A short post.

Fooled you!

I always intend to write a short post. It never ends up that way though. You know you love it.
Another post of random thoughts and updates, jumping back and forth with no real structure.

To spice this long blog up a bit, here's a picture showing how much I stick out on a regular basis.


I've been pretty busy lately. Starting up at Beacon of Hope and getting shown the ropes for there. Pretty interesting. Beacon of Hope is connected to TEKAN (acronym that translated, means Fellowship of Christian Churches in Nigeria) which is a collection of several Christian denominations here. Beacon is involved throughout Nigeria with HIV/AIDS awareness, training, testing… etc. One thing they started this week is a course they are teaching to pastors involved in the different denominations all about HIV/AIDS plus what their role is as a leader to do with it. The idea being, they will then teach what they learn in this 20 week course to their congregations - hopefully removing the stigmatism that so often follows when anyone openly shares a positive HIV status. This stigmatism is a HUGE problem. Depending where the person lives, if they become open with being positive, their lives can be ruined. People will refuse to buy things from them, ending any income. Friends will leave. People have been beaten to death by their family just for saying they are infected. I cannot even begin to fathom this. I can't imagine how hard it would be to build up the nerve just to be tested. I can't imagine how hard it would be to wait the 15 minutes it takes to get the result. I can't imagine sitting there when someone I don't know tells me I tested positive. I can't imagine finding out that I have a disease that, even with all the treatment, will eventually kill me. I can't imagine walking home in such despair. I can't imagine needing more support at any other time in my life. I can't imagine building up the courage to tell my family and loved ones that I have HIV. I can't imagine how I would be able to even finish one sentence without being overwhelmed. I can't imagine my family - the ones I love and who are supposed to love me unconditionally - I can't imagine them murdering me before the symptoms even show .

I can't imagine any of this happening.

This is, obviously, an extreme. But the stigmatism is almost always still there. People lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their friends, their families, their lives. They are afraid to find out. It may take someone a year just to build up the confidence to get tested. Testing takes only a drop of blood. Hard to imagine that something in one drop of your own blood can lead to your life being ruined, even ended.

Chris, my housemate for the past three months, has taken off for home. He flew out for Britain last Friday. I tagged along with him to Abuja (a good three hour drive) Thursday afternoon. Chris and I partied in Abuja with Mike and Megan and their adorable kids Amira and Nico (don't challenge Amira in wrestling, she will beat you EVERY time… trust me). We stayed at the Ribbens for a bit (had some great burgers), then around nineish Mike asked us if we wanted to go out to a store to get some snacks and drinks.

This is when I started going into culture shock. Which you might find a little odd.

When I first came a little over three months ago, I was in Abuja for a couple days. It was a bit different from what I was used to, but still pretty Western. So it wasn't TOO different, so I didn't think anything of it. It was all more of a novelty than anything else. But now, after living three months in Jos, a very African city, it really hit me. I've been living in a city with no streetlights, where you don't walk anywhere past 7, where there is often more time without electricity than with, where air conditioning is rare, motorcycles are taxis, curfew is 10, a stoplight is that guy in the orange shirt telling you if you can go... you get the idea. So, after three months, you get pretty used to that being normal. Driving around to a store at 9pm was not. The streets were lit. There were those electronic TV screen ads on the side of the road. There were… people. Stores weren't just open, they were busy! It seemed surreal. We went to a department store (Park 'n' Shop!) where there were shelves of… everything. Food! Toys! Bread! Cookies! Drinks! They even had an entire wine section. Upstairs they were selling microwaves, fridges, laptops and the biggest plasma TV I've ever seen in my life. This is far from unordinary in Canada. The average mall has a store for each of these things. But being in Jos for 3 months and visiting other areas in Nigeria like villages that don't even have holes for toilets), you come to think of the entire country being the same. It's surreal to see such a modern city in a country full of villages without clean water or toilets. When I had first left Abuja three months ago for Jos, Kyle had told me: "you're finally leaving the West."
Now I understand.

It makes me wonder. I feel I adjusted pretty well to the Jos life (in my opinion anyway). To losing so many of the luxuries I enjoyed back home (like having both a fridge and a microwave in my bedroom…) But seeing how things are in other areas around the world I've realized at how little we actually need. You miss things at first, but you get used to them being gone. They're replaced with more meaningful things. Things that challenge you. Things that make you learn. Make you adapt. Make you think. Make you better.

So I wondered: do we adapt quicker to losing things, or gaining things? Both seem to be pretty quick. But adapting to loss makes us grow, while adapting to a gain seems to make us soft.

My younger brother, Jamie, had joked about when I would come back, I would be like Schindler at the end of Schindler's List. (Not the END end of the movie, he wasn't joking about people putting flowers on my grave or something morbid like that). Near the end of the movie, Schindler is looking at things he spent money on and saying about how those things could have helped him save more Jews from the Nazis. Jamie joked how I'd come home and pick up something of mine and hold it up saying something along the lines of "this could have fed anothe. This DVD…" I thought it was funny (not to make light of the tragedy the movie depicted, but rather on how Africa would affect me), but I also suspected there was truth to it all. Right now, I don't know how I can go back home without looking at everything I have (couple thousand dollars worth of movies, for instance) without thinking about how I should/could have used my God-given money more appropriately. God has given me more money than I needed. Money I could have given away to someone who could use it to live. $20 is a LOT of money to a LOT of people. It means a lot more than we'll probably ever understand to a lot more people than we'll probably ever comprehend. $20 in Canada won't buy you a new DVD, but here, the equivalent (a bit under 2500 Naira) is quite a bit. I have someone who comes in to do my laundry, which I would never have done if I had a machine - all done by hand and I don't have the time. Becky can use the 800 Naira she gets for a day's work more than I can. She would have to work more than 3 days just to buy a movie in Canada. If she didn't have any expenses. Which, since she has a baby, I don't think is true.

So, I doubt me coming home will be as dramatic as Schindler's List, but I know I won't be the same. I'm not the same now as I was. I knew when I was still in Canada and planning on leaving that I wouldn't be the same guy coming back. I don't mean the light tan I've gotten, I mean the way I think. The way I look at things. What I do with my spare time, how I talk to people, how I read my Bible, what I pray for… everything. I know God has me here for a reason. I'm still not sure what that reason is. God could have a plan for me to be here for years. He could have a plan for me to spend every day of the rest of my life in Canada. Who am I to disagree with God? I just pray I don't resist too much to what He does have planned.

Henry Blackaby once wrote: "Some people say: 'God will never ask me to do something I can't do.' I have come to the place in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God. The kind of assignments God gives in the Bible are always God-sized. They are always beyond what people can do, because He waits to demonstrate His nature, His strength, His provision and His kindness to His people and to a watching world. This is the only way the world will ever come to know Him." God gives us challenges He knows we can't handle. Unless we come to Him. God makes us grow through challenges. We're challenged so we can grow. If you spent you're entire life having everything you asked for given to you, you'd crumble at the first difficulty you faced. Don't avoid a difficulty, it's really God giving you the opportunity to grow.

Hard to imagine I'd be almost home right now if I only stayed the initial 3 months. I feel like I'm just getting used to everything. Be weird to be going home so soon. When I think back to when I first got here, it seems so long ago. But all the time in between has just flown by.

On a completely different note, I ate something off a banana leaf for the first time ever this week. That's definitely something that should have been on, and now scratched off, my To-do list. It was good.

I now have my Nigerian drivers license. It's actually kinda scary how easily I got it. No test. But I did show my Canadian license, so I guess they're assuming I know how to drive. At least I hope that the average Nigerian can't get a license that easy. But going on how a lot of them drive, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm sharing a Peugeot wagon with another guy here. It's pretty sweet. Not the car, it's a piece of junk. But being able to drive myself around. The car is... drivable. But wouldn't pass any safety laws. But it works and it's better than nothing, so I'm not complaining.

What else, what else...

I went to my first Nigerian wedding today. No offense, but in comparison, Canadian weddings are a bit boring. It was so energetic, a lot of singing... Weddings in Canada can be so stiff and dull. I can't remember the last wedding I've been to that was FUN. And it seems that's what it should be. It's an enjoyable occasion. A couple is being united under God. Laugh! Sing! Cheer! Yell! Dance! It's a happy occasion! Not that we don't enjoy our weddings in Canada, we just somehow feel that we can't express our emotions to the full extent of how they are affecting us.

But don't worry Rick and Natalie and Jon and Stef, you're weddings won't be boring. You're all too much fun for that to happen.

After the wedding, my ride had to show the wedding party where exactly to go for pictures. When we got there, they realized that the photographer didn't come with. So then I became the 'official' photographer. Which was weird. Since I wasn't actually invited to the wedding (not that you GET invited to a Nigerian wedding, it's an open invitation to ANYone...) but I didn't even know WHO the bride and groom were. I was just there because I wanted to see what a Nigerian wedding was like. Then I became the photographer. So that was kinda neat.

Oh, and check out my rock climbing pictures! We went twice to this huge pile of rocks (LOTS of rocks in Nigeria) and climbed them. Quite tricky to get to the top. We were all pretty sore the next day.