldn't normally shed a tear at other times cried as they said goodbye to their "brothers".


The leaders of the center also shared from their heart with the boys. Alex, a house parent and the head of the center who has devoted many years to these boys, shared with them from Psalm 1, a passage that many of the boys had memorized:
"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."


The boys were encouraged not to fall in with bad friends, which could be so easy now that they are moving into a secular environment. Before the evening was over, each boy was given his own Bible. My friend, GayLynn who has discipled many of these boys, did the honors.


And of course, soda and a special snack called suya was served for the boys.

I wasn't a part of the group who took the boys to their homes throughout the week, but I heard that many parents came running, arms open wide, to receive their children when the vehicles pulled into the villages. Many parents cried, overjoyed to see their boys after many years. The staff were able to visit and pray with the families, and see the houses where the families were living. Four of the older boys went to boarding school, and the staff accompanied them there. They were nervous, especially when they each were carted off in different directions, separating from their "brothers". But we know that they will stick together, and we pray that they will follow the Lord and let Him guide their ways.

What's for Lunch?(Menene kin ci yau da rana?)

Today I was hungry after I got home from language class. It was lunch time and I didn't have much food in my house. But right outside the gate to my compound, there is a wonderful lady named Becky who cooks and sells food- rice, beans, and red stew (a spicy tomato stew). So I took an empty container for the rice and beans, and another for the red stew and walked out the gate to get food from Becky. She gave me enough that I don't think I'll be very hungry for dinner tonight, and I took it home for a nice lunch. How much did it cost? 70 naira which is about 60 cents! Honestly, McDonalds always advertises that they have great deals for lunch, but I think I got the best deal... and alot healthier, too!

The Car

Some of you have been praying for a car for me. A few months ago, a single girl living here returned to the U.S. to pursue a graduate degree and she left her car. I had agreed at that time to buy it and had asked some friends here to take care of it for me, but I didn't know if I would have the money to purchase it right when I got here. Right before I left, I found that I did have enough, and even more, to purchase the car! Praise the Lord! This week, I started the process of actually purchasing the car and getting the documents to change the registration into my name. I have never actually owned my own car before, so this is rather exciting! Praise the Lord for providing this nice little Honda Civic that takes me to and from language class each day, and will hopefully get me around for many years to come.