we are broken

Am I a photographer yet?

2011-12-06T23:41:00.001Z

I've finished off another photo class, this time I took one on architectural photography. (The last course I took was Photography 101). This class was pretty interesting and I took it for the reason that it's something I wouldn't likely be learning on my own or by my assisting Ewout for Open Photography.

Oh, did I not mention that I'm an assistant? It's been awesome!! Weddings, schools, portraits, the odd product shot... I get to learn a lot through Ewout, but nothing really architectural-y. Which brings us back to this class.

I don't know if I'm going to take another class just yet, but it's been pretty interesting so far. The first class was pretty general (not a whole lot I didn't particularly know already, to be honest), but the teacher was great at clarifying things I hadn't quite got a complete grasp on.

This Friday I'll be shooting another wedding with Ewout, and I'm pretty pumped. I hope to share a few photos soon from some of the other shoots I've been on, but until then, I'll have to bore you with some pictures of some of my past assignments.

This is at Hamilton City Hall, for my first assignment in architectural. I used to think it was quite an ugly building, and I haven't completely changed my mind. But it does have some neat features! Like reflecty glass!

For the second assignment, we went to Christ's Church Cathedral on James St N (If you've gone to any of the Art Crawls, you've possibly gone into this church). I had to pick just two photos, and this was one!

This was the other photo I picked. I thought it was kinda fun! One set of organ pipes on one side with the stained glass and another of the same reflected in the curved mirror. Plus one tiny speaker that I assume no one can hear while the organist is pumping out the tunes...

Speaking of organ pipes... This is actually from a Roots conference of the past. I had managed to sneak up top behind the organ and got a cool shot of the Root-ers!

Ch-ch-changes

2011-09-24T02:05:00.000Z

Given the two year gap in updates, this has given me an opportunity to look over the past couple years on the changes that have happened. What changes, you ask? Well,it just so happens I've got a whole blog just about that! Read on!

Marital status: Changed! I left Nigeria 'single', got engaged then married! I plan on having a post about the proposal later.

Address: After getting married, we thought we should get our own place. We're currently living down the 'mountain' in Hamilton in an apartment and loving it!

Job: I'm working at a trenching company. A few weeks ago I also became a part-time photography assistant, which has been awesome. (More on this in later posts).

Education: I took a intro to photography course at Mohawk and will be taking an architectural photography course in a couple weeks. I'll post some photos from both classes later.

Travel: Julia and I went to St Louis for Urbana in December 2009, Montreal, Quebec City and Mt Tremblant for our Honeymoon in June 2010, Alberta last Winter and California this past June. I'll have a whole post about California sometime, it deserves it's own.

The view of Yosemite Valley in California. Go here.

Camera: Apart from the night courses and being an occasional assistant, I got a new camera this year. My first digital SLR! It's a Canon T3i and bought a 28-55 and a 55-250 lens to go with it. It's awesome.

Hamilton love: I spent my youth in Burlington looking down my nose at Hamilton (especially down the 'mountain'). But fell in love with the area around Locke St and the love has been spreading block by block.

Digital foolishness: I kept all my photos on a single hard drive. No other backup. I'm sure you can see where this is going. It knocked over and I lost every single photo I'd ever taken since I owned a digital camera with no hope in recovering them. Don't do what I did, keep more than one copy! That and print more often. Now there are thousands of photos I will never see again, including most from my first trip to Nigeria and my time in Europe. Fortunately, the photos from our Honeymoon were transferred onto Julia's laptop, so those were saved, hooray!

Revival

2011-09-21T02:24:00.002Z

The last time I wrote a blog post was almost two years ago and I was about to leave Nigeria. (In case you only new me through this blog, I'll end the two-year long suspense: I made it home!) A couple things have changed since December 2009. I got married, for one.

I won't bore you with all the small changes now (saving that for later), but I'm hoping to revive this blog to post not just changes in my life, but more photos, updates, revelations, musings or just whatever strikes my fancy! And since I'm no longer living in Nigeria, I'm sure I'll have a harder time keeping an audience! (Who wants to read a blog about some 20-something living in Hamilton anyway??)

Getting this blog going again is really more for me than anyone else. It's been so long since it's been updated that I'd be surprised if anyone notices in the first place. Except for anyone who happened to subscribe during my interesting Africa days - they probably forgot about subscribing and will be surprised too. I'm hoping to use this blog to stretch my creative muscles as well as push myself to keep writing, reading, searching and photographing. Since I've always enjoyed writing, this'll give me a push to keep on it.

We'll see how long I can keep it up!

I plan on sharing a photo with every post too. Biting off more than I can chew?

Farewell from Jos...

2009-12-20T22:06:00.001Z

I just wrote this on Facebook, I think it sums up things for me.

"It sure does suck to say goodbye (forever?) to the country and the friends that have shaped my life for basically the past two years. On the other hand, saying hello again to friends and family that will shape my future is pretty darn exciting... Feelings are funny."

Looking back on the past time I've spent in Africa, I've gotten to know some really great people from all over the world. Through the 6 months I was here last year, and the 10 from this year, it's been a rollercoaster of emotions. I left home in 2008 not knowing what I was getting into. Then I made a new home, and had to leave it after 6 short months. Going back to Canada was hard, as my heart was still in Africa. But God blessed me by opening doors for me to return. It's been a good 10 months, with dips up and down on the rollercoaster, but now I come to an interesting part in the ride, where I feel like I'm going up AND down. All at the same time... (which can be kinda painful).

I have to leave all the friends I've gotten to know here from the past 10 months. Canadians, Americans, Irish, English, Swiss, German, Scottish, Dutch, Nigerians (of course) and Africans from other countries like the Congo and Kenya... (did I miss anyone?) I've loved it. Getting to know people from other countries and cultures really does something to change you. By getting to know how another people groups, you realize how odd your own culture can be! Even this week when I tried to pay for my own bill at a restaurant, my Nigerian friend Safia and the other Nigerians with us were dumbfounded. I was the guest! How could I try to pay for myself?? Just shows you how little one can really learn of a culture even after a combined 16 months of living in it...

So I've had to say goodbye to a lot of these people, but as my roomie recently said "no one really says goodbye anymore. It's now 'see you on Facebook!'" Which is partly true (not everyone has joined Facebook) and echoes kinda what I'd written a bit about in my last post. Facebook makes saying "goodbye forever" a little bit easier to say since I'll be able to continue to connect with most of the friends I've met here via the virtual world.

Speaking of goodbyes, the church I've attended here had to say an unexpected and sudden goodbye the the choir leader. I didn't know him, but he's been a fixture at NKST the entire time I've been there. Apparently he'd collapsed earlier in the week and died a number of days later. I believe I posted this photo of him ealier.

As one who can't sing (without making everyone around me wish they brought earplugs), I've appreciated the choir as a great way to vicariously praise God through songs in a way I wish I could. I know he will be missed by his wife and son and it really goes to show how fragile life still is, and how lucky we in the West are. I've heard that it's thought he had suffered a heart attack, but that it's likely it wasn't diagnosed, nor was there appropriate equipment to deal with it. It made me think of my own Dad who had a heart attack a couple years ago. Thanks to a quick response of the doctors and some speedy stends, my Dad was in and out of the hospital within a matter of days. Think of the lives that could be saved across the world if only appropriate equipment and staff were available! I wish I had medical training (or the brains for it). I think I'd be working in the hospital here or somewhere else in a heartbeat. In fact, if you're of the medical profession, I highly recommend you spend some time in prayer about this. You could be used by God to save lives for people in a country without free or accessible health care, what a blessing!

I don't have a whole lot else to write today, I apologize. I've been pretty busy my last few days, saying goodbyes, packing and all that fun stuff. I'm off tomorrow morning for Abuja, then flying out tomorrow night. After about 24 hours of flights and layovers... Canada! woo! I'm pretty excited. Sucks I won't be able to get some tasty snacks like I've gotten here, like locust and dog meat... (ps, not my hand.)

Well, that's just about it from me! The next time anything gets posted on here, I'll be in Canadia! I still plan on keeping this blog updated, so check in every once and a while for some clever antidote and a photo or two! Thanks for reading, supporting and following!!

*edit*
ps! Some photos from my latest trip Farin Ruwa waterfall and to the EKA are up!

Facebook defence and an update/photos

2009-12-07T21:15:00.001Z

I didn't know about Facebook until about my second or third year of college. A friend recommended it to me as a good way for me to post my photos of recent concerts we had been to. I had been a bit reluctant, but what was one more 'social networking' site? I already had a Windows Space, MySpace, Bebo, Hyves and several others whose passwords I've long forgotten. So I signed up and became immersed in the world of Facebookery.

Ignoring the media's warning of the huge risks to sharing personal information (I like to live dangerously) I boldly displayed my personal information. (Who's going to want to pretend to be me, anyway?) Full name, age (even the year!), school and hometown were within reach of anyone looking. Bring it, identity thieves.

Several years, 392 friends (aren't I popular?), a couple videos, 357 photos tagged of me (a lot of them are from other people, I'm not THAT vain) and 82 albums later, I have a hard time thinking back to how life was in the BAF (Before the Age of Facebook). Facebook has always been keeping up-to-date, changing every few months to remain current in the interweb world. I'd say that's the main reason it hasn't gone the way of MySpace and its predecessors.

There are many who refuse to 'hop on the Facebook bandwagon'. The most common reason I've heard is that it's because it's so 'impersonal'. I disagree. While a 'poke' doesn't compare to a hug or a wall post to a conversation, Facebook is as impersonal as you make it. I have a theory that if the nay-sayers were born in Alexander Bell's time, they'd be rejecting the phone as "too impersonal". Or going back farther, they'd have rejected letters, Morse code and smoke signals. Each has had its era, each has been of use to society during its time. Just because there is almost always a more personal way to interact with someone, doesn't make it the best. For instance, if I heard about a friend's recent engagement, a phone call is more appropriate than me giving my buddy a big ol' smack on the lips. Not only would I risk a fist to the face, I'd be sure raise some questions in his fiancée's head. Not to mention my own girlfriend's. Overall, it's not always a good idea to be more personal.

Anti-FBers are quick to follow-up with the rhetorical question of: "Why not just pick up the phone?" I can think of a couple reasons. One, the phone is about half-way up on the hierarchy of personal interaction (below handwritten letters and well above the fist pump). And as I demonstrated above, jumping levels in the hierarchy is not a good idea. If someone made a comment that me laugh, I'm not going to call them, laugh, then hang up. If it's an old classmate's birthday, I'll congratulate them on Facebook. Chances are I don't even have their number, nor do I feel like risking an awkward "so, who is this??" conversation. (Don't let my 392 friends fool you, I wasn't all that popular in High School). Sometimes being LESS personal is better. A written "Happy Birthday" will be received well. Making a long-distance phone call to someone I haven't seen since grad to say the same two words will be received with various degrees of curiosity, confusion, creepiness and court meetings about restraining orders. The second reason I give Facebook the thumbs up instead of the phone is distance. I haven't lived in the same area code as the vast majority of my friends for more than half of each of the last two years. Not even the same continent. Phone calls are all but out of the discussion. Same with mail. It takes months for me to receive any from home. Not a good option. Facebook is easy, quick and free (always a pro for those of use from Dutch heritage).

Facebook has more pros for me than just being easier and cheaper than other forms of communication. I regularly meet a lot of other people for only short periods of time. People come in and out of the mission/volunteer world for as little as a week. I get to know them, then they're gone. Facebook lets me keep in touch with them for years after. But not only the people I meet briefly, those I'm closely connected to are readily available on Facebook. A lot of my friends, church members and family are there, (even my Grandpa!) It's been an amazing way to keep in touch with many of the people I know and have come to know. Long live Facebook!

ps, to anyone not on Facebook who has read this and would like to comment, I fully expect a phone call.

Oh, and for anyone (not just Facebook users) I've posted some photos from Kurra Falls. To reward those of you who are my dedicated blog readers (hey Mom) enjoy some photos that have yet to grace the book of face!

On Saturday, the Strydhort's invited me along with them, their oldest daughter and a bunch of her friends to a place the mission world here calls 'the causeway'. It's got this name from it's Irish counterpart called the Giant's Causeway. I visited the one in Northern Ireland on my way home last year and you can see what it's like in comparison in my Ireland photos on the right. It's a similar rock formation. Way back when there was volcanoes in Nigeria, this lava flow underwent a fairly unique cooling and ended up in pillars varying in hight, but almost each one is six-sided!

There is a river that runs through here and a few neat waterfalls. One downside is that the water is quite dirty and brown, leaving behind a lot of dirt on the formations. But still very neat to see some unique areas of God's creation!

As we were leaving, a bunch of kids saw us and followed. I was in the back near them and one sneakily held my hand the rest of the way to the car...

I also went to the EKA last week, which was very cool. I'm far too tired to give you a play-by-play right now, so you'll just have to suffer through a few of my favourite photos from the trip. This first one you may want to open up larger to see the woman carrying a bucket...

So now you have a taste of some more traditional African sights!

ps, less than 2 weeks!!

hoo boy...

2009-11-30T21:09:00.000Z

Time is really winding down now! I've currently got 21 days left in Nigeria before I make the 2-day trek back to Canada! Speaking of 2-day treks, I'm on one tomorrow with Niger State as my end point. I'll be travelling up with Jeremiah, who works with Water Wins, an organization that drills bore holes farther North where clean water is quite scarce and the terrain is too rocky for wells. I hope to be able to witness some of the work they're doing there and share it with you all! I've been to this area once last year for a few days. I was able to visit some of the villages and I really enjoyed it. This trip will be to about Friday or Saturday, long enough to enjoy, but short enough that it doesn't take up too much of my last few days.

I'm not sure what exaclty God has in store for me during these last few weeks, but I know He'll give me the strength I need to go through them. I'll miss Africa dearly, I've grown into Christ a lot while I've been here, and it will always hold a place in my heart. I actually find it harder to picture myself in Canada in this point than I do in Africa...

On the other hand, I'm very excited to be going home. As much as I recommend long-distance relationships (and I actually do. Just not necessarily 10 months...) I'm pretty pumped to see Julia again. And family and friends too, I guess...

It's been a great time. I recommend everyone get out of their comfort zone and culture to experience a different way of living. Trust me, living with intermittent electricity, unfamiliar faces, unknown languages, undrinkable tap water, a military-enforced curfew and all the other fun stuff here can change a person for the good! I don't think I'd recognize the Trevor from 2 years ago! The funny thing is, as different as things are here, I still haven't been able to get away from Dutch Bingo...

That's about it for now, I'm sure I'll come back at the end of the week with plenty of stories and lots of photos! For now, here's a couple shots of an abandoned building some of us explored and a more colour-filled photo. The building was initially started 25 or so years ago with the intent on being a Sheraton, but I've been told that due to money problems, it's remained crumbling since then. I wish I had an entire day to spare (and my tripod!) to spend taking photos in this place!

This is it from the top corner.

And this is looking down one of the many shafts...

And this is a deck of Dutch Blitz...

Just over a month left.

2009-11-19T23:01:00.000Z

Time is winding down. Slowly at times, quicker at others. But either way, I only have just over a month left in Nigeria.

A month seems like a long time. Until you start to plan it out. All the Sundays are already taken care of. Then there's a 5 day trip to Niger state I'm hoping to do. As well as travelling early to Abuja with friends. All the goodbyes I've got to schedule, as well as other events... this all adds up and a month quickly fills up and whizzes by.

I'm looking forward to going home. For the people: my family, my friends, my church, Julia... For the food. For the electricity. For stuff working like it's supposed to. For the ease of things. For the less hectic roads.

But I'm really going to miss this home. For the people. Nigerians, coworkers, friends... There has been such a community here. For example, this week I've yet to eat dinner in my own house. And don't have plans to until Saturday, when other people will be bringing food. I love this community. A lot of it is the mission community. Everyone loves to take care of each other. If someone is visiting from out of town for a few weeks, he/she will be fed and housed every day. We regularly meet to have discussions, for potlucks, holidays... One of the few things you can rely on in Nigeria is the people.

I hope to be able to mirror that when I get home. To be a part of a community. Not just a member IN it, but a part of. That if I was missing, people would notice. This isn't just a hubris thing, but that I'll be using my God-given gifts and talents to others' benefits. That other people would be gaining from what God's given me. That I recognise that God has not only given me what He has so that I could benefit, but that everyone around me could as well.

As for when I return, that's also filling up pretty quick. I fly from Abuja on the 21st, landing in Toronto in the afternoon on the 22nd. That leaves me one whole day before Christmas Eve to get over jetlag. Then on the 26th, Julia and I will be boarding a bus to St Louis to go to Urbana, returning sometime on the 1st. Overall, it's going to be pretty busy! Hopefully I get over the jetlag quickly and can work out to visit as many people as I can. Don't get offended if I can't see you within the first couple weeks of my return!

Anyway, if you're intrested, there are more Facebook photos. These are from when I went to Lafia and Kano. Enjoy!

Some photos

2009-11-14T20:10:00.000Z

Hey all, I've posted a couple Facebook albums. One from Yankari (back when Julia was here) and one of an aqueduct hike I've done a few times over the 'seasons'. It's neat to see the differences after the rains... Links are on the right!

If I can't remember what I've written on here...

2009-11-09T15:41:00.001Z

I figure you probably don't remember either. So if your memory is better than mine and I repeat things, I apologize.

A bunch of us recently went to Farin Ruwa (White Water) waterfall again. The weather was a lot better this time around (even though it DID rain - quite odd, considering rainy season is over) and we were able to stay more than five minutes at the falls. We went in the hopes that we could find somewhere to set up camp and spend the night. We packed our stuff, left before 8 in the morning, picked up wood on the way there and drove the 3 hours. The paved roads are bad enough, it's the dirt ones that take forever to drive on. Even if it is a LOT of fun to drive on! I managed to convince Matt to let me drive the dirt road on the way back. Whatta guy! It's a lot of fun to drive a 4x4 on roads deeply scarred from rainy season. Plus driving through a few streams as well.

The last time we went, we took a bus, which wasn't as 'agile' over the rough roads and led to us walking an hour to the falls. This time, thanks to a couple 4x4s, we were able to drive right up to the 'entrance' of the falls (a small hut put up back in the days that Nigeria had real tourists). We walked the last few minutes along a path whose sides were littered with old benches (again, from back in the touristy days).

It was a lot of fun exploring around the falls and the rapids. Dustin, Matt and Steve all went for swims, but I didn't feel like risking parasites and having to take meds in a few months just in case. So I followed the water down a bit along the rocks and got some cool views of the falls.

After exploring around the falls for a while, we went back up to the cars for some lunch. That's when we noticed the ominous dark clouds approaching. After a while the wind picked up so we quickly decided that heading back now was a better option than camping in a potential rainstorm. We packed up then headed back as the rain started to come down.

Apart from this, not a whole lot else has been going on. I'm learning more about the computer I've been working with with the aim to teach most of the Beacon of Hope staff to be able to take over and continue when I leave. I'm still hoping to go to Urbana with Julia in December, but still have to figure out HOW to get there. And how to afford it, heh. For those that don't know, Urbana is a huge mission conference held ever three years since the forties. This and the last one was held in St. Louis. Last year had 22,000 attendees (told ya it was big!) and this year I'm sure will be similar. The conference itself will be awesome (goes from the 27th to an hour after the New Year bell tolls) but it'll also be sweet to meet up with some friends of mine that will be there too. If we go, we'll be able to check out what's going on in missions around the rest of the world and hopefully open some new doors and learn a lot! You may be aware that I return on the 22nd. Which doesn't leave a whole lotta room to even get over jet lag or see family and friends before I'm off for 5 days to the States. And throw Christmas in there and it gets even tighter... But it'd still be worth it.

Last week we went to a different water fall, called Kurra Falls (not sure what Kurra means) and it was cool too. It didn't have much of a straight drop, but was still very impressive! Keep an eye here for some Facebook photos (eventually). To tide you until then, here's a dragonfly...

Also, here's another photo from Farin Ruwa. So close to the bottom there's a constant mist, which tends to coat everything. For example, even a camera lens...

Well, that's it for now...

Back from Lagos!

2009-10-31T21:11:00.001Z

Well, after waiting at Lagos airport for more than 6 hours (ugh) I made my way back safe and sound 'home' to Jos. I was in a part of Lagos called Agege. It's in Northern Lagos (aka, nowhere near the cool skyscrapers and sweet beaches on the coast) and it more resembled Jos, albeit a MUCH busier and MUCH more heavily populated. And much more expensive. I'd tell you how much I had to spend on a pack of cookies, but I'd be telling you in Naira and a lot of you wouldn't understand. But for the few of you... 600 Naira for a regular pack of Hob Nobs. Crazy!

Lagos was okay otherwise. I did some training with some of our partners there, teaching them how to properly implement and complete the surveys, as well as how to enter the data once the surveys are complete. For the rest of the time... I read.

and read...

Which is never a bad thing. I finished two books! The Three Musketeers (first novel I've read in... I can't remember how long) and The Art of Prayer. Both were good, in their respective categories. The Three Musketeers reminded me how much I love reading novels, while The Art of Prayer reminded me of how little I know of prayer, use prayer, make prayers or even believe in prayers. Not coincidentally (I've given up believing in coincidences) in Lagos was the first time (from what I can recall) that I've instantly been given what I've prayed for. During some of my ample time to kill, I had been mulling over what's too come in my life. Leaving Africa. Going home. No job. And the many other life-altering happenings that are due to occur in the near future. After thinking about this stuff for a while, I had become overwhelmed with an overbearing sense of panic. I'll have no job! That means no money! That means no future! That means... and on and on in my silly human logic. But then I prayed. I lifted all these fears to God... and He took them from me! I was left with such a calm and peace that I unashamedly say I almost cried. God's got all my future in His hands. And I wouldn't want them anywhere else!

At the airport, during my super long wait, I started reading a book I borrowed from Dustin called The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. This is a type of book that when I read it, it severely shrinks my hope of ever writing a book (a secret fantasy of mine). In this case because someone smarter, funnier and with a lot more knowledge of the Body of Christ under his belt has already written something smarter, funnier and to do a lot more with the Body of Christ than I ever could. The book is brilliant. I've been meaning to read it for a while now, as several other people I know have read it and recommended it. I'm three chapter to the end right now (I'll be sure to let you know if I have a change of opinion after reading the rest) and read everything but those three chapters that day. Couldn't put it down! He speaks so clearly of how we as Christians are to live as the Body of Christ. I couldn't find ANY Biblical argument myself for anything he was saying. Money, materialism, war, death penalty, violence... I did nothing but laugh at his jokes and agree with him. It makes me all the more wanting to go to Urbana this year, since he's one of the speakers. Another fantasy, just not so secret...

I'm excited to finish the book but I'm more excited to be following in the path God's set for me, a path that I know won't be easy, but it's the path He's laid out, He's guiding me on, He's lighting up, He's giving me the strength for... what in the world do I have to worry about anyway?

Nada!

Now here's a couple photos for your viewing pleasure!

An pleasant breakfast accident.

I took very few photos in Lagos but here's a (blurry) one that gives you a feel for how packed it is there.

On the airplane safety card. Apparently in the event of a crash, they recommend a wing dance party...

Lagos

2009-10-25T21:18:00.000Z

I found out today at a goodbye dinner that I will be gone most/all of next week. I'll be flying to Lagos tomorrow sometime where I'll be doing some work with the promoters and teaching some computer data entry as well. So by the end of the month I'll have two trips I need to update everyone on! Keeps adding up...

Lagos is the second largest city in Africa (almost 8 million people) and has a reputation of being a not-so-safe city, so I'm a little nervous about that. I'm not sure what I'll be up to or how things will be like (besides hot) so I'm praying for a safe and enjoyable week there, as well as the flights in and out. On my way out I'll be on my own as Alice (my coworker) will be travelling on to Port Harcourt. Hopefully I can manage to make my way back to Jos on my own.

Nothing else new to report, besides an embarrassing locking-in-of-keys with my car in town the other day. I'll spare the details, but let you know that the chocolate I so looked forward to eating (chocolate is rare and expensive here) became quite gooey by the time I finally managed to get back into the car.

Less than two months left...

2009-10-24T16:16:00.003Z

This Wednesday was the official "2 months left" marker. I've got mixed feelings about this.

2 months is...

on one hand, too long.
on the other, too short.

Two months seems like a loooong time until I'm home.

Two months seems waaaaay too short to have left.

I'll be saying goodbye to dozens of friends I've made here. People I've learned from and owe a lot to. It's going to be hard saying goodbye to them, not knowing if I'll ever see them again.

It's also going to be very hard going home to a level of uncertainty. I can proudly boast in advance that I know God will take care of me and that I really don't have anything to worry about as long as I'm living my life for Him. But that doesn't mean I don't often worry about all the 'unknowns' in returning to Canada for an indefinite amount of time. I'm also confident that this is the path God has laid for me, so I've no regrets and don't expect to have any for leaving, but I will miss Nigeria a huge deal. It may sound cheesy, but the cliché saying is true: part of my heart is here. I love Nigeria, the Nigerian people, the missionaries, the other volunteers, the landscapes, the culture... granted, there are things I don't enjoy (like the hours long line up for gas) but there are so many things I'll miss. I hope to take a lot of what I've learned and put it into practice in my life in Canada as well. Where religion so obvious in day-to-day life as to make it into the names of stores or products (there's a bookstore called "God's Own Bookstore" in town). While it may make me chuckle, it also makes me realize that being a Christ follower SHOULD be something obvious. We're not supposed to be behind-the-scenes or behind enemy lines hoping to snag an atheist and get him on our side. We're supposed to be blatantly and obviously followers of our Lord. "They will know we are Christians by our love". They're won't need to guess.

I also hope to be able to share what I've learned and the experiences I've made in my 'other' homeland. I'd love to be able to get more people (mostly youth) involved in longer-term mission/volunteer work. By getting the word out there of mission organizations like the CRC and SIM and the countless others and getting my generation involved in them, God can use them in places like Nigeria. I'm excited for this opportunity to be able to share my past experiences, what I've learned from God, what He's shown to me and how He's carried me through. I'm excited to get more people involved in this line of God's work!

If only I knew how to go about doing that...

suggestions??

Also, here's a photo of me in Kano last week. I realize I've yet to update about that, so I'll be sure to soon!

Here I am greeting one of the groups of younger men who we did a program with.

Thank God for pain!

2009-10-11T10:28:00.003Z

I don't have a whole lot to say on the subject from personal experience, especially not presently. The most I have is a small sore inside my upper lip that refuses to heal and stings anytime I try to eat. It's placement is pretty annoying as it's constantly being irritated by my tooth, making it's healing process quite long. But anyway, the reason for this post is because of the sermon I just heard. I didn't catch his name, but he's a retired pastor from the States on his 16th trip to Nigeria! He's been working very closely with an organization that makes wheelchairs available here. Apparently polio is most common here in Nigeria, especially in the North (where I'm going in about 30 minutes and I'm frantically packing a last few minute things). He spoke of a scientist who dealt a lot with leprosy (I wrote the doctor's name down, but have packed my notebook already, will post later). He shattered the centuries-old belief that leprosy caused the deterioration of the flesh and the need for amputation by discovering that the lack of feeling pain was it's source. Because the patients couldn't feel pain, they didn't know to take care of small sores. These eventually became infections and would lead to amputations. Amputations because of no pain. If there was still pain during infection, countless people would still have their limbs. Pain is important.

Thank God for pain.

The pastor also spoke of another reason for our pain. That our pain is for another's benefit.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Our pain helps us to heal. Our pain helps us to heal others.

I can't say a whole lot more on this as I've got to get a quick shower in before I run out. I'll leave you with the song we sang to close the service.

Brother, let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

We are pilgrims on a journey.
We are brothers on the road.
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you;
Speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping.
When you laugh, I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we've seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven,
We shall find such harmony
Born of all we've known together
Of Christ's love and agony.

Brother, let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

Thank God for pain!

I'll be back on Friday to share my week with you!

ps, I just remembered... today's my birthday! :)

Kano trip

2009-10-09T12:58:00.003Z

Didn't know if I'd have time to post something later today or Sunday morning, as I'll be spending my Thanksgiving in Kano. Kano is a city farther North and will take several hours to get there. I'll be attending a workshop there for Beacon of Hope. I'm leaving Sunday at noon, so I get to spend a good chunk of my birthday in a car. hmm...

Apart from that, there's not a whole lot new. I do have a new roomie. Ben. He's been here for a few months but he's been staying somewhere else. I mentioned that I have a whole house to myself and he moved in. Pretty fun. He's teaching at Hillcrest.

Nepa (electricity for you non-Nigerian lingo folk) has been great lately! It's normally on for a few random hours each day, but it's backwards now! I'll stay on for more than 6 hours at a time! It's pretty exciting to be able to constantly have my laptop fully charged. hmm, I think Nepa heard me, because now it's gone off. It just can't take a compliment! You never know when it's going to be off or on, which is a pain, because if I knew WHEN it would be on, it would be very easy to schedule around that. But, that doesn't happen, so I can't.

I have been told that we have it lucky in Jos though. Some people in more remote locations and villages are still without power. I suppose no matter how bad any of us thinks we have it... someone's always worse. Very humbling and a good eye-opener. Makes for a whole lot less complaining and a lot more appreciation!

well, I should be off to pack. I leave you with a recent photo of a Nigerian landscape. Hope all you Canucks have a great Thanksgiving weekend and all you non-Canucks... enjoy your normal weekend!

I've got a lot of things I want to say here...

2009-10-05T20:27:00.002Z

but not right now.
Instead I'll leave you waiting in suspense.

But, I don't want to leave you COMPLETEly empty handed...

So enjoy some photos of Farin Ruwa (white water) Waterfall! It happened a while ago (when Julia was here) but I just posted them recently.

Until next time...

Decisions are hard!

2009-09-20T10:48:00.009Z

If you're a part of Burlington Fellowship congregation and you read the bulletin this morning (during collection, if you're like me...) then some of this will be a repeat for you. But I might just throw in something new, so don't leave! There'll probably be a witty remark or two, so you'd me missing out, really.

If you didn't read last week's post, you should probably do that first, or else this won't make all that much sense... Now, onto the blog.

Everyone seemed to have known my decision before I had the chance to make it. If bets were made, no one would have made any money because no one was betting the other way.

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. It's very hard to live feeling your heart being pulled in two directions. But through a lot of Bible reading and studying, prayer and spending time with God, Julia and I have agreed that we feel God is calling me to return in December to Canada and pick up a role God has set for me to fill. Some people may grin or shrug and say 'figured that, no surprise!' but it truly was a hard and long decision to make. While I'm sad to leave the country I've come to love, filled with so many of God's people, I'm excited to transfer what I've learned from them to North America. I told a Nigerian friend and colleague how a part of me wished I could continue the work longer, he told me "it's not the length of time you serve, but the foundation you've laid through your work and relationships which allows others to build on and grow." This has been a comforting thought as I begin to realize I won't be returning to Africa - in the near future, anyway. ;) I've been blessed to be given the opportunity to build on many a relationship foundation.

I hope and pray that the work I've done and continue to do will be built upon for His glory.

A passage we read at church this morning also gave me some comfort. In Matthew 4 there is the well known passage of Christ's temptation by Satan (I prefer the translation of 'test'). In verse one, a verse I've read several times, I finally took note of a significance I never did before.

"Then Jesus was lead by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil."

Christ was led by the Spirit to be tested. Satan didn't drag Him to the desert. It was God who brought Jesus to the desolate and hard terrain of the desert (after 40 days of fasting, no less!) to be tempted by the enemy. The Spirit doesn't always lead us to where we think it would, and it won't necessarily be a walk in the park either! But, if we follow where the Spirit leads, endure the tests put before us and keep God in our hearts... then we will be blessed, and God will be glorified. "Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended Him."

Several of Jesus' rebukes to Satan come from Deuteronomy 8, where Moses is giving a parallel explanation to Israel. Explaining how the hardships they endured, the suffering they were under... was not just punishment.

"The LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you... to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you... but remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth"

Similarly in Judges 2 and 3, God is explained to have caused nations to rise up against the Israelites. "I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did." God also brought up enemies to teach Israel how to defend themselves: "the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experiences any of the wars in Canan (He did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience)."

I think we can all find this fits today as well, not just for me in my particular situation. When you see that God arranges for tests as a way to teach; that difficult times are means for God to instill trust in Him alone, then we can truly thank God for hardship. We can't always tell while we are in a time of suffering why we are in this particular suffering. It is possibly that we may never know the exact reason, but we don't NEED to. I don't know for what EXACT reason God is calling me to Canada at a time when I feel much at home here. I know SOME of the reasons, but I can't tell you all of them. I do know it's for my benefit and His glory. And I can't think of any better reasons! (Especially the second one). Maybe you've suffered something so that you can further spread God's love. For example, who better to counsel and help someone who's been abused than someone who'd been abused in the past? We need to use what God has taught us in our school of suffering to display His ever-present hand in our lives.

Praise God for hardships.

Praise God for suffering.

Praise God that He uses us to spread His kingdom.

Praise God that He cares enough about us to test, train and teach us.

I wonder...

2009-09-14T21:07:00.003Z

In all my searching to fill a hole for God...

have I left one in Canada that's the perfect fit?

Also, check out more Obudu pictures here and in the list on the right.

Two in a row??

2009-09-08T19:06:00.004Z

Hello again! I know I JUST wrote a blog. You're probably tired of my constant updates. I know this is very unusual. Two blogs in the same month is fairly uncommon, let alone two blogs DAYS in a row! So, if you didn't happen to read my last blog, go ahead and scroll down first, there's a couple updates in there you DON'T want to miss! When you're done that, onto the new blog!

I'm pretty sure Psalm 37 is my favourite Psalm of the Bible. It not only gives the promise of God's blessing, but reminds us quite clearly that God's mercy, while given and undeserved, should invoke in us desire to live a life for Him.

I wrote a blog about verse 4 last year sometime, specifically about how we often read verses like that one backwards.

It says: "Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give the desires of your heart."
We read: "You'll get that stuff you want if you do some things for God first."

This isn't a conscious 'translation' of the passage. It is one often heard being yelled by prosperity preachers everywhere yet somehow happens to stick... Rather than the desires of our heart changing to match those of God's, you expect earthly blessings for 'doing your part'.

Related to this is taking texts out of context. This verse would look great on a fridge magnet, church sign or bookmark, but I almost guarantee that people who read it as a stand-alone verse will be thinking of earthly blessings as the reward. The only thing that comes close to earthly rewards in Psalm 37 is how the faithful are promised that "He will exalt you to inherit the land." (Land doesn't work itself. Sounds like more work than pure blessing to me...) Hardly the big-screen TV I was expecting. The reward that IS stated after verse for is that "He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun." I'd take that over a TV.

Protection is something else that is continually promised. Protection and inheritance of the land. In fact, the old man (v 25) who wrote the Psalm tends to speak how less is better. "Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked".

The less you have
The more blessed you become.

Ever meal is transformed into a blessing. Every new day is something to praise God for. Each drop of water is a constant reminder of God's protection of those who take refuge in him.

Another apparent theme in this chapter (this one was what really hit home for me) is when the author talks of TIME.

Old man David reminds us repeatedly that God's actions might not be happening at this exact moment. But they will.

The Lord's actions against the wicked: "Like the grass the will soon wither", "A little while and the wicked will be no more", "they will vanish", "all sinners will be destroyed", and

"The LORD laughs at the wicked for He knows their day is coming."

Might not be happening just yet. But it's coming.

David also gives explicit commands. He tells us to be active in our faith, but also to be patient. Patient because the blessings God's promised

might not be happening just yet. But it's coming.

Patience in Psalm 37:

"Do not fret";
"Trust in the LORD and do good";
"Commit your way to the LORD";
"Trust in Him";
"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him";
"Do not fret";
"Refrain from anger and turn from wrath";
"Do not fret";
"Turn from evil and do good";
"Wait for the LORD and keep His way."

Be still. Be patient. Wait. Wait patiently. Wait for the LORD. Do not fret, fret, fret!

I think we're supposed to wait. And patiently...

What are you waiting for? I've been hoping for an answer or two myself. Some direction perhaps. I have some meetings coming up about my work here, then Julia and I will evaluate whether or not I will continue here in Nigeria for another year as I'd originally agreed to in July last year (about 4 months before Julia and I started dating...) There's a lot more factors in the equation than just that of our relationship, so Julia and I are praying that we will be able to weigh them out and that whatever conclusion is reached, it will be done in a God-pleasing manner.

This is something I've been slow to learn; that God doesn't necessarily have a solid, black-and-white, written-in-stone plan for me. There can be variations, I think. If I'm following the path I'm on in a God-pleasing way... then I'm on the right path.

"If the LORD delights in a man's way, He makes his steps firm;
though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with His hand."

This is a verse that has brought much comfort to someone assuming there was going to be a burning-bush moment where every detail of my future path was be laid out.

God's plan for Julia and I may not become obvious, but I'm comforted knowing that if the path we follow is followed in order to please God and not ourselves, then hopefully it will be a delight to God and He'll be holding our hands the entire way.

It is a great comfort. It promises me that whichever path is chosen - as long as it is done in delight of the LORD - God will make our steps firm.

No path will be easy. Two obvious scenarios are that I leave a country I've grown to love which is in desperate need of help, or I continue to be away from all my loved ones and miss all the opportunities I know are waiting for me in Canada.

During the next week or two, Julia and I will be spending a lot of time in prayer over this. I'm also asking for your prayers for us as well. I'm praying that we can come to a conclusion that will be pleasing to God, as well as the strength to carry on along the path. There will be moments of stumbling, I know, but God will be there.

This chapter of the Bible has been a great help to me in the last couple years, and I hope my ramblings on it have been thought provoking for others too.

Cheers!

2009-09-07T19:06:00.002Z

Tired of checking up every couple weeks or so only to realize I still haven't written a blog? Just put your email address in that nifty box over there on the right and you'll get an email when I FINALLY post a new one! Nifty! (Cheers to Dustin for showing me how to do that).

Speaking of cheers...

I recently listened to a cover of TV theme song. I always enjoyed the song, but this artist, who's name I've forgotten, said the reason he always loved the song, is because he felt it should make you think of church. I agree with him. Imagine this being sung by a guy in a cool accent with an acoustic guitar... Then also think how you can better make your church into this place. Don't leave it up to anyone else, k? I've found I've done that a lot in the past, hope to change that (when I'm a regular member of a church again...)

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;

Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came...

Also, I found this terribly funny.

That was fun...

2009-08-26T09:45:00.007Z

But short...

Julia came to visit me for a month. (see Facebook photos) ===>

It was a grand ol' time. But now she's back home. That's not as much fun...

We did a lot of fun things though. You can check out a lot of them on that link over there on the right. But one of the things I hadn't posted on the F-book just yet is our trip to Obudu. Obudu is in the Eastern mountains of Nigeria, bordering Cameroon. The sights are breathtaking. God's got a pretty amazing creation!

Obudu used to be a cattle ranch but it's now a very fancy resort. They still have the cattle, just now you can have a delicious chunk of one for dinner! yum! I've honestly never been somewhere this fancy. Even in Canada. It wasn't cheap, so we stayed somewhere that was. We crammed four of us (Amber, Erica, Julia and myself) into one tiny room. There was a double bed that we managed to fit two mattresses around. One went on the side, one on the end of the bed. I was the lucky one at the end on the floor, so I got to smell Amber and Erica's feet each night...

The drive there was long. Took more than 9 hours (especially after our driver drove the wrong way for more than 30 minutes) but it was worth it. Obudu is one of the highest points in Nigeria and it has two ways to the top. One is a cool snakey road that winds its way back and forth up the green hills. The other (and even cooler!) is to take the longest cable car in the world and dangle above the hills!

We drove up the hills to get to our 'hotel' (too much luggage for the cable car...) and were swallowed by the clouds on the way. But not before getting a great view.

The next day we thought we would spend at the side of the pool. The pool is back down the mountain (too cold and cloudy at the top...) so we headed for the cable car. We bought our tickets for the cable car and the pool at the resort and took the trip down. It was very cloudy at first, but once we broke through... wow! So many times I wanted to just stop the car and take in the sights for longer. The cable car took us over several hills, with towers on the top of each, creating a new and even more amazing view each time we topped the next hill. It's hard, impossible really, to fully describe it all.
We chilled at the pool at the bottom for the day. Virtually the only people there for the entire day. Again, nicest pool I've ever been to. Outdoors (of course) in a valley at the bottom of the mountains. I hope I'm painting an adequate picture. The pool itself was quite the sight, let alone the 360° view around us! Two waterslides, two diving boards, a kiddie pool with fountain, two seperate pools and one complete with a tiny island! Needless to say, I did not feel like I was still in Nigeria.

We had lots of fun on the slides and lounging about for the day. I burned (of course) but it was still great. Then we took the cable car back up to the top, seeing more amazing sights all around us.

We ate at the ranch restaurants a few of the nights and had delicious meals. Thick juicy steak for me! AND coffee!! Like, REAL coffee! It's a rare thing in Nigeria, and well cherished. We had several cups each.

The rest of our trip consisted of a horseback ride (which was less of a "ride" as we thought, and more of "being led around slowly on a hourse for half an hour"... and a few hikes. There is a canopy walk that takes you right into the trees! Also cool.

Another hike brought us to a grotto where we could have swam. If it wasn't cold. Oh, and if there wasn't a constant stream of tourists...

I think that about sums up Obudu. Hard to really sum that all up though.

Apart from Obudu, we also went to Yankari Game Reserve where we went on a safari and sat in the hot springs for the rest of the day. We visited the Jos Zoo and Wildlife Park and Farin Ruwa Waterfall ('Farin Ruwa' means 'White Water' in Hausa).

Pictures of them are yet to come, bear with me! (I don't want to overdose you).

Enjoy some more pictures of God's beautiful creation on display in Obudu...

better... worse

2009-07-21T21:39:00.009Z

Got my iPod fixed!

before...

after!

And I lost about $50 worth of malaria medication...

before...

after!

That happened a while ago already. Just turned into powder. No idea why. But I'm okay with it. It was making me bald.

If you're curious, yes, my hair HAS been growing back. *thumbs up*
If you're even MORE curious... 44 hours, 10 minutes left. *thumbs WAY up*

Things are going well. Been busy at work and been busy preparing for Julia's visit. yay!

Can you hear me now?

2009-07-13T20:16:00.003Z

Cellphone reception isn't always the greatest in Africa...

I haven't been a very faithful blog updater this year, which probably annoys me more than it does you. I liked to hear from people and keep them up to date, but don't get a whole lot of that when I don't update... so it's kinda a lose-lose situation. I hope to turn over a new leaf with that, but I'm not sure how realistic that's going to be. Especially in the next month or so. I'll be a tad 'distracted'... heh.

Things have been going well. I've got one last Hausa class tomorrow, then I'll be going to work until Julia comes. (woot!)

I've also added a handy-dandy link list to the side of my blog ===>
It's got all my Facebook pictures from Africa (last year and this) plus a few others. I didn't include any concerts or the like... Would've been a long list. Rather than posting the links here IN the blog, I'll post them there and mention in my blog when I've posted a new album. That way, if you ever missed a post or feel like looking back, you can! How lucky of you!

Right now I'm reading a book called The Heavenly Man which, according to the front cover, is "the remarkable true story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun".

'Remarkable' is an understatement.

This man has gone through SO much. Prison, beatings, prison again and again, more beatings, friends martyred, persecuted, family imprisoned, family persecuted... It's incredible. A man of incredible faith. It really makes me see how God takes care of those who fully put their trust in him. Which seems an odd thing to say after listing off many of the things he's suffered. One chapter chronicles his incredible escape from prison and later from China. I can't even summarize it properly. He listened to God and didn't hesitate. Because of that he was able to literally just walk out of the prison. (Walk after being crippled, mind you!)

I pray for such faith. To ignore my 'conscience'/the Devils prompting and follow God's commands. To daily pick up my cross for Him. Often we pass up suffering and reason our way out of it.

"Why would God ever want me to suffer?"
"If doing such-and-such were to kill me, what's the point? I could do so much more if I was alive."

I find myself often using excuses like this. The last one I think is used by me and others to reason with ourselves as to why 'God wouldn't want' us to go through with it. One thing I've been realizing a lot of lately is how God brings His people out of incredible situations. If you believe and follow Him, God will lift you out of what you thought was a dead-end. Often in ways you never would've thought possible. I wonder how many Israelites wondered as they walked towards the Dead Sea with Pharaoh and his army behind them: "I bet God's just going to move all the water out of the way so we can just stroll across". They were running into death (by man's reasoning) and God let them walk to safety. This happens throughout the Bible repeatedly. And it doesn't stop. Brother Yun is an modern example.

Prosperity preachers are common in Nigeria, but their teachings reach the West as well. I regularly hear of 'sermons' about how God is essentially just waiting to give you loads of money and riches. I guess we just take that backwards sometimes. The West HAS loads of money and riches, therefore God has blessed us. Right? I dunno. Sometimes I see the wealth of the West as less of a blessing from God and more of an enticement into a smug life by Satan. Here I daily see blind men being led around by children, cripples dragging their legs as they pull themselves around by their hands, elderly women asking for food, children holding out bowls and begging... I see all this, and I remember those who are thankful for all that God has blessed them with. I'd still say that wealth is a blessing from God, but Satan twists it to his favour. Having thanks isn't just enough. I'm guilty of this as well, don't think I'm preaching. Working in Toronto for a while got me into the habit of ignoring beggars and I often do the same here. I still don't like handing out money, however. Not because I feel I 'deserve' the money more than someone else, I know God's given me every cent He has to use for His glory. But because I don't know enough about how the money will be used. I'd often have used that as an excuse to not give out ANYthing. "He's just going to buy booze." But my way around it now is to buy a big box of packaged cookies and keep them in my car to hand out to the kids when I can. I'll let you know how this pans out...

Not to be taken literally...

2009-07-09T21:50:00.007Z

A song we learned in Hausa class, to the tune of "The B-I-B-L-E":

Littafi Mai Tsarki, abinchin rai ne shi.
Akwai koshi sai ka zo ka ci Littafi Mai Tsarki.

Translation:

The Book that owns Holiness, it is the food for life.
There is satisfaction, so then you come and eat the Book that owns Holiness.

My Hausa class is almost finished, just one more day left. I had 'the big test' today. It was an oral test, which is good. The less papers with big red Xs, the better. The classes have been fun. Got to know a bunch of other missionary/volunteer people better. Oh, and I learned some Hausa.

Julia comes in less than two weeks time! Getting closer and closer!

Before I forget, here's the Facebook photos of the Nigeria vs Kenya game.

We celebrated the 4th of July here with a swim at the local pool and a bbq. Well, the Americans celebrated it, I celebrated a late Canada Day. Here's Erica, Debbie, Amber, Dustin and the BBQ Master.
For Canada Day, my one housemate made me a poster. Stayed up until 1am the day before. Whatta guy! Guess he ran out of things to put on it, so he put a picture of Julia and a prayer card from a former volunteer who was here (Janina) who is also Canadian.A while ago, we had a goodbye/dressup party (another one...) with the theme being Blast from the Past. I went for the Julius look. Complete with laurel and a bloody knife in my back. Realized I'd never posted a photo from it I guess... So here it is. From left to right: Lisa (aka Eve), Emmanuel (aka Obi Wan Kenobi), Mark (aka didn't-dress-up-for-the-party), Matt=pilgrim, Kari is a hippy, Micah took the theme a little literally and dressed up as a blast from the past, then there's me, Julius on the end. In the front is the bride of Frankenstein, a baby, Jane Fonda? and another Eve. Oh, and Rene there in the middle is dressed up as a cavewoman (or me from the last party).I'll end this blog with a fake letter we had read to us one day during devotions. I enjoyed it and found a version of it online. Hope it makes you think as much as it did to me!

To: Rabbi Paul of Tarsus
First Christian Church
Antioch, Syria

Dear Mr. Paul: I have your application for missionary appointment before me, and will be as frank as possible concerning your qualifications as a foreign missionary. We have to be very careful in choosing our missionaries, and our Missions Board has reviewed your case thoroughly. We have decided that it would be unwise to send you to the foreign field for the following reasons:

It has come to our attention that you are doing secular work on the side. We do not feel that making tents and full time ministry go together very well. It seems that you do not have enough experience in trusting the Lord for your income. You should make up your mind whether you want to preach or continue your profession.
Your previous actions have been very rash and unseemly for a minister. We learned that in a public meeting you opposed Dr. Simon Peter, an esteemed minister with a high reputation. We also hear that you argued so violently with some of our ministers that a special council meeting had to be called at Jerusalem to prevent a serious split in the churches. We frown on such radicalism. For your own good, I am enclosing a copy of Daius’ Carnegus book on “How to Win Jews and Influence Greeks.”
You have consistently conflicted with mature Jewish brethren in nearly every city you have visited who simply want to encourage the converted Pagans to be properly circumcised. Paul, you must know that these men are our most learned sages with a deep sense of the roots and history of our faith. As well, and more importantly, these men control the synagogues you could be ministering in if you would simply tone down your dialogue into a more friendly and respectful exchange.
In checking back, we discovered your Christian education consisted of a three year course in Arabia. We find that the Arabian school has not been approved by our accreditation board.
Further, you admit to being an unskilled public speaker. Paul, surely you must know that people expect fine elocution from men of God, and that as a denomination we stand for the highest levels of excellence in the pulpit. Yet instead of going to much-needed oratory classes you spend your time making tents instead. From your correspondence, you also appear to be spending a considerable amount of time writing letters to insignificant little “churches” that meet in homes. Honestly now; do you really think that such misguided activities are what will lead to your success in the world of religion? We strongly suggest that you put down your tools and set aside your pen, and instead practice hand gestures and facial expressions and voice modulation in front of a mirror for several hours a day until you come up to par.
We also hear a rumor that you are a snake handler. We don’t have all the details on that episode at Melita, but such a reputation could only hurt the true cause of Christ and the Church.
It has come to the attention also that you often emphasize “the power of God” and “the gifts of the Spirit.” Also that you speak in tongues a great deal. Surely you realize that such as this only drives off the better class of people, and attracts only the riff-raff. Not only do you admit to “speaking in tongues” more than anyone else, you also state that you wish all of us would speak in tongues as well. Keep these personal practices to yourself! Do you want to split our denomination wide open? It would be better to tone down those more sensational forms of worship. You sound as though you are “off the deep end.”
It has been proven to our satisfaction that you had hands laid on you at Antioch with prophecy going forth, with none of the Apostles or Headquarters brethren present to conduct this ordination service in the prescribed manner. Again, all this “spooky mysticism” must stop immediately! Why can’t you be more conservative like us?
We see here that you have a jail record in several places. If this is true, it puts you in a bad light, for our denomination has always stood for a high standard of civic responsibility, and I fear it would damage our reputation to have someone representing us that had served time in jails and prisons. Frankly, Mr. Paul, we seriously doubt you could have been innocent and the judge wrong in so many cases. It just doesn’t look right.
It seems that you are a troublemaker, Mr. Paul. Several business men of Ephesus have written us that you were the cause of severe loss of business to them and even stirred mob violence. You must learn to cultivate the friendship and influence of men such as these.
We also have some details of a lurid “over the wall in a basket” episode at Damascus, plus a stoning at Lystra, and several other violent actions taken against your ministry. Haven’t you ever suspected that conciliatory behavior and gentler words might gain you more friends? We have never condoned such sensationalism in the ministry. This is just not the type of missionary that we send out.
We have learned through channels that following some trouble with a preacher on the island of Cyprus, you began to allow yourself to be known by the Gentile pronunciation of your name rather than the proper Hebrew. Yet another conflict, and then a name change. This does not seem to us to be conduct becoming to the ministry.
You admitted in your application that in the past you neglected such needy fields as Bithynia, just because “the Spirit didn’t lead that way,” and that you undertook a hazardous journey on the strength of a dream you had at Troas. Mr. Paul, surely you don’t expect us to go along with such flimsy and fantastic excuses for your seemingly purposeless wanderings?
Many times you did not stay long enough, in our opinion, to get a church established. You left your converts many times without even a pastor to guide them, and without setting the church in order in some good hierarchical denomination.
We hear also from Troas that you preach too long, one sermon lasting almost twenty-four hours, even to the extent that a young man fell asleep and was seriously injured. We understand that you claim to have restored his life and raised him from the dead by falling on him and embracing him. What nonsense! We need practical men in the ministry, Mr. Paul, not high strung emotional radicals. Our advice is for you to shorten your sermons considerably. We find that about twenty minutes is the longest a minister can hold the attention of his audience these days. Our motto is “Stand up, speak up, and shut up.”
It is reported from your home church that you could not get along with your fellow ministers; that John Mark–a commendable young man and nephew of one of our leading ministers–had to leave your party in the middle of a journey; and that you had a violent quarrel with gentle, good natured Barnabas. Now these men are well thought of in Jerusalem and we wonder why you are always having trouble with your fellow workers?
We have notarized affidavits from four very popular and influential preachers: Diotrephes, Demas, Hymenaeus, and Alexander; to the effect that it is impossible for them to cooperate with either you or your program.
From what we hear, you seem to think that you have some direct sanction from on-high, boasting about your revelations and that God has chosen you to reveal some “Mystery”. Can’t you realize that any truth that is to be revealed would come through Headquarters to the recognized, established brethren, and that after it had been checked by our Procedure and Doctrine Committee that we would pass it on to the ministry?
You spend too much time talking about “the second coming of Christ”. Your letters to the people at Thessalonica were almost entirely devoted to that theme. Put first things first.
In a recent sermon, you said, “God forbid that I should glory in anything but the cross of Christ.” It seems to us that you also ought to glory in our heritage, our denominational creeds, our confessions and distinctives, and the World Federation of Churches.
Finally, we hear that you claim to be an Apostle. We know nothing of this being passed upon by the proper authoritative channels and wonder how you could back that claim up, when the last Apostle was voted into office right here in Jerusalem. Now that our denomination is firmly established, why do imagine there would be any need for God to further the Apostolic gifting?

As you see, Mr. Paul, we feel definitely after close scrutiny of your case, that you are undoubtedly the most unqualified applicant we have ever seen, and my advice for you is to find a church where you can work in harmony, and use your past education as perhaps a Sunday School teacher.

I hope I have prevented you from making a terrible mistake in your life.

Sincerely Yours,

J. Flavios Fluphihead, Secy.

Football game in Abuja

2009-06-13T19:52:00.020Z

A couple weekends ago, a group of us travelled to Abuja to watch the Nigeria vs Kenya qualifier game for the 2010 World Cup. I've never even watched a soccer game on TV and here I am travelling the 4 hours to Abuja to watch two African teams compete for a spot in the World Cup.

It was quite the adventure getting to Abuja and then to the stadium. Dustin, a Texan who came with us, made facepaint and a bunch of us put it on. It was made out of corn starch and food colouring or something. With all the heat, it kinda smelled like you were baking a cake on your face... but we looked like fans, anyway. We stuck out a tad at the stadium, and the Nigerians were all pretty excited to see a bunch of white people dressed up in Nigerian jerseys at the game. Lots of excitement.
Nigeria ended up winning 3-0 (first goal in the first 2 minutes!) I'm told it wasn't that exciting of a game compared to other games. Which I use as my excuse for dozing off a couple times. It was all good fun though.

On the way to the stadium. Kinda excited. The stadium is right behind me.

The field as seen reflected in Dustin's sunglasses.Some really cool clouds/sunbeams.

Us all decked out in green.The prominently African crowd.Both teams praying together after the game. Pretty neat.The field as we were leaving.

Last week we went for a bit of a hike. Checked out some neat rock formations as well as a waterfall.

Top of a large rock = great silly-face photo op.

Running water isn't the same here. It's pretty brown and mucky. But the falls were impressive anyway. Can't recall the official name of the falls, but it's commonly referred to as Flip-Flop Falls, as you will understand from the photos... The waterfall is on volcanic rock, which is neat, as I'm pretty sure that marks the first time I've been were a volcano was. There is an old volcano not too far away, but it's not very impressive. Covered in shrubbery (Ni!) and not very big. Might check it out another day.

The waterfall.

Get why it's called Flip-Flop Falls yet? (Might need to click on the photo to view it bigger.)

Not much else to report here... Julia got her visa the other day! :) Barely a month left until she's here!! (I'm pretty excited)

To fill up some space/make up for my lack of posting, here's a couple more photos. This is the choir leader leading the choir in church.And here's a group of us after we played soccer in some pretty cold rain...
Also, I posted some photos of the trip I blogged about way back when the school collapsed. Check it out here, there's a bunch of photos in there I didn't put on here!

Thanks for reading!

Random update

2009-05-30T14:53:00.004Z

Hey folks,

Not a whole lot to report at the moment. Had a pretty nice Saturday. Slept in, played some Ultimate frisbee with a ton of people (we normally have like 14, this week was close to 30). After that we went to a restaurant called Net Café. It does neither coffees nor internet, but has good food. As long as you're willing to wait an hour and a half... But we anticipated this and brought a deck of cards. So it was all good.

This past week I've been helping out at a conference doing technical stuff. Setting up sound equipment, making sure the projectors are working... and if the power goes off, turn on the generator. The work isn't too exciting, but the conference was pretty interesting. It was called Theological Education in Africa (TEA) and they had a ton of speakers from Nigeria, Kenya, Ireland, UK, Canada and the States. I sat in on the workshops, they were pretty interesting. But that's all over now.

Starting Monday I hope to take a Hausa class. Hausa is one of the hundreds of languages spoken in Nigeria (languages, not just dialects...) But Hausa is one of the more common languages in this area. So, that class is ever morning Monday-Friday for the next six weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to say more than just 'hello' after all that.

We'll see how it goes, since it means I'll only be working half days for the next six weeks, as well as taking a month off when Julia comes (yay!!) at the end of July. I'm pretty excited for that...

Not a whole lot else has been happening out here. Be glad to hear from y'all! (I was just hanging out with a guy from Texas, sorry...)

I'll leave you with a photo of what happens when a group of volunteers are left with too much duct tape and not enough to do...

Isn't it supposed to be "RAISE the roof"?

2009-05-12T20:00:00.009Z

So I was travelling last week, as you die-hard blog readers would know. Went to Lafia, which is the capital of Nasarawa State, right below Plateau State (the one I'm in) and only 2 and a half hours away. It was a good trip. Also eventful. Some events I'd rather not share with the masses (I'll let your imagination run wild) but one event I feel deserves mention...

Hope you're in the mood for a story...

So, the point of this trip was to visit the promoters (teachers, basically) who teach either to little kids, preteens, teens or themselves based on the Choose Life books we have. Depending on the group, the 'students' either take what they learn about HIV/AIDS and abstinence and (hopefully) remember it, or they end up teaching what they've learned to another group of their peers. Which is pretty neat. Kinda a pyramid scheme, but for something good.

We visited several of these groups, to just monitor the promoter in his or her teaching of the material. Check to make sure he or she is doing it right and well, while also offering encouragement or constructive criticism where appropriate. We would introduce ourselves at the beginning of each session, then just sit back and watch the rest. At the end, we opened up the kids to be able to ask me anything they felt like. I obviously stick out and I know kids can be random, but I still didn't expect some of the questions they asked me. I was also curious as to why they ended up asking ME these questions and if they had someone they felt they could ask these things any other time. Some of the questions were pretty standard... 'Where are you from?', 'What's it like?'... but one boy stood up and stated "I want to know more about love." and sat down. So that was interesting...

Every time they asked me a question I tried to relate it back to HIV/AIDS, abstinence or overall health/life choices. Like when I was asked if someone could get AIDS from using an infected person's toothbrush, I told them that it was highly unlikely, but that for the sake of health reasons, one shouldn't share a toothbrush ANYway. I was also asked about pants. Girls wearing pants in Nigeria is a relatively new thing. Last year I hardly remember any Nigerians wearing them, now a lot of them do. It was an interesting question to answer. The girl wanted to know whether or not the could (as Christians) wear pants, like all the women do in the West. Traditionally, Nigerian women never wear pants. Many of the older men and women are not too fond of this new 'trend' of women in pants. Nigerians are regularly bombarded with Western things, pants are one of those things. I tried to get across how WEARing pants isn't BAD, isn't a SIN. BUT, if you're wearing pants to rebel against parents or authority, or wearing them to provoke boys (had to link it back to that...) THEN it's wrong. Not sure how much made sense. My 'accent' can be hard for Nigerians to understand sometimes.

Anyway, back to the story.

Last Wednesday, we headed out from Lafia to the outskirts to a nearby village school. It was in a field and would not have passed ANY safety codes in Canada. I grabbed a quick picture of it while we were walking up to it (crooked, sorry. Took it without looking) I wanted to make sure I got a picture of what some schools look like. Inside didn't look much better. The school was pretty big, as you can tell. They built the roof first, propped it up on some beams, then started work on the brick walls. The entire building was leaning on about a 70 degree angle, with a few poles placed in vain attempts to keep the metal roof up.As the session wrapped up and I was answering a question about whether or not 'boys and girls can sleep in the same room' the entire school fell down on top of us!

Fortunately it fell slow enough (took a couple seconds to come down, wasn't instant) and there was no ceiling, so we were all able to move and get out of the way of the beams over us. The roof came down intact and didn't make it all the way to the ground, but was supported by all the childrens' desks, so we had a couple feet beneath the roof to tuck ourselves in. We ended up all being unharmed!! Praise God!
One of my coworkers mentioned how it must have been "quite the experience", I think it was more of a potential tradgedy. There were dozens of kids in the school and if just one of them had been seriously injured it would have been a complete tradgedy. This is not a representation of all Nigerian schools, I've never been in one this bad. In their defence, they put the roof up first to protect the kids from the rain (the irony being something that was built to protect had the potential to harm...) so they put it up so the classes could resume. They had just been forced out of the building they had been using before, so this was a new structure. You can see some of the bricks already being laid. They just cut too many corners in their rush to put this up. Something that's bound to happen when there are no building codes. Enforced ones, anyway.

So, that was quite the day... the rest of it was much better.

Please pray for the safety of children worldwide, as at any moment, tradgedy can strike.

Also, hug a child today and tell him/her you love him/her. (Preferably a child you know). Might as well do the same for your friends and family as well.

Repeat daily.

I was reminded again on Sunday of the speed we may end up leaving this life. Three Dutch girls who are volunteering as nurses here for a short while were in Jos last weekend, so a few of us took them rock climbing. Then on Sunday, I found out they ended up in a car accident. Thankfully they all survived, one ended up with stitches and they're all sore, but they're alive and well!

Driving here can often be dangerous. Accidents happen often, but only ending up with stitches does not. A Nigerian I worked with last year lost his wife and small girl in a car accident and he now has permanent back pain. Practically everyone here knows someone who was killed in a tragic car accident. Particularly dangerous roads, like the steep roads leading on and off the plateau, have signs placed to try to enforce some common driving sense. Please pray also for road safety. And for people to find better ways to transport 4 goats.

Oh, and I uploaded some photos onto Facebook. Enjoy more of the Animal Kingdom costume party!!

2009-04-24T14:20:00.058Z

Woah! Here's a ton of pictures! We'll see how this goes... I'm hoping to have captions above each one, but if the layout doesn't let me... then well, it'll probably be a bit confusing for you to figure out... These are pretty random pictures from all over. My house, work, surprise dress up parties... (but we'll get to that later). Enjoy!

A bit of an update first: I'll be travelling most of May. Monday to Thursday/Friday next week, several days the week after and most of the week after that as well. I'll be visiting some of the promoters (people who teach HIV/AIDS awareness in their respective church/youth groups) and seeing how the program is running. That way I'll be better able to see where improvements can be made... I hope to have another post up every weekend I'm home. We'll see. No promises!

Now for the pictures...

This is what I found in my freezer one day. It confused me. I can't figure out how it would have happened. How does an icicle grow upside down?? Is it an ice stalagmite? *shrug*
Every year, the CRC mission has a spiritual conference. Everyone who can in the mission from Nigeria (some came from Niger as well) spends 3 days at a place called Miango. It's a resort (in African standards) and we have sessions by a speaker almost every day. This year it was the week before Easter and was very interesting. The speaker (Dan Walcott, a teacher at Holland Christian in Michigan) spoke. He was very interesting. Taught a lot about context. Pretty interesting stuff. This was during one of our worship moments.
This is Kyle Apts, missionary here with his family (wife Ann and kids Zion and Gabbie). Kyle's practising guitar for another worship moment. He sometimes also plays at the church I usually attend.This is a random picture of the fireplace cover at Miango. Jos Plateau (plateau that the city of Jos is on) is apparently the only place in Nigeria with a temperate climate. It can go below 20! Therefore fireplaces are actually in some homes. Like mine. But you'll see that later... *suspense*
Not all bees in Africa are African killer bees...
We went on a hike one day at Miango to see a water system that brings water to a couple turbines from a dam. Very interesting and apparently took about 5 years to make. All dug by hand, the turbines brought in by hand... pretty crazy. And the turbines were made in 1908! And still going strong! Pumping out power to nearby places. Not to Jos though... anyway, this was a neat flower I saw on our hike.This is the view we saw along our hike. There's a trench beside us on our left that we were following that's about 6 feet across and probably more than 6 feet deep as well that brings the water all the way from the dam, through these hills to the edge of a very large hill, down a giant pipe and into the turbines. It still being rainy season (the first rain of the year is about to pelt us in a half an hour) the dust is still in the air, making seeing long distances a bit tough.A couple times there are some 'bridges' to carry the water across some valleys. This is one of them.Near the end of the trench/aqueduct, there's an overflow. If there's too much water in the trench, it flows over into here all the way down. It would also make an AWESOME water slide...
Not sure what this flag is for, but this is the end of the trench, where the water flows into a pipe down to the turbines. You can see the pipe here. We walked down this part of the pipe (ON the pipe, to be exact). At the edge (you can kinda see it here) it gets SUPER steep and carries down even farther and steeper to the turbines.Looking down the pipe.The view from the edge. Down there are the turbines and the house for the controls or something.
Me looking cross-eyed and creepy at the edge. Selfie!Walking back along the trench.
We had a 'Family fun night' at Miango. Lisa and Rachel, a couple of nurses from Canada, held a Jeopardy game (with Nigerian trivia). I helped them out by being 'Vanna White'
This is my office. I'm pretty sure I'm one of a very select few people who've moved to Africa from Canada to work an office job. I've moved the desk since I took the picture, but you get the idea.
We had a surprise party for Dana (also in picture). It was costume party with the theme being "Animal Kingdom". Costumes included zebra, faun, mouse, dog, rabbit, toucan and crocodile. Costumes are a bit hard to come by, so they're all homemade. I went as Tarzan, using a borrowed bean bag chair cover as my costume...Micah, one of my housemates, went as a crocodile. Pretty sweet costume. Here he is eating Dana's head. Note his actual mouth being open. Apparently he thought he could operate the cardboard mouth with his own...Next we had a scavenger hunt. The person who could find the most hidden animals would be the winner! I won!! Woot! The prize ended up being a piece of chocolate cake shoved into my face by Kari. But I got her back... Here I am about to get her again by distracting her as I take a picture...These are the test strips. They require a drop of blood and 15 minutes. Then you have the result. It's very accurate and fairly cheap. We don't charge them for doing tests, but each strip costs about $2. We tested more than 250 youth and had only one positive! Praise God!!Some test strips after they've had blood put on them. Waiting for the result to show.Gideon putting a drop of blood onto a test strip.This is a fly.This is my hammock. It sits behind my house. I spend some time in it almost every day.This is what I see when I'm in it. ahh, hammocks.... You can tell the rains have started as there's green on the ground! It's pretty cool to see everything going from brown to green! Already it's a LOT greener since I've taken this already.This is the leaky shower ceiling I talked about in my last post. Piping doesn't really get hidden much in Africa...What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys?? A barrel full of me!Eggs. Occasionally they come with a free chicken feather.Nasco is a Nigerian food packaging/manufacturing place just a few minutes away. They make cheap stuff (some of it's actually good!). They make a ton of stuff, soaps, cookies, cereals... Here's their regular Corn Flakes and the brand new FrostyZ! They're basically Frosted Flakes and not bad. Real name-brand cereal is pretty pricey. Like 10 bucks for some Rice Crispies. So we stick to the Nasco stuff.We don't have a paper towel holder OR a banana holder. So I made both in one. Out of a clothes hanger.As a nice snack every now and then, we make trail mix. Delicious!This is what I make coffee in. It's actually not bad. Coffee makers are a rarity, as well as real coffee. Most is instant. gross... So I stick to this guy. Makes about 2 big mug fulls of coffee. And cream's another 'not-gonna-happen' kinda thing, so I took powdered Coffeemate. Almost like having a Timmies in my kitchen! Ok, not even close, but it'll do. I get to take one of these guys every week for malaria. There's no cure for malaria (mainly transmitted via mosquitoes) but medication lessens the effect if you were to get it. Malaria is a HUGE killer of Africans. More than AIDS, statistically, but many people who have AIDS end up killed from malaria because their immune system is shot from AIDS and can't fight it off anymore.This is my bedroom. Pretty classy, I know. The mosquito net is pretty awesome. In a non-awesome kinda way. Quite the pain in the butt to sleep under. The bed is 6 feet long. I am 6 feet. This means my feet hang over the edge, tangling in the net.Grass is growing!! Woo!!Trees are blooming!! Okay, this kind of tree actually blooms in the dry season, but it's still really pretty!My 80GB paperweight...Power here is 220 (110 in Canada) but tends to jump around above 220 sometimes. We use these regulators on things like fridges, TVs and laptops so they don't get fried if the power ever spikes.Our living room. Not too shabby. Could use some decorations, though. If the walls weren't brick, it would make hanging things a lot easier...The fireplace! I thought it was just a wasted space since we won't be using it anytime soon... so I put a lamp in it!Pac-anapple man.Two of the Strydhorst girls, Kristen and Andrea. They had just asked me to take a family picture of them all in the tree... looked pretty neat.A flower on the tree with the sunset in the distance.That's all!

Thanks for checkin' out some of my life in Africa!

Feel free to come by anytime!

About time... sheesh.

2009-04-24T10:02:00.005Z

So, it's been brought to my attention that I'm a lousy Blogger. (Thanks Carol-Lee and Nadine for the reminder).

Sorry to you all... :)

To make it up to all of you, I will write two blogs in the near future. The one which you are reading now, and the second one stuffed full of pictures! woot! You non-Facebookers will be in for a treat, these are pictures that have not graced the internet up to this point! Finally, you'll have one up on Facebook!

Where to begin?

I'm sitting here, waiting for a plumber to show up. He was supposed to be here within half an hour, but this is Africa, so that means anywhere between an hour to two days. We had our leaky shower repaired a little while ago, but when he fixed it, something else leaks, so now we've got a nice water stain in our ceiling...

The power has been on since before 6:30 this morning (it's about 11:15am now) so that's pretty sweet. Power doesn't usually stay on that long. Quite rare, actually. Lot easier to get things done when there's power on! Like charge some batteries... turns out most of mine are dead. Actually, I think a whack of them are goners. They're just mixed in with all my other batteries. Kinda annoying. I don't have anything that just takes ONE battery, so I can't test them. My camera takes 4 so it's really hard to narrow it down.

Rainy season has started here. It's quite an exciting time of year! Harmattan (the only other 'season') is very dry and even more so dusty. I've probably mentioned it in a blog before, last year maybe, but I'll refresh your memories. During Harmattan, the wind blows from the North, where the Sahara Desert is. So during this time of year, dust/sand is in the air. It settles EVERYwhere. If I insisted on keeping things dust-free, I would have to clean everything at least twice a day. Everything gets visibly dusty within hours. Pretty annoying. Especially since you're also breathing in all the dust too. My nose and throat hate Harmattan... This, along with the heat during that time of year (no cloud cover either) makes rainy season a much looked forward to event. It cools down, the dust is gone, and things start getting green... entire fields that looked like nothing but brown-red dirt suddenly transform into lush green! Grass is growing, plants are showing up, farmers are ecstatic!

Water can be quite scarce, so rains are looked upon as a blessing. Gathering water is a long, hard (and heavy) task. Every morning you'll see dozens of Nigerians with jerry cans (aka, the bucket brigade) searching for a place to fill up so they can have drinking, cooking and bathing water. When it rains, there's safe, clean, easy and available water is everywhere. One of the first times it rained this year, a Nigerian came into the one office with a HUGE grin. Asked why he was so happy, he said "I don't have to collect water for THREE days!!"

Coming from a society obsessed with buying water in plastic bottles rather than 'risk' perfectly fine tap water, it's quite the difference.

Out here, the tap water (when there is any, but don't count on it...) actually ISN'T safe to drink. We have to run it through a filter first. People who don't have a filter, have to boil it. Those who don't have gas stoves or can't afford to buy wood, are stuck drinking not-so-safe water. Recently, a tree had to be felled on our compound. It was a healthy tree, but it was growing too close to one of the retaining walls. Had the rains come before the tree was cut out and the wall repaired, the Hogerterps would've had to wade through their house. One of the guards must've been told he could keep the wood if he chopped it up, so for days all we would hear was Daniel grunting as he hacked up this big tree with an axe. He'd knocked it down then started chopping up the large trunk (about 2.5 feet in diameter). At one particular time I heard him grunting loudly, so I came out to see what what happening. After another couple swings, he chopped the trunk in two. He proudly put his foot on it and told me "It gave me wahalla, so I gave IT wahalla!" Wahalla is a Hausa word that means trouble, difficulty, pain in the butt... that kinda thing. It's also just a really fun word to say. Waaa-HALLA!!

Anyway. I'm kinda jumping around all over the place in this blog. meh. You asked for a blog, you got one! Stop being so picky...

I had pretty lousy day a few days ago. Just wasn't too much fun. I've got to do a lot of data stuff at work (pretty dull) and it's all from surveys collected in the past few years. STACKS of this stuff. And it's not organized. Well, they're in piles, which apparently counts as organization. I said to a staff member there that we NEED to have these in folders, if they get mixed up, NO one will be able to tell what's what! Years worth of work and VERY important data would be useless. A month and a half later, (on my lousy day) I was again struggling with some of this data because of the lack of organization. I explained again how we need folders to keep this info organized. The reason I was given why there still were still no folders after a month and a half? The secretary "isn't in today."

arg.

Then, the one thing that keeps me sane while I do mundane data work, my iPod, decided it hates me. Deleted all my music AND refuses to cooperate with my laptop. Meaning I have an 80Gig paperweight. Pretty sucky.

So, the plumber showed up. It's around 2 now (I took a lunch break). He barely looked at the water stained ceiling before saying something along the lines of "it's not wet..." and "I can't see any water leaking..." Meaning he doesn't think he needs to do anything about it. Even at my insistence that the giant brown mark and saggy (not to mention falling apart) ceiling was not like that before one of his guys worked on it. He did not seem at all interested in fixing it. He said he'd come back tomorrow to see if it was leaking then.

Not a whole lot else to say. It's about 3 in the afternoon now. Lo and behold, we still have power! I don't think I've EVER known it to be on this long before! It's been on since around 6 (that I know of, could've been on before that) until now! 9 whole hours already! MAN. Things in my freezer are actually frozen! I'm pretty excited.

hmm, I think I'll be taking a crack at that giant photo-filled blog post now. Don't want to have promised a post and then deny my hardcore readers!

I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to leave a comment, write an email (trevormalda@yahoo.ca) or look me up on Facebook!

Another quote from our devotional...

2009-03-24T22:32:00.002Z

"The mind of Jesus led Him not to glory first, but to death."

Every time I strive to obtain recognition as a good Christ-follower through my works or deeds on Earth, I essentially think I can achieve more than Christ did in His life.

This is laughable.

I catch myself doing this a lot; trying to impress people with all my 'accomplishments'. What accomplishments? What have I done to deserve any glory?

Nothing.

I must strive to become obedient to God. To struggle against my own desires of Earthly recognition and become a humble servant - not caring who on Earth knows about anything I've done. To paraphrase what an awesome girl just told me about this: "Don't strive for recognition. Strive to be a Christ-follower and recognition will follow." Earthly recognition may never happen and doesn't even matter. I've got to get over that. I must strive to devote my entire life to become my Father's good and faithful servant. This can't even be gained by my own doing, but through the Spirit's work in me. Through the Spirit I hope to gain the Father's recognition as one of His children. A recognition worth living and dying for.

This is going to be hard.

Heavy stuff

2009-03-19T07:02:00.003Z

Julia and I are doing the same daily devotional (Walk with God by Chris Tiegreen), this is what was in there for March 17, I thought I'd share it since I've been thinking about it a lot. This is probably against some copyright law...

"We're often not conscious of the statements we make, but they are more numerous than we think. We aren't aware of them because most are not verbal. They are revelations of the heart, spoken by our choices. As it is often said, actions speak louder than words.
Consider, for example, what we are saying when we have no money for God's ministry but enough to pay the cable bill. Or when we see the starving and wish we could help - and then waste money on soft drinks with no nutritional value. Why does thirty dollars a month to save a child seem like such a bargain? What do our choices say of God? Not much. They say more about our values. They reveal what's in our heart.
God's no enemy of entertainment and taste buds. But He is an enemy of idols, and our choices reveal what they are. We deceive ourselves often - our enormous capacity for doing so came with the Fall. It's amazing how much we can't afford to do for God's Kingdom - the budget is always tight, right? Meanwhile, the vacations we really want to take are usually taken. The meals we want to eat are usually eaten. The make and model we want to drive is usually in our driveway. We more comfortably delay God's gratification than our own.

We need to snap out of our unconsciousness. Many of our idols have become automatic to us. We don't see them as intentional choices that reveal the treasures of our heart. But deep down we know: If we loved God with all our being, if we treasured His Kingdom above all else, He would see more of our treasure given for His use.
Why is this so important? Does God have insufficient funds? Probably not. The Owner of all isn't short of cash when He really wants to accomplish something. He wants more than cash. He wants us to value faith, the currency of this world. More than that, He wants us. He wants our choices to reflect an intense unbridled love. He wants us to honour Him."

Our modern definition of an idol is often a sports star or some famous person. So if we don't value any of these people too much, than we're not committing idolatry. But any time we put anything above God we're committing idolatry. And what we put above God the most is ourselves. Sometimes with the reasoning that "God would want me to be happy", "why else would God have given me money, talents..., other than to enjoy them myself?" We don't voice these thoughts all that much, but we're thinking them. Well, I do anyway.

I'm trying to figure out how I'm to use EVERYthing God has given me to the benefit of God and others. How to glorify God with my talents. To treat every penny, every possession with the reality that it's not 'mine', it's God's.

I own nothing, I can claim nothing.

What you've been waiting for...

2009-03-15T12:00:00.002Z

Zebra pictures!!

Check out the album on Facebook here!

Not a whole lot else to say. Today marks my 2 weeks from home, yet it seems both like I've been here longer and that I left a quite a while longer ago...

Should be starting to take over the duties from Alice this week. Looking forward to it!

In Nigeria!

2009-03-10T19:51:00.002Z

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in the update, but here she be!

I arrived in Jos on Saturday around 6 or 7pm after a very stressfull and rushed day of travelling from Kenya. I woke up at 5 in the morning that day to be ready for the taxi driver who was to come at 5:30. She didn't show up until about quarter to and we didn't leave until 10 to. The flight was at 7:30 and took the better part of half an hour to get to the airport. By the time we got TO the airport, we were told the check-in had closed, and the boarding had already started. Alice, a Nigerian who also works for Beacon of Hope and was at the training as well, managed to get us checked-in, and we rushed to the plane. We hurridly went through security, I threw my stuff on the belt, grabbed it on the other side, then ran on the tarmak (shoes in hand...) to make the flight with minutes to spare.

From Kenya, we flew to Lagos, the old capital of Nigeria (population of almost 8 million) and tried to make the flight to Jos. We didn't. We were stuck going to Abuja, then take the 3 and a half hour taxi drive to Jos. So it was a long day... Saturday I stayed at David's house, a Nigerian who works for the CRWRC. He's a very generous man and kept me fed all of Saturday and Sunday. Sunday afternoon I moved back into the 'old house' (same place as last year) who's current inhabitants are the Biblically named Micah and Emmanuel (from Ireland and England, respectively). I didn't get the chance to meet either of them until Tuesday night since they were down south visiting some of their Mission Africa friends. It also happened to be Micah's birthday, so we went to the local resturant 'downtown' and celebrated. It was great to meet all the new faces and the few who are still here that I DO know... Somehow I became the 'new guy'...

Coming back has been great though. The welcome has been incredible. So many smiling, familiar faces ready to invite me over for dinner (at least 4 invites in the first day!) They all truely make me feel welcomed back. It's weird, a lot of them have been asking me what it's like to be back. I think they assume I'll say something like 'weird', 'different' or something. But with the friendliness and how inviting everyone is, the transition has been smooth. I really don't feel like I've left. I'm back in the same house, driving the same car (for better or worse), and neighbours with the same people.

I'm beginning to really remember why I loved it so much here.

As much as Nigeria feels like home, there are elements that don't quite make it such. There's no duplicating or replacing what I have in Canada.

Safari tease

2009-03-05T08:46:00.009Z

Just a small preview of my first full day in Nairobi.
:)

Underlining

2009-03-03T07:50:00.001Z

So I'm below the equator right now. Neat eh? I'll be here in Kenya until Saturday morning when I take the 5 hour flight to Nigeria. I'm staying at the Methodist Guest House (oddly, their Bibles are Gideon) in Nairobi. This doesn't really feel like Africa though. I'm sitting on a third floor balcony in low 20 degree temperatures, overlooking two large pools. You'd think I was at a resort with the cleaning ladies, meal rooms and the TV in my room.

*Sidenote - couches belong on balconies. I'm pretty sure that's what they were made for, we've just forgotten.*

The trip here was long, but I managed to doze for most of the second flight (save for my neighbour's bladder acting up every hour). I also dozed off in the Amsterdam airport, which has super cozy seats. This is where I found out I cannot trust iPod alarms. Getting my Kenyan visa was a LOT easier than my Nigerian one. All it took was $50 US and a hour wait. To those that don't know, my Nigerian visa took $120 US, an online application, several letters, passport photos, a police check, several letters, documents, phonecalls, and finally a last-minute drive to Ottawa.

I was picked up at the airport by someone holding a sign with my name on it. So that life-goal is now crossed off my list. I mentioned to my taxi driver how I regretted being in Kenya but not being able to see the wild animals. She told me there is a park 30 minutes from where I'd be staying, so I'm debating checking that out later today. It'd be pretty sweet. My workshops/training begin tomorrow, so until then I'm just going to be hanging out, relaxing and getting caught up on jetlag (8 hour difference here).

Ahhh!!

2009-02-25T16:18:00.002Z

I'm leaving ridiculously soon!

Well, maybe. If I get my visa in the next few days (which I'm praying I do) I will be heading out on Sunday for Nairobi. Nairobi for a a few days, then Nigeria!!

Sunday is only a few days away...

yikes!

Friends of Africa fundraiser

2009-01-18T05:02:00.003Z

Hey everyone! Been quite a while since I've posted, but here I go!!

I've got a fundraiser in the works! It's posted on Facebook, for those of you with that technology. For those of you without it, I recommend you get it. If you're someone who refuses to 'conform' to this 'impersonal method of communication', or just doesn't understand the internets enough to create a face for your book, I'll fill you in on some of the details! I've just copied most of this straight off of Facebook, to satisfy my laziness...

Where: Collin's Brewhouse, 33 King W. in Dundas.
When: February 13, 8pm.

Come on down to Dundas to get Trevor out of Canada!!

This is going to be an epic night you don't want to miss.

Have a blast and support an incredible organization! I volunteered at a HIV/AIDS organization in Nigeria last year. They've asked me to come back for almost 2 years. Surprisingly, AIDS work isn't a high-paying industry, so I need to raise all my own expenses to live in Africa for 2 years! Help me out and have a great time doing it!

Live music performed by the awesome guys of Miasmata

Hundreds of dollars of silent auction/draw and prizes!

$120 at Swiss Chalet!
$110 for a facial and makeup at Caryl Baker Visage!
$30 for the Firkin Pub!
$25 at East Side Mario's!
$25 at Philthy McNasty's!
Dozens of books from Coles!
Video games!
My entire CD collection!
Hand-made African items!

Also:

Pool tournament and prize.
50/50 Draw.
Photography for sale.
and more!!

Join in on a great night of friends, food, fun and fundraising! All this, for only a $10 cover!!

So yeah, that's my fundraiser, it's going to be pretty sweet. Marley, a friend of mine, is helping out a ton. There is NO way I'd be able to have done half of this organizing with out her. You rock Mar!

So, come on out and have fun!

As for news, I've just heard that the training I'll be taking in Nigeria is going to be from March 4-6. So I probably need to be there before that... Now all I'm waiting for is the rest of the funds to come in!

That's all for now! Next post hopefully won't take so long.

A tad behind on my reading...

2008-11-10T23:59:00.004Z

So, after buying another pile of books, I thought I'd put together all the books I have that I've yet had time to read or have yet to finish. This is the result:

The Prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkinson
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (reading)
Wild at Heart, John Eldridge
Captivating, John and Stacy Eldridge (It came WITH Wild at Heart, okay??)
Yours, Jack, CS Lewis
The Similrillion, JRR Tolkien
Misquoting Truth, Timothy Paul Jones
Life Changes (Romans)
Announcing the Kingdom, Arthur F Glassen
Wuthering Hights, Emily Bronte
The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
The Digital Photography Manual
The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard
U2 by U2
The Sacred Echo, Margaret Feinberg
The Pelican Brief, John Grisham
A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, W Phillip Keller (reading)
The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela (reading)
How to get ready for short-term missions, Anne-Geri Fann
Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller
Trek!, Claes Grundsten
One, Vaden Earl
Dune, Frank Herbert
The Betrayal of Africa, Gerald Caplan
The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follet
Operation World
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
Harpercollins Bible Commentary
The Shack, William P Young (reading)
A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah
In Quest of Jesus, W Barnes Tatum
God in the Alley, Greg Paul
Bono, Michka Assayas
The Reentry Team, Neal Pirolo
Stuff White People Like, Christian Lander
The Messenger, the Message, the Community, Roland Muller
The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus, Mark Saucy
The Heavenly Man, Brother Yun
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M Pirsig (not in the picture and I've technically read it before)

That's a total of 41 books, 4 that I'm reading now, the rest... hopefully sometime.

yikes...

My place in this world - Michael W. Smith

2008-10-29T02:41:00.000Z

The wind is moving
But I am standing still
A life of pages
Waiting to be filled

A heart that's hopeful
A head that's full of dreams
But this becoming
Is harder than it seems

Feels like I'm
Looking for a reason
Roamin' through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need your light to help me find
My place in this world
My place in this world

If there are millions
Down on their knees
Among the many
Can you still hear me

Hear me asking
Where do I belong?
Is there a vision
That I can call my own?

Show me, I'm
Looking for a reason
Roamin' through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need your light to help me find
My place in this world
My place in this world

Lookin' for a reason
Roamin' through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need your light to help me find
My place in this world
My place in this world

Lookin' for a reason
Roamin' through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world

I'm pretty sure this is irony...

2008-10-21T21:56:00.004Z

My Grandpa can't find his GPS.

Irony, yes?

more than touché

2008-10-08T00:11:00.003Z

Saw a comic strip with this as the dialogue at the CRWRF delegates meeting on Saturday:

"Sometimes I'd like to ask God why He allows poverty, famine, and injustice in the world when He could do something about it."

"Why don't you?"

"I'm afraid He might ask me the same thing."

You! Jonah!

2008-09-25T23:22:00.009Z

By Thomas Carlisle

And Jonah stalked
to his shaded seat
and waited for God
to come around
to his way of thinking.
And God is still waiting for a host of Jonahs
in their comfortable houses
to come around
to His way of loving.

I keep a bit of a journal beside me when I read so I can jot down my thoughts and some quotes from whatever it is I happen to be reading. I usually also write down the author, book and page number when I do.

But sometimes I forget.

The above poem, I believe, was a quote from a quote. I think John Piper quoted it in his book Let the Nations be Glad from Thomas Carlile's book You! Jonah!

Every once and a while I like to go through my notebook and read through my notes. I find it interesting to see what it is I was learning at that point, what really struck a cord in me at that time, and how much it strikes me now. I also like to read them because I not only forget to write down where I got the quote, I tend to completely forget the quote. Like this one!

I like this poem a lot. I think it describes us as a society and a church quite accurately. But there's a bit of irony in all of it. We might read this poem and agree; we need to love as God loves us! We need to get out there and be love!

But then we don't.

We feel we've changed by reading this poem. We think we're different.

But we're not.

We're still sitting in our comfortable houses.

Like right now. I can't speak for you, but I'm sitting in my house and I'm quite comfortable.

The same goes for movies. We watch a movie like Shindler's List, Water, Bowling for Columbine, Hotel Rwanda, Life is Beautiful or even Crash and we feel changed. We feel like we've made a difference in the world just by watching this movie.

And the same also goes for our reading of the Bible. How often do we read over the end of Matthew 25, agree that Jesus is saying something important, but then don't actually change anything in our lives. We may feel different because we learned something, but we don't act any different. And if you're not acting any different,

did you really learn anything??

Jesus tells us that when the Son of Man comes, He will separate us into groups.

Group Sheep will be those who fed the hungry, who gave the thirsty something to drink, invited strangers into their homes, gave clothes to those who needed them, took after the sick and visited inmates.

I think the other group (Group Goat) will be full of people who just watched movies, read books and this passage - but stayed in their comfortable houses.

Group Sheep showed love.
Group Goat just watched movies about love.

I'm not dissing movies, especially not these ones. These movies are awesome.

But the next time something really strikes you as true and Biblically sound, don't hold yourself back! Don't contain it! Jesus tells us that HE is the one we are helping when we show love to those who don't normally receive it.

Jesus is hungry.
Go feed Him!

Jesus is thirsty.
Go give him a drink!

Jesus is homeless.
Go give Him a room!

Jesus is shivering.
Go give Him clothes!

Jesus is sick.
Go look after Him!

Jesus is in jail.
Go visit Him!

PS, I've realized my blog is a bit on the dull side visually, so I'm hoping to remember to upload a photo or two from now on with each post. But I'll probably forget...

This is the sun through the trees at the ROOTS day. Was pretty awesome.

Other picture is a baseball at my church picnic. Also fun!

hmm

2008-09-03T03:20:00.002Z

I went to a mission conference in Ancaster tonight. I plan on going all day Wednesday and Thursday as well. Should be pretty sweet. Tonight, the speaker (Rev. Victor Atalla) mentioned something that I thought was neat. Something that Donald Miller kinda refers to in Blue Like Jazz and I think I've kinda mentioned in a blog or two.

He was speaking about bringing Christ to Muslims, and he specified, not to bring someone to Christianity, but to bring them to Christ. I think that's such a good way to look at it. If you're trying to bring someone to Christianity, you're trying to bring them to YOUR definition of Christianity. And the chances are pretty good that they don't share the same definition. They may have been hurt by Christians or not view them very well, so why would they WANT to become one? Even still, your Christianity may not 'work' for them. Even MORE still, Christians have messed up a lot in the past. We don't have a good reputation to everyone. Christ, however, is perfect. That's who WE should try to be like and who we should show/tell others how to be like.

Instead of bringing them to become a Christian, bring them to Christ.

Don't try to get people to be like you, get them to try be like Christ.

It's who you're trying to be like anyway. Skip the middleman!

PS, if you want to read a really good book about how Christians are seen to the average Joe, read the book unChristian. It's pretty interesting. The title refers to how we call ourselves Christians, yet often act unChristian, and how the world notices our unChristian behaviour.

Anywho, I posted some pictures of Irish-land. Stopped off there on my way home from Nigeria. Find them here, here, here and here!

No promises

2008-08-28T22:34:00.002Z

but I promise to keep this blog updated.

First off, some pictures of when I stopped off in England on my way home. (Ireland, Holland, Ottawa, Montreal, Radiohead concert and two weeks of Campfire are still to come...)

I will post any updates of me going back to Nigeria. Nothing to post about that yet. Don't know a whole lot about it, just that it probably wouldn't be until January.

I'm kinda torn on it, really. Before I went to Nigeria I had the mind-set that someone who did "God's work" was a theologian or a minister or a missionary or something really along those lines. Now, coming back, I've kinda been humbled into the realization that in working a regular job, I could be doing EXACTLY what it is God has planned for me. Which is tough.

Trying to figure out what God wants me to do,

and what I THINK God wants me to do...

is really, really hard.

One of the cool things about concerts

2008-08-09T03:55:00.003Z

is that no matter how loud you are,

no one can hear you messing up the words.

Ps, Radiohead in Montréal rockéd.

Surprise!

2008-07-26T13:52:00.002Z

I'm home!

I landed at 4pm on Wednesday (23rd). I spent the next couple days freaking out my friends and family who weren't expecting me until the 28th.

It was fun.

My Aunt Marg and Uncle Steve picked me up at the airport and drove me home. I walked up to the house and my parents were outside. Then they called up some of my family and invited them over and I surprised them too.

I had my friend Brandon waiting at the train station by my house to pick up a friend of mine (who doesn't actually exist) and I snuck up on him too. The next day I showed up at Dave's house and surprised him and his family. Then to Campden to surprise Jon and Stef. Stef freaked out.

Like I said, it was fun.

I still haven't heard any thing about the job in Nigeria. Until then I'll be working on trying to fix all the things my family broke of mine while I was gone. Such as my virus filled computer, over-frozen fridge, cracked cell phone screen (beyond repair)...

Here, there and everywhere!

2008-07-19T00:08:00.003Z

Hey folks.

I've been a lousy blogger updater as of late. Sorry to all my fans. Don't know how the two of you have been coping...

Soooo.... you may know, but I'm no longer IN Nigeria. I left on Monday. Here's a bit of how things have been going and will be going from here, starting with last Sunday:

Sunday: travelled from Jos to Abuja, hung out with Corinne and Rene in Abuja.

Monday: Flew from Abuja to London, trained to Exeter

Tuesday: Hung out with Chris in Exeter.

Wednesday: Trained back to London, saw Les Miserables in the West End with Debbie.

Thursday: Flew to Belfast, hung out with Kathryn and Esther.

Friday: Toured Belfast, drove farther North. Saw some sights later in the day.

Now, this is all future plans:

Saturday: See Giant's Causway and the rope bridge. Also a whiskey brewery and some other Irish stuff.

Sunday: Meet up with Jayne, see more Irish stuff, fly to Amsterdam.

Monday: Dutch stuff

Tuesday: Dutch stuff

Wednesday: Fly to Roma!

Thursday-Sunday: Italy!! (I don't really have this all planned out yet. But I haven't actually planned out ANYTHING and it's all worked out REALLY well, so I think I'm just going to keep going like this for a while until it stops working)

Monday: Fly back to London, fly home!!

So, yeah. I've been having a blast. Enjoy this picture, taken in Belfast, Ireland. I swear it. No photoshopping was done.

Looking back on the path God has taken me.

2008-07-01T22:25:00.000Z

I can't stop smiling right now. Read on and you'll find out why.

Let go and let God.

I like that saying. I think it kinda reflects how I've been dealing with what has been happening in my life. I think I've come to terms the fact that God actually is the one running things and that, try as I might, I can't do a thing to stop what He's set in motion. I love looking back on the path I've taken in the past few years. How what seemed like such small details at the time, has ballooned out into these vital assets. After High School, I needed to go to college. Because that's what people my age were supposed to do.

There was nothing I felt passionately about enough to go into debt over, so I applied to the closest schools for various different things. Sheridan, Mohawk... and another one I can't remember. I wasn't one of those High School kids who knew exactly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life (was anyone??). I didn't even apply for the same thing twice at the different colleges. Sheridan for Art Fundamentals, Mohawk for Advertising and Graphic Design, plus I applied for Journalism (can't remember where) and something else somewhere else. I was just putting it all out there and seeing what happened. I figured I'd wait and see what I got accepted into and THEN make my decision on what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. Unfortunately(?), I got accepted into everything I applied for. Which meant I had to make a decision. I had to pick one of these 5 courses and spend the next 3 or more years pursuing it. That's a tough decision. So I made it easier. I picked the closest school.

Mohawk. Barely a 20 minute drive, 30-50 minutes by buses.
Advertising. I like commercials and I like to pretend I'm creative.

So that's what I did.

I took Advertising for 3 years. I made a lot of good friends. I had a lot of fun. I learned a ton. I learned a lot of computer stuff, learned how to write better, learned how to interact with people who AREN'T Dutch, had friends who weren't Canadian Reformed, and some (gasp!) weren't even Christians. I learned how to reflect Christ to others around me. I learned how to talk to people about Jesus. I learned that some people truly are curious about Christianity and want to know about it. But won't learn unless you reflect Jesus because if you don't, they may never know you call him your Saviour.

I see so much of what I learned coming back to help me now. Pretty much everything. If I hadn't taken Advertising, I wouldn't know PhotoShop, InDesign or Illustrator (computer programs), how to use a Mac (type of computer), or how to design and write something appealing to a wide audience. All of these skills I've put into practice here. And in using them here, even MORE doors have opened for me.

Because I just let things fall where they lay, I went to Mohawk.

Because I went to Mohawk, I learned Advertising.

Because I learned Advertising, I learned even more.

Because of all I learned, I was able be an intern at Rurcon.

Because I was able to be an intern at Rurcon, I was able to be an intern at Beacon of Hope.

Because I was an intern at Beacon of Hope, I've been offered a position at Beacon of Hope.

But that's not it, God's path for me hasn't been that straightforward. So much led to so much more. Had I not gone to Romania, I wouldn't have heard about Nigeria. If I didn't learn to drive a standard transmission back home, I wouldn't be able to drive around here, and would've had much more doors closed. If I didn't buy Rachel's laptop at the last minute, I wouldn't have been able to do... pretty much any of the work that I've been able to.

It's quite the path.

And I thank God for every step.
Especially the hard ones.
Those were the ones I learned the most.
I've learned to depend on God for so much more.
I've learned to let go
and let God.

Back to my ever-present grin.

Maybe you caught it, maybe you didn't. The clue was in the last bit of my path, where I wrote:

"I've been offered a position at Beacon of Hope"

This happened last Tuesday. And I haven't stopped smiling since. It's an opportunity that has come up that would start in October and go for a little under 2 years.
I don't know if I'll take the position. I'm not even sure what all the details are yet. (I still haven't seen a job description). What I do know is that this is another part on the path of my life that God is leading me.

And He's an incredible guide.

One word.

2008-06-27T08:52:00.004Z

So I haven't been the most loyal of bloggers as of late. But I try, okay?

I'd like to say I've been really busy lately, and I certainly feel like I have been, but if you were to ask me: 'Trevor, what have you been so busy with that you can't write a short, simple (yet thought provoking) blog to your loyal fans and followers?'

I'd probably answer with something like: 'You're a liar. My blogs are never short.'

or something like that anyway.

But I SWEAR, I have been busy. I think. Just been up to a lot and can't really think of what I've been doing.

But I can sum up the last couple weeks for you in one word...

FUN!!

I have been having a BLAST the last few weeks. Just been so much fun. Hanging out with the people here has been the time of my life. Everyone's just so much fun... (not to say that you folks out in the Canadaland aren't, because you are!) A couple days ago it was Anna's birthday. So we went to this place close by to celebrate (literally down the corner from my road) and feel angry at everyone in general for never telling me this place existed! The food is amazing... they even have a pool table!! What else have people been hiding from me?!? So that was a lot of fun. Oh, and a few days before that I got a new housemate. Nick. He's American. Or a giant. Possibly an American giant. But we get along anyway, even though I'm Canadian non-giant.

The girls on the other compound got another housemate (total of 6 in one house!) and I MIGHT be getting another guy coming in on Sunday already. But no one really knows for sure...

A couple weeks ago we went to this hotel to use their pool. It cost 750 Naira for girls. And 1000 for guys. Don't ask me why I had to pay more. I have NO idea. Honest. Why would guys have to pay more?!? But it was nice. Except for the extreme sunburn. Everyone but Kathryn got FRIED. And we used sunscreen... I managed to have a nice red colour on my chest and stomach and that's it. So it wasn't too bad, no one could tell I looked like a tomato unless I took my shirt off. Which doesn't happen too often. It also came in handy for when I started to peel (in giant chunks at a time...) since no one had to be witness to that.

Last night was a blast too. I had the girls (Anna, Debbie, Janina, Julia, Krista and Samantha) down for dinner. I made spaghetti. It was pretty good, if I do say so myself. And after dinner as we were all hanging out, playing games and joking around, Kathy came by with a bag of goodies for me! My awesome family sent me stuff!! I felt like it was Sinterklaas (Christmas for any non-Dutchies reading this). SOOO much awesome stuff. Dropjies, King peppermints, Tootsie rolls, soup packages, chocolate sprinkles (I have NO idea how to spell that in Dutch), syrup for my pancakes (yay!! syrup costs more than $10 a bottle here, so I've never gotten it), Mac and cheese (awesome food for the bachelor pad), windmill cookies... But the best part was all the letters and pictures I got from everyone. Tracy made a really cute card with pictures of Clay and Tori. Sherri sent me a bunch of pictures of Sierra and Tavian. Sierra and Tavian drew/painted me some nice pictures as well. Cards from my siblings and my Oma... PLUS the card Stef sent me a couple months ago came with it (actually came IN the same bag. Don't ask me HOW that happened. I'm just glad it happened!) So that was pretty much the best night ever. Tons of fun with friends here. We were busting a gut laughing so much. Then my package and cards were just the icing on the cake of awesomeness.

I wanted to write an email to each person to thank them for them, but I don't have time right now (sorry!). I'm off in a little over an hour to drive 5 hours to say goodbye to Mike and Megan Ribbins and their super-fun kids Amira and Nico. Can't wait! But thank you to everyone who sent me stuff! You rock and I'll email you when I get back (tomorrow, probably). After that I've only got a couple weeks left here. Yikes! Then to England for a few days to hang out with my old housemate, Chris. London to visit Debbie (she leaves next weekend) and see Les Miserable. Ireland to visit Kathryn and Jayne. Holland to visit family and friends. Then Italy to visit the Pope and Caesar. THEN back to London to fly back home!!

One month and one day and I'll be back in the Great White North!!

eh?

You can always get what you want.

2008-06-10T18:33:00.005Z

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Psalm 37:4

I think we tend to remember this text and then hold it against God when we don't get what we want. We get confused at God, we think "I did what YOU want, why haven't you given me what I want?"

But we're looking at it backwards. We're looking at it as if it said: "He will give you the desires of your heart when you delight yourself in the LORD."

The difference isn't huge, but vital to the meaning of the text. We look at this text and then think that God will give us what we want if we have faith in Him. Often people's faith are tried because of this. The person with the strongest faith is not going to get the Ferrari because of it. Our incorrect view of this text is dangerous. People who are sick, struggling with sin... are often told "if you have faith, God will heal/help..." Then, when this healing or the temptations don't stop, they begin to doubt. Their faith was strong, so WHY won't God help them?

"I held up my end of the bargain, your turn!"

Like I said, we often look at it wrong. The first part of the 'agreement' is to "delight yourself in the LORD". Not "think about what you want". We're thinking about what we want. We think that we can then get these things because of our faith, and if we don't, then either our faith isn't strong enough or God is going against His word. If we come to either of these conclusions, we've come to the wrong conclusions.

Once you've completed the first part of the text and are delighting in the LORD, you'll find that the desires of your heart change. You don't want the Ferrari anymore. You just want more of God.

And that's something He's dying to give.

When you delight in God, your heart desires to delight in God

and you get exactly what you want.

Pictures

2008-06-07T10:01:00.002Z

Just a quick post to let you know I've upped some photos to Facebook.

Trip to Jalingo

Jos Wildlife Park

African thunderstorms

and, per my mom's request, some pictures of things I see and talk about, but you folks don't.

Enjoy!!

Wedding photos

2008-05-28T23:03:00.002Z

As requested, here are the pictures of the wedding I went to, then became the official photographer of.

Working on posting some of Jalingo (place I went to a couple weeks ago) and some other stuff. I've got Thursday and Friday off, so might do that then. But my laptop refuses to charge, so I'm limited to whenever there's power.

Which is pretty much never.

News, car woes, questions and randomness.

2008-05-19T10:30:00.005Z

You may have heard about an oil pipe in Nigeria bursting and killing 100 people a couple days ago. I just found out about it online, so I figured I should post in case anyone was wondering about it in relation to me. It happened in Lagos, which is much farther South West from me, in Jos. It sounds pretty bad, and apparently happened near a school and quite a number of children were killed as a result. Numbers vary depending on the source, but it remains a terrible event. Pipeline explosions aren't new to Nigeria, but they have normally happened as a result of people breaking the lines in order to steal the oil. This one happened during road construction.

In other news: an HIV-positive man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for spitting on a policeman's face and mouth in the States. His spit was declared as a "deadly weapon." Now, while it's pretty gross, but in case you were wondering, HIV has NEVER been reported as been transmitted via saliva.

Ever.

For the policeman to have been infected from this man, the officer would have had open sores right where the spit landed and the saliva (which carries much lower quantities of virus compared to other body fluids, thus limiting the chance even more), would have had to entered these sores. Even then, there is still a greater chance of the officer NOT having contracted HIV than for. Contact with the virus in any situation isn't 100% sure of infection. It's actually closer to 1% in a risky one with fluid of a high HIV rate. Which this was not. Even if he managed to swallow the spit (even grosser), the virus would have been destroyed by his stomach acid. You could drink infected blood and not get infected. HIV infection is as much in your body when you swallow it as a marble is in your body when you shove it up your nose. It's there, probably feels pretty funny, but it's not going to make you sick. The odds were stacked hugely in the officer's favour. Like big time.

Does the guy really deserve 35 years in jail?

Granted, there were other factors. There usually is. He was drunk. He's resisted before. Resisted the paramedics' help. Gotten in fights with inmates, etc... So there was other stuff. He's an angry guy. But the main reason he was convicted was because of his spit. That was the focus. After he spat on the cop, he turned to him and said: "I have AIDS." So it seems he wanted to scare the cop into thinking he would get HIV. Which, since the man does have AIDS, is ridiculous. No one knows more about HIV/AIDS than someone who has it. In other words:

He bluffed.

And they bought it.
All the way to court.

And now he's going to jail.
For 35 years.
That's nuts. I'm 21. The guy is 42. I can't imagine 35 years in jail for drunken spittle.
35 years. (Tack a dozen more years on that and you have the life expectancy of a Nigerian)

Even if he did believe that the cop would get AIDS when he hocked a loogie in his face, it's silly that he's getting so much jail time for it. If I had fakus-diseasus and you got me pissed off so I pissed ON you (thinking I was punishing you by passing on what I got), I wouldn't go to jail for three and a half decades. It would be recognized as a childish bluff. Even if I thought I was passing it on, the fact is, I'm not.

You're not going to get fakus-diseasus from my pee.

I think the reason this has angered me so much (almost to the point of me taking a leak on my computer) is because of the difference in laws from a Western country to one like Nigeria. In a Western country, someone who has HIV, knows it, and sleeps with someone else without mentioning the infection, and then infects that person, he/she can be charged with a sexual offense, assault with a deadly weapon, assault, even murder if the person dies as a result. Compare this to places where up to 1/3 of all infected women were virgins before marriage and remained faithful during. Some don't even know their husbands are 'fooling around' and are infected. And even if they did, there's often very little they can do about it. In so many cultures the man is The Man. What he says, goes. That's it. We often do things like this, but on a smaller scale. But that's a blog for a different day. I think it's just ridiculous that someone can be jailed for causing no harm, when many are, in effect, actually killing people. What is it that makes us not care so much? What makes the life of an American worth SO much more than an African?

That's it for world news.
Now for ME news.

umm...

I had what I thought was a doughnut today. It kinda was. But in the centre, where tasty jelly is normally placed, was an entire hardboiled egg (shell off, obviously). I had no idea things like this existed. Who's been hiding these delicious doueggnuts from me?

What else...

The car I'm driving, a Peugeot station wagon, is a pain. Which goes along with any car I've ever driven. I tend to have bad luck with vehicles, starting in Canada and spilling over into Africa.

Case in points:

Flat tire at 1 am on the side of a dark highway.
Gas tank runs empty on the highway. (My dad never told me the light didn't work, and that when it's near E, it's actually on E.
Rear-ending a Land Rover that decided to stop in the middle of Plains Rd.
After honking to warn a guy who was driving in wrong lane (oncoming traffic), he resolves to thank me by cutting me off and hitting the front of the car. He then takes off on the highway and denies everything. I got his plates, but the cop didn't feel like driving out to London to talk to the guy, so I got shafted.
Sliding in the snow into a guardrail after giving space to an oncoming van. Which turned out to be my sister. Damaging what had been fixed after the hit-and-run.
Thought I had forgotten where I had parked my car in Toronto at 2 in the morning. While I was out searching for it, two people were shot (one killed) where it had been parked. It had been towed. I then had to search for where it had been towed to, taxi there, argue with the guy at the lot that it WAS there (I could see it, but he didn't have the paperwork, so therefore it wasn't there), then pay the fee and get home in time to get an hour and a half of sleep before I had to get up.
Flat tire first week in Nigeria.
John Orkar loans me his wife's car. The key breaks off the chain and gets locked inside the car. (Fortunately the hatch was open).
Driving with RURCON and the car decides to not stop applying gas. Which would have been a huge problem had it not been standard.
First morning I get to drive my 'new' Peugeot and the back tires seize up. I didn't make it out of the compound. Rear axle later gets replaced.
Horn stops honking. Not a problem in Canada, but essential in Nigeria. I'm not kidding. Driving actually became harder. It's the only way to stop the motorcyclists from getting hit when they constantly cut you off. Plus it's how you get the guard's attention to open the gate. Had to get OUT of the car to knock on the door to let me in. If I wanted exercise, I wouldn't be driving a car in the first place...
Saturday: I wake up with a flat tire. Completely flat. Take it off, put on the spare and get it fixed (for less than a dollar!) While I'm replacing it, I notice fluid having leaked all over the wheel. Plus, two lug nuts don't tighten. This is going to be fixed tomorrow. Hopefully.
What next??

This is my view from the inside of my car. Which may give you some insight as to how everything is under the hood...

Yes, that is a giant shatter-crack on the left. Yes, that is a giant crack diagonally down the centre. And YES, those are stickers in the centre-right. For insurance. They have to be there.

And people wonder why accidents happen...

PS, That large, button-like thing in the middle of the steering wheel? That's nothing. To honk the horn, you need to pull the signal indicator towards you. This is not unusual here.

Oh, and guess where the ignition is...

That's pretty much it from me. Just have a few questions for you.

What book did you just read?
What book are you currently reading?
What book are you going to read next?

I just finished Velvet Elvis. Which I recommend to be your next read. (I'll blog about how much I enjoyed this book later).
I'm currently reading Long Walk to Freedom, the autobiography of Nelson Mandela. (But I've technically been reading it for months now - it's a long book, okay!).
I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. What do you recommend?

Filling in the gap.

2008-05-15T08:26:00.006Z

Hey all! I've been pretty quiet for a while, and there's a good reason. Honest. (It's not like I've run out of things to say).
Allow me to explain my silence to Justine, and anyone else who raised an eyebrow at the lack of posts.

Like all good stories, it began with a song...

That song was Hard Sun, by Eddie Vedder, the guy from Pearl Jam. It's a good song. I really like it. I was listening at home once (in Canada) and my younger brother Jamie told me that it's a song from a movie he really wanted to watch called Into the Wild. (It's a true story about this guy who gives up the life he has to go live in the Alaskan wild). He showed me the trailer. It looked really good. So I wanted to watch it too. But it wasn't in theatres anymore. Making it a lot harder to watch. For Sinterklaas, I bought Jamie the book that inspired the movie. He read it, then was generous enough to let me borrow it and take it to Africa with me. I read a good chunk of it before I left and finished it soon after arriving. It just made me want to watch the movie even more. Before I left, I checked on British Airways to see what movies they had on the flight, and, wouldn't you know it! Into the Wild was on there! So I was pretty pumped. But, as it turned out, Into the Wild was the one movie on there they DIDN'T play. And it was the only one I wanted to watch. So I was disappointed.

Then I get here. I've finished reading the book. I have the song on my laptop. Every time I listen to the song I want to watch the movie. So I did what I've done dozens of times back home: I downloaded. I got the movie. So I was happy. But a couple months later (a couple weeks ago), the internet turned off on our entire compound. APPARENTLY, downloading a movie owned by Paramount Pictures is not looked too kindly on by our internet providers. So they cut us off for a week. That was the 'warning'. So, I don't think people at the office here were saying anything too nice about me for a while...

Then, right after that, I went on a trip with Beacon of Hope to Jalingo, in Eastern Nigeria (close to Cameroon) for a week. That's the second week of silence. Now I'm back. And there's internet again. But not in my house for the moment (as punishment for being naughty), so I probably won't be able to post pictures or blog as much for a little bit.

Do you want to know the real kicker?

I still haven't watched it.

To apologize for my previously unexplained silence, here's a couple of a bunch of really cool pictures I took during a nighttime thunderstorm in Jalingo. I'll post them (and others) as soon as I can. If I don't break the internet again...

A short post.

2008-04-26T21:53:00.005Z

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.

Snaps

2008-04-16T07:42:00.005Z

I uploaded pictures.
Not much, just from St. Patrick's Day and the Worship Over. Kinda give ya a feel of some of the random stuff that goes on.

I know I'm way behind.

Here's some more 'teasers' of pictures to come:
This is (apparently) the highest point in all of Plateau. Maybe even Nigeria. You know what? I'm just going to say this is the highest point in the world.

brb

2008-04-11T21:22:00.003Z

In 3 more months!

I got my visa extension.

I'm pretty pumped.

Hopefully I'll be able to get a good night's sleep now.

:)

Enjoy this picture of a sign. I did.

Finally!

2008-04-08T21:44:00.003Z

Yay! Pictures!

It's taken me a little while. Ok, quite a while... but I finally have some pictures posted. It's taken me literally all night, so you better be happy. I hope to be in bed by 1.

Most are from Jemkur, which is a remote village in Plateau State (state I'm in). Because of the horrible roads, it took 5 hours to get there. Plateau State isn't even that big. To give you a bit of a frame of reference, Ontario is bigger than all of Nigeria. (With significantly less people). One of the guys from RURCON, plus a guy from another organization, called TASTE, went to this village to show them how to build a sanitary toilet. Many people previously just went in a field or even a stream (which they also use for drinking water). So it's definitely something they need. The idea was to get the villagers to do the work themselves so they would be able to know how to build more, plus it would get them involved and they would be dedicated to the project more. Just giving handouts to people makes them dependent on them and takes away any initiative for them to do certain things themselves.

The toilets themselves are an Indian design (as in from India, not Native). It's a bowl that can be flushed with 1.5 L of water. The pipe splits off into two holes, only one of which is used at a time. After a couple years, the second hole is used and the first one can be used for fertilizer (talk about win-win!)

The village was pretty cool. Not literally, I got burnt, but pretty neat. They don't see white people very often. I scared some kids... But once I pulled out the digital camera, they warmed up to me.

Jemkur pictures are

here

and here.

Other pictures I have are of Yankari Game Reserve. This place is technically farther than Jemkur, yet takes less than half the time to get there, thanks to good roads. It's a lot of fun there, went with Chinyere, Monica, Janina and Chris and John. We didn't see a whole lot of animals, besides baboons and warthogs. And a lot of birds...
But there was an elephant!
Behind some trees.
It may have been a rock.

The hot spring is what was the most fun there. I mentioned it in my last post I believe. Now you can have a better taste of what it was like in some of my pictures. But I have to say the second trip we took was better. Especially for pictures. So check these ones out, but just so ya know, there's better ones on their way! Eventually. *Edit! Just uploaded the pictures of the second Yankari trip! Ch-ch-ch-check it out now.*

Yankari part 1

part 2

and part 3

CRWRC had it's annual spiritual conference this weekend. It was great. Got a chance to play with kids. Which is always fun. Especially Nico, Mike and Megan's little toddler. He's a lot of fun. I kinda 'kidnapped' him a couple times...

Conference was good. Got the green light from Beacon of Hope. Now I just need my visa. Hopefully that will come soon. Praying it does!

No sermon today.
I need something to talk about tomorrow...

Two part post.

2008-04-02T12:29:00.008Z

(This post is another post in two parts. The second part has to do with Africa and pictures. Feel free to skip until there if I start to bore you).

Doing something for yourself (aka, selfish) is arguably basis to end whatever it is you are doing. If I was a boss, and I gave you a promotion, I'd be doing a good thing. But if the real reason I gave you the promotion was because it was the only way I would get a promotion, my halo will have dimmed a few watts. I'd have done it for myself, not because you needed the raise. You probably wouldn't complain because, hey, it's a raise! But I think it raises a moral dilemma. If you do something for yourself (something selfish), but are indirectly doing something good for someone else, is the act itself good?
In other words: does the end justify the means?

It has always bothered me (in interviews or the like), when someone has been asked why they help such and such people, or donate or whatever - and they answer:

"it makes me feel good"

To me, it just seems like the wrong reason. It seems pretty selfish. I've always wanted to tell that person "this person is in need, this person is starving, this person is DYING… and the only reason you want to help him is because it makes you feel good?!?" What about their right to live, even if it doesn't directly make YOU happy? What about the Biblical mandate to help those who need it, whether you benefit from it or not? To me, help/aid/donating involves a sacrifice.
Getting joy out of helping is not wrong whatsoever.
But if the reason WHY I were to donate, give support, feed a homeless person - if the reason is to give myself a pat on the back, to get that 'warm, fuzzy feeling' I think I'd be doing it for the completely wrong reason. The Biblical idea of helping those in need is to put them first.

Often, I think the reason people say this, or give this impression, is not because they themselves are selfish. They're just aware that our society is. We are focused on our individual happiness. To try convince someone that they should donate because it would make someone else happy just doesn't seem to have as much appeal as donating money because it will make YOU happy. And we'd much rather make ourselves happy - if the option is there.

The good Samaritan is the prime example of helping someone in need in the way we are supposed to. He put the injured man first. He went to his aid. He got down, got all bloody picking him up off the side of the road and helped him to the city. He paid a good deal of cash to see that he would get better. He put the injured man first. If the Samaritan had done it so that he himself could feel good, he would have been putting himself first. He would've told everyone he passed that he picked the man up off the street. Maybe have even asked for help, so he could still get the glory but not get as dirty. He'd be telling people that he saved a life. He would've called up the papers to let them know what he did. He would have wanted everyone to know that he breached the huge cultural gap. That he gave up his hard earned cash to pull that man to safety. He helped his enemy. He would've been trying to puff himself up before everyone. But he didn't. Because he put the other man first. He gave things up. Money, obviously. But he also gave up his trip. He was traveling somewhere, possibly in the opposite direction than he brought the man, and gave up getting there on time. Maybe he lost the big business deal. Point is, he gave up something he didn't want to, without getting something in return. He gave up where he was going, what he was doing, and his lunch money - all for the injured man.

To REALLY help someone, to REALLY give yourself, to REALLY donate…

it has to hurt.

If we're not hurting...
we're not giving enough.

Replace 'warm and fuzzy' with passion; a burning desire to help others.

Here ends my 'sermon' as I'm sure Sherri would put it.

Now, onto African things…

The CRC has an annual spiritual conference this weekend (Thursday to Sunday), so I probably won't be updating during that. Not that I've been the most loyal updater lately… I've been trusted with the daunting task of supplying peanuts or popcorn on Thursday as snack food for the group. I don't know if I can handle that. During the conference, I hope to be able to talk to people from Beacon of Hope (the organization I hope to be working with in a couple weeks) and CRWRC staff about me staying on to work with Beacon of Hope and hopefully get my visa woes figured out as soon as possible. If this doesn't get figured out, I might be leaving in less than two weeks. If not, I won't be home for about 4 months from now. Which is really weird. Should I start getting ready to go home, or should I start settling in? I don't think I'm ready to go back yet (disappointing, I know), but we'll see what the Lord has planned. I've heard a response from someone who was quite excited at the idea of me working with Beacon of Hope. Even said something along the lines it being 'an answer to a prayer'.

No pressure...

Another disappointment: still no real new pictures up at the moment. Nothing really 'African' anyway. Some of you have been whining about this *cough*Sherri*cough* but you'll just have to suck in that lip until I have the chance. Which may be soon. But then again, may not. I'm in Africa, so I'm doing things in African time. Crazy people going by your clocks, rushing to get things done. Slow down! Take a breather!

To keep you (somewhat) satisfied, here's a few teaser pictures of the Yankari game reserve and hot spring we went to recently.

We're all animals.
I'm a tiger!

Chris and I take monkey in the middle very seriously.

This is the hot spring. It is awesome.

Also, some pictures of the eclipse I took a while back. Technically in Nigeria, so there. Also a basketball game and the carnival at the local school. While I'm at it, here's some of my favourite and random shots. That should keep y'all busy for a while.

Something that tickled my fancy.

2008-03-27T12:23:00.003Z

Something I read the other day made me grin.

Apparently, scientists cannot prove that love exists.

This is interesting because we know love exists - whether someone in a lab coat can prove it or not.

And I thought of how so many people rely on what scientists say to be truth.
Scientists say God doesn't exist and therefore believe He doesn't.

Then I thought of 1 John 4:

God is love.

I may not be a math scholar, but it really add up... if God can't be proven to exist by scientists (who have the final say on everything for some reason) and people believe this because science says so, shouldn't the same be for love? If love can't be proven:

Shouldn't we all believe love doesn't exist?
Shouldn't everyone who's married just give up on their spouses, (since they were all just pretending anyway)?
Shouldn't textbooks be rewritten saying love is an old-fashioned concept that only radicalists believe in?
Shouldn't there be an issue of TIME magazine with the heading: "Love is dead"?

I also wondered: who's paying these guys? Who funded a group of well-educated people to prove or disprove something like love?
I picture some rich, lonely old miser on his deathbed needing validation his life wasn't wasted. Probably the same guy who paid a different group to disprove God's existence.
He's probably laying there with a smirk, thinking "You told me to pursue God. I proved He doesn't exist! You told me to go after love, I proved that doesn't exist either!! My money proved all of you wrong! I LOVE being right!!!" Then he'll probably have a heart attack from the irony.

Maybe scientists should stop trying to disprove the existence of God/love and focus on trying to, I don't know...

stop AIDS.

Sitting, waiting, wishing.

2008-03-18T07:43:00.006Z

I've got no wack of pictures to post. Relax, I'm a busy guy. Now, while I've got you all believing that, I tell you about the party last night.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's day. And since there are at like 10 other volunteers from Ireland around, a St. Patrick's day party was inevitable. And when I say 10, I mean 4. It was at the girls' house on the other compound. I'm not sure why I'm bothering to say it was at the girls', since Chris and I are the only guys here; if it's not at our house, it's got to be at a girl's. We were outnumbered by about 20-2.

So yeah, there was a St. Patrick's Day party.

Cookies and sugar-high.
Pop and teeth-rot.
Karaoke and embarrassment.
Microphones and bleeding ears.
Green and more green.
Music and Riverdance.
Girls and chick songs.
Irish people and car explosions.
Cameras and blackmail.

Overall, a shamrocking good time.

Later, after we got kicked out, I went home to read a bit of this great book I've been lent. If you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat by John Ortberg. I thought it was pretty fitting that he quotes a prayer by St. Patrick and I happen to read it on his day.

I arise today through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me.
Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise.
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity.

I found this prayer, and several things John Ortberg says in this book to have really hit home for me right now. Here I am in Africa - waiting, hoping, praying - that God will make it clear to me what He has planned for me. As the 3 months quickly come to an end and my attempts to add another 3 months onto it seem so difficult, I've felt myself growing impatient and helpless. And I don't LIKE that I feel impatient or helpless. I know I AM helpless without God. I know I need to trust Him and have faith that He's got a plan and will reveal it. Eventually.

It's times like this that I know Christianity isn't a human concept. Everything we make, we make as simple, easy and quick as possible. Fast-food wasn't fast enough, so now you don't even have to get out of your car. If Christianity was an invention by a group of people, it would be easy and getting easier. It would be simple. It would be quick. I haven't found it to be any of those things. We can't just sit in our cars (lives, jobs, careers, families...), drive up to the window every once and a while (church service, Bible study, prayer...) and expect a quick meal to fill us up. That 'meal', like fast-food, is often junk. If you eat it all the time, you'll get fat, lazy and unhealthy in faith. I hope my body never becomes unhealthy, but I pray my faith never does.

Some other things John Ortberg has said:

John Wesley wrote that Christians have just three rules to follow regarding material possessions:

Make all you can - save all you can - give all you can.

A friend of mine [John Ortberg's friend, not mine] wrote that apparently American [I think I can add Canadian, European...] evangelicals have decided that two out of three ain't bad.
You could make a secret, sacrificial gift this week - that's an eternal investment. Maybe it's your time and your talent.
You can drift: get up, go to work, come home, eat supper, watch TV, retire, and die.
Or, you can take each moment and say, "God, this is yours." You can offer him your spiritual giftedness - not compared with anyone else - as fully honed and developed as you can get it, identified with pristine clarity, cultivated with relentless perseverance, deployed with unstoppable vigor, submitted with sacrificial humility, and celebrated with raucous.

This is what I want to do. This is what I pray to do. I want to offer myself to God to do whatever he wants with me. So why the delay? Why do I still have unanswered questions??
I think it's because I'm not ready.

A couple chapters later:

Why does God make us wait? If he can do anything, why doesn't he bring us relief and help and answers now?
At least in part, to paraphrase Ben Patterson, what God does in us while we wait is as important as what we're waiting for.

and then a couple pages later:

Waiting in the Lord is a confident, disciplined, expectant, active, and sometimes painful clinging to God.
Waiting on the Lord is the continual, daily decision to say, "I will trust you, and I will obey you. Even though the circumstances of my life are not turning out the way I want them to, and may never turn out the way I would choose, I am betting everything I have on you. I have no plan B."

God's plan is far better than mine. I know this. I just need to believe it.

Now I'm going to ask you to do something. Something a bit unusual for in a blog. Even more unusual for me to ask.

As I try to find my purpose, as I come to terms with the fact that God's plan is FAR better than anything I can think of, as I try to be patient for His plan to come, as I try to work out staying another 3 months, as I try to figure out how I can best do whatever I'm faced with, as I try to face whatever is put in before me, as I'm going though this spiritual and emotional struggle... As all this is going on - I ask that you pray for these things for me.

African lion safari.

2008-03-13T22:36:00.001Z

So, I know I said I would have some pictures up this week...
I was wrong.
I apologize.
I hope you can forgive me.

Reason is...

I'm going on an African lion safari tomorrow and not coming back until Saturday.

Not that one in Hamilton.
This is the real deal.

A lion safari IN Africa.

It's okay to be jealous.

What are you fighting for?

2008-03-11T23:35:00.006Z

Heyo!

I'm back from my trip with Albert. We traversed Nigeria for the week. Was quite fun. Should have some pictures up by the end of the week. Not quite as cool as the pictures from when I went to the EKA, but still pretty good. If I do say so myself. I'll post the exciting story stuff with the pictures. So, instead of pictures this time, you get blog. Enjoy!

Paul was a really smart guy. I've never really sat down and counted before, but he wrote a lot of the books in the New Testament - Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and maybe Hebrews. That's a lot. I've thought about writing a book, but 14?!? That's nuts. Now they're technically letters, but they hold a lot more useful information than most books I've ever read. So they're books in my book. I've been reading Paul's books quite a bit lately. Especially the ones he wrote to the different churches. Mainly because I'm still hung up on that topic I touched on a little while ago on what is THE church. Hate to bore you, but I'm at it again, but with a bit of a different approach. And for those of you who are only interested in Africa stuff, there's some African references and subjects thrown in here, so you'll have to read the whole thing to get what you want!

Now, I'm not expecting anything I say in here to be Earth-shattering or a complete revelation to you. But it is to me. This could all be totally elementary to you. This is more for me to get my thoughts out than it is anything else. I may say 'we believe' but I really often mean 'I believeD', not 'you believe'. This could all be heresy to you (hope not!) But this is all important to me right now. I'm learning a ton about faith, religion and God. To be more accurate:

I'm discovering how much more I have to learn about faith,
re-learning and un-learning a lot about religion
and I'm learning about God more than I thought I could every day.

I'm not what you would call a die-hard Canadian Reformed person. I don't mean that I don't agree with Canadian Reformed doctrine, that's not it at all. What I do mean is that when someone asks me my faith, I'd rather talk about how I try to live Christ-like. That I'm a Christ-follower. That God paid the ultimate sacrifice for me. I would much rather say this than try to explain to someone the difference between Canadian Reformed and any number of other denominations. When someone asks me my faith, I'd much rather talk more about God's impact in my life and less on the divisions in Christianity. You might say that to be Canadian Reformed IS to be a Christ-follower, and I'd agree with you, but to declare "I am Canadian Reformed!" - like that would explain everything - that just isn't in me. There's a whole lot more Christ-followers in the world today than there are members of the Canadian Reformed denomination. When someone asks your faith and you tell them your denomination, it only leads to confusion and the topic strays from the sacrifice God made to how we can't get along. I feel that in cutting ourselves up into little groups and refusing to go outside them we are feeding Satan's desire to create conflict - creating divisions, unnecessary divisions. I won't say denominations aren't necessary. They are. We're human. We won't get along on this earth. Ever. So we need them to get along in smaller circles. What frustrates me is how these smaller circles refuse to get along with each other.

Raise any eyebrows yet?
Don't worry, there's still time.

I find that how C.S. Lewis describes Christians and the body of Christ to be just what I had been trying to say earlier: "Christians are Christ's body, the organism through which he works. Ever addition to that body enables Him to do more…
"The whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts - that we are his fingers and muscles, the cells of His body…
"Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body - different from one another and each contributing what no other could…
"you and [other Christians] are different organs, intended to do different things"

To declare a specific denomination to be a part of THE church and another not is to do exactly what we've been commanded not to do in the Bible: judge. We know that to judge an individual is wrong, but we seem to be able to judge groups of individuals without a second thought.

Like I said, I've been reading a lot by Paul. Specifically, Romans 14-15 has been standing out in my mind. Hopefully if you've read this far and you've seen how much farther you've got to go, you won't mind reading a couple chapters of the Bible. Here it is in The Message. It really stuck out for me. Paul is telling us to do everything to God's glory, and if someone does it differently, it doesn't really matter, because they're giving God glory. In other words, there's more than one way to give God glory - even if they're opposite things. For example: dancing. (It can be a touchy subject in Canadian Reformed circles - probably why I picked it as an example). One may feel that dancing is sexual or offensive; something worldly and to be avoided. While another may feel that dancing helps the individual express their love for God through their body. The first person is bringing glory to God by avoiding things he/she feels are worldly and the second person is bringing glory to God by expressing his/herself through rhythm. Neither is sinning, neither is wrong. Unless one starts to judge the other. This method obviously doesn't apply to everything. One can't say they're brining glory to God by sleeping around… This applies only to the smaller details of things, not to something that has an obvious yay or nay in the Bible. To be blunt, God is pretty clear in the Bible about the important stuff like salvation. If two different people can 'prove' opposite points on the same subject through Biblical passages, it's obviously something that's not vital to salvation, so agree to disagree and get along. "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" Romans 12:18

Let me give another example, one with less controversy. Jaywalking. It's illegal. (I think, humour me). To jaywalk in Canada is to break the law, something as a Christian we are not supposed to do, as we are to respect the government God has placed over us. So if you were to jaywalk in Canada, you would, in effect be sinning. Law is law, even if it seems silly. But in another country, like Nigeria, jaywalking is not illegal. So you can jaywalk to your hearts extent (unless you get hit by a car) without having broken any laws (or sinned). Two people have done the same thing in this case, but the one by doing it has sinned, and the other has not. It would be completely unreasonable for the person from Canada to call the Nigerian a sinner for having crossed the road on the basis of the Canadian law, just as it would be unreasonable for the Nigerian to consider the Canadian 'old-fashioned' for refusing to jaywalk. To the Canadian, jaywalking is wrong. To the Nigerian, it's not. The Canadian uses the cross-walk, the Nigerian goes in the next break in traffic. Both get to the other side. I trust you can see where I'm going with this.

You may feel it is a sin not to pray before a meal. That to not pray is to not thank God for the food He has provided you. I find that when I do not pray (as a conscious decision, not a slip of the mind), when I choose not to pray, that I thank God for each bite - the entire meal becomes focused on God, as well as me consciously thanking and praising God for the nourishment He has given me throughout the entire day (leading up to, during and after the meal), rather than a reflexive "I'm supposed to pray now because that's what I've done since I was a kid and that's what I'm supposed to do or else it'll rot in my stomach". I'm not saying my different way is better. I tend to take prayer for granted and I think I'm safe to say that I'm not alone. (I don't think I'd be too off target to suppose that you've once forgotten to pray for a meal and felt that twinge of guilt disappear as soon as you quickly rambled off the Lord's Prayer). It would be wrong for someone to notice I've not prayed for a meal and tell me that I have to pray before I eat - even though I am giving God glory in a different manner. Different is not necessarily wrong. Prayer here in Nigeria is much more active for everyone in the room. If you feel strongly about a point in the prayer, it's not unusual to say "amen!", "yes" or just "mmm" during the prayer. We often recite the end of a prayer together. Jesus never taught us to pray like this, so you could, theoretically, argue against it. There doesn't seem to be a need to grunt in approval during a prayer, so I'd agree that it’s not necessary. But on the other hand, is it necessary to remain quiet? You might be wondering where I'm going with this. You're probably tired of this long blog and just want to hear about how I crossed the Benue River on a barge last week or how it rained two nights (rare this time of year). You might even be thinking I'm not even making a point. That whether or not you recite 'Amen' at the end of a prayer is trivial. But that is my point. It is trivial. It's two different ways to bring praise to God. One way works for one person, one way works for another. The African feels that prayer is expressive, while the Canadian may feel that prayer is to be reverent, and therefore silent. One way is not better or worse than the other as BOTH bring glory to God. There is no way to 'sort of' bring glory to God - you either are or you aren't. So don't judge a denomination based on the specific way they bring glory to God. First off, it's not your place. "blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves" v. 22b. To put it another way, you're condemning yourself when you think there is only a specific way to bring God glory; that there is only one TRUE way to worship God. There is more than way to skin a cat. There's more than one way to worship. While the manner in which I pray for a meal may be unusual, it's not taking glory AWAY from God, and therefore no reason for conflict.

God didn't create anything wrong or sinful in and of itself. Go through Genesis, you won't find a passage saying "and God created _______ and saw that He made a mistake, but thought He'd leave it so that years later one denomination can point its fingers at another and single them out as being evil". Maybe I took that farther than I needed, but what I'm trying to say is that God didn't create anything evil. It's what we do with His creation that makes it evil. As soon as you throw a human in the mix we mess it up. We're the ones who turn God's wonderful creation into a place of sin. Take one thing on it's own and it's good. Your hand. It's good. It's amazing. (Mine's a little on the skinny and knobby side, but I'm sure yours is really nice.) Fingers are bendy. Thumbs are opposable. But as soon as you bend those fingers and oppose that thumb and smack someone up-side the face, you've got sin. This doesn't mean we should conclude that hands are evil and we can't use them anymore. (Just try to type a reply about how you think I'm way off with this blog using your elbows.) Because hands CAN be used for sin doesn't make them sinful, it just means we need to stop hitting people and use our hands for good. God created us all and will use us all for good - if only we could stop slapping each other and hold hands. Denominations have their differences, but the beautiful thing is that we can work around them.

Paul talks about food a lot in Romans 14, that's because food happens to be what the Romans we getting hung up on. They judged other people based on that they had been brought up to believe certain food was unholy. We judge other denominations based on what they teach on any number of equally trivial matters. For some reason we think that the specific way we do something is the way to do something. There is a difference in what is important to YOUR faith, YOUR relationship with God and with ANYone ELSE's relationship with God.

"For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's" v8, NKJV
We're God's, not our denomination's. Something I've always found kind of an example of our stubbornness against other denominations is when many of us go camping out of our denomination's circles. Rather than enjoy the fellowship of believers in a different denomination's congregation in worship to God, we will listen to an old sermon on tape or skip altogether. Many feel it would be 'wrong' to attend a different denomination's service. Do we feel we will be tainted? God going to cross us off His list as soon as we enter the doors? Is going to a different denomination's service, even for one week, such a terrible thing? To do so on a regular basis would probably mean you get a good talking to. Suppose I deserve a good talking to then. I haven't been to a Canadian Reformed service in two months…

"let each be convinced in his own mind" v. 5
It's not our job to convince other denominations to adopt our manner or doing things. They're already saved, so join in spreading the gospel.

Fight the good fight that Paul speaks about to Timothy in both his letters to him. Run the race. Compete. Stop looking around at everyone else who is running the race and telling them they're competing wrong. You're not the one giving away the prize! If you keep your eye focused on how other people are running 'wrong' you'll just trip yourself. All Christians are running the same race. We are fighting the same fight. Stop fighting each other. In World War II, the Allies put aside their differences to fight the Nazis. They recognized that they had the same enemy. They didn't refuse to join because one country didn't 'hold their guns the right way.' If each country had focused on trying to get every other country to do things the same way as them, the Nazis would've walked right over and won. If you bicker and argue about mundane details, refusing to join in allegiance, Satan will get stronger. Earth is at war, has been since the Fall. Don't give in. Fight the real enemy, not your allies.

I know this has been long, but I'm going to end this speech with some quotes that stuck out for me.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans: "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others"

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians: "For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jew or Greek, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink… there should be no division in the body, but that it's parts should have equal concern for each other… Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."

Paul, in his letter to the Galatians: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians: "We are members of His body"

Paul, in his letter to the Philippians: "The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached… Forgetting what is behind and straining to what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Paul, in his letter to the Colossians: "His body, which is the church" ..."Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord."

Paul, in his first and second letter to Timothy: "fight the good fight"

Paul, in his letter to Titus: "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless."

Paul(?), in his letter to the Hebrews: "May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen."

Gone for a week.

2008-02-28T22:49:00.003Z

I leave this Monday for the week. Going with Albert to visit some missionary locations. This time more South East of Plateau State. In absence of my ever witty and thought-provoking blog, I leave you to gander at some of my Facebook pictures.

Trip to the EKA part 1

Trip to the EKA part 2

Women stone crushers

(Just to clarify, you don't need Facebook or need to be my 'friend' to see the pictures. I'm still working on getting Flickr...)

Where to begin?

2008-02-27T18:13:00.003Z

So I had quite the interesting last few days, to put it mildly. I'm not really sure where to begin with this, so I'll just take a crack at it and see where it goes.

Packed up all I figured I'd need for 3 days in the African bush into two small bags on Friday night. Nicely forgot toilet paper. Not a good thing to forget when traveling. Ever. Sunday (name of our driver) picked me up at noon on Saturday and we went to the Mountain View compound to pick up Monica, Janina, Christine and John then headed out on the 3 hour drive to Abuja. We were supposed to meet up with Chinyere in Abuja, but her flight was delayed from a mechanical problem so we weren't sure what was going to happen, but drove out there anyway. We stayed in the ECWA guest house in Abuja for the night and 3 guys from Water Wins, a well drilling organization landed from the States and also stayed the night. They're associated with the CRWRC and PWW (Partners WorldWide) and come every year to bring supplies, train Nigerians and help dig more wells for villages in Northern Nigeria. Great organization and great guys. Doug started it up a few years ago and got in contact with Steve, a professional well driller. They've come out for the past few years and Jamie, who works with Steve, came out this year too.

Sunday morning we found out Chinyere wasn't going to be able to join us because of the delay, so after a breakfast of eggs and toast, we headed out on the 8 hour drive to the EKA (think it stands for Eastern Kontagori Kambari (thanks Megan!) Area). Jos, the city I live and work in here is in Plateau State, Abuja is in Abuja Capital Territory, the state just West of Plateau State and the EKA is North West of that in Niger State. The three well drillers, the of us CRC peeps and our driver all fit nicely into the van with everyone's luggage, plus all their well drilling supplies. After the nice long and hot drive, we stayed at Jeremiah and Marietta's house, while Christine and John Breuker stayed at another home not too far away. We had dinner at Dave and Jen's (? - I'm horrible with names), a missionary couple there who have been there for 41 years. Dinner was delicious, but I made the mistake of eating an entire red pepper that was in the salad. I think I turned as red as the pepper itself. Sunday night is movie night and a projector screen was set up. We caught the very end of Jurassic Park and The Jesus Film was put on after. Sidenote: if you feel like how I used to feel about Jesus being portrayed in movies, just think about how many people are able to come to faith through that amazing movie. Take some of these facts I lifted from Wikipedia. It's been translated into 1,026 languages (Nigeria itself has over 500 languages), is shown in 229 nations, and has been seen more than 5.6 billion times throughout the world. Which makes it an incredible aid for evangelism and spreading the gospel in remote areas (like the EKA). If you're still not sold on that, think about the 230 million people who have converted to Christianity because of this movie. If you have a problem with Jesus being portrayed in a movie, He sure doesn't seem to mind because He's using it in a huge way. Sidenote end. That night I took a picture of 5 African boys. Before I knew it, I was swarmed by like 20 more village kids who all wanted their pictures taken. They loved it, especially since my camera has the adjustable screen, so they can watch themselves have their picture taken. This lasted a good half hour. I had shared a room with a praying mantis in the night who thought it could fly through walls. It couldn't. Just made a bunch of noise until I managed to get it out.

Monday was the most interesting day. North American style breakfast got us geared up for a lot of driving again. This time it was more fun though. I got to drive! I got the keys to Dave's pickup and got to drive us through the African bush. Pretty darn fun. And bumpy. Rest of them took turns sitting/standing in the back. Surprised I didn't lose any of them with the bumps we hit. Well, I hit. We had a guide point us where to go so we wouldn't get lost. We went to several different villages in the area. Most rarely see white people, so needless to say, we were a bit of a show. Lots more camera fun. One of the villages we went to, we delivered a concrete slab for one of the new wells that had been dug there and a different village we installed a sign saying who had sponsored the well to be dug. One villager showed us how they separate the chaff from the seed. Still done the same way it's spoken of in the Bible. There are so many parts of the Bible that just hold so much more meaning to the people in the 10/40 window that we only vaguely understand.

The truck started to stall a lot, so Sunday took a look at it and fiddled around. Let him drive the rest of the way back. We went back for lunch then went to the market. The market here is quite different from Jos. Much more Muslim influence (no picture taking!) but pretty cool. Very big - it's only once a week, so it has to be. We went back to Dave's. The rest of them got to take a tour of the school there while I helped put together a satellite dish for his neighbour. Got the dish together, but no channels as he didn't know where the satellite he wanted was. Good thing the sky is so small...

Dave drove me back on his motorcycle. Was pretty surreal. We took a path that led us through several 'homes' (families live in several huts all together, looks kinda like a mini-village). On the ride over I just started laughing. If I had thought last year that I would be riding past the beating drums of villagers in the African bush on a motorcycle, I would have thought I was nuts. Maybe I am.

The villages we visited have never had access to clean water so it's an incredible thing. Half of all the babies die because of unsafe water here. And we don't think twice about turning on the tap for perfectly fine, perfectly safe water. Chances are you don't even drink water out of your own tap because you've been brainwashed into thinking bottled water is the only 'good' water. These people are digging water out of swamps and feeding it to their children and we think our multi-filtered and clorinated water isn't good enough for us, but don't do anything about the millions who go thirsty every day.

Chances are me saying this won't affect you, you've seen the commercials and turned the channel. You've read heard the stories and faked concern. What makes one more person telling you we live in a culture obsessed with the self change anything? It's not like you know them right? It's not like you can do anything about it right? Maybe you'll frown about how sad it is those people out there live without all the perks we do. Maybe you'll tell someone else. Maybe you'll support a band that supports a charity. Maybe you'll watch a movie about poverty and think about how 'sad that is'. Maybe. But you won't do anything. What could you possibly do, right? The problem is too big, right?? What could one Canadian do, right??

As you sleep tonight you'll have forgotten about this blog. As you sleep tonight you'll be thinking about how you can't wait until the weekend to watch that new movie. As you sleep tonight - the few hours passing as one day merges seamlessly into the next - 30,000 children will die from starvation or diseases related to malnutrition.

Sweet dreams.

Trip!

2008-02-22T10:13:00.002Z

I'm going on a trip for a few days starting tomorrow. Driving the 3 hours to Abuja tomorrow, then the next 5 hours to Kontagora the next day. I think. Other people do all the planning, I just go. Going with Monica, John and Christine Breuker, Janina and Chinyere, who's waiting for us in Abuja.

Should be fun, I'll be sure to post pictures and update how it goes!

What I've learned....

2008-02-19T08:18:00.002Z

So I've been here for one month and two days. I thought I would make a summary of some of the things I've learned in Nigeria.

Driving:

The horn is the most vital part of a car
Streetlights are for show. They don't turn on.
If you have to pee, just pull over and go, there's no need to try find a tree or bush.
Fitting 8 people into a car is no challenge.
If your car breaks down in the middle of an intersection, that's where you fix it.
Fit as much stuff onto one truck as possible using as little rope as possible. If you don't have any rope, get someone to climb up and hold it down while you drive.
If you need to go somewhere with your kid, but only have a motorcycle, she rides on your lap.
Helmets don't exist.

Food:

Oranges are green.
Oranges that are orange have gone bad.
If you're not sweating from the heat, the peppers'll get ya.
I love pounded yams.
Fingers are great utensils.
I don't know how to make any food other than pancakes.
I eat a lot of pancakes.

Random stuff:

Yellow Fever is a policeman in an orange shirt. Or a deadly disease.
I'm a lousy tennis player.
Gecko's are quick.
I can do the broom dance.
The power will go out as I try to post this.
Working with Nigerians all day and hanging out with English and Irish people all night makes me think with an accent.
The entire James Bond collection can fit on one DVD.
15°C is "cold".
A guest to the church will be asked to stand up while the congregation sings a welcome song.
If you have garbage, make a pile and burn it on the side of the road.
I'm a bature
I stick out. A lot.

Why yes, I COULD write a longer post...

2008-02-15T17:23:00.004Z

Hiya folks!

Felt it's been a while and I should probably have some sort of update on here. I'm kinda lazy to read over what I've already said, so I'll just start from scratch. Kinda. I'd tell you to bare with me, but I know it's pretty cold up in Canada right now, so you can stay clothed.

I am loving it here. It's great. Time is just flying by and I truly hope I can stay for 6 months. This might be a bigger problem than I thought, but more on that later. (Don't worry Jon and Stef, I'll make sure I'm back in time for your wedding). I'm living on a compound with 5 or so other houses on it, plus the CRC office. There's a couple families, a few couples and a couple singles. Everyone is amazing and has given me a lot to think of. Lots of great people here. Plenty of people to hang out with and lots of things to do! I'm getting my own small taste of Heaven here: different cultures, different nations and different denominations all worshipping the One True God - together! It's Awesome!

At Rurcon (organization I'm volunteering at) I've been doing a bunch of computer stuff. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it's keeping me semi-busy for now. Next week will be a bit more interesting as I'm going to be putting together a handbook all about Rurcon, rather than deleting viruses and formatting hard drives (well, still doing that). Putting the book together has been giving me a bit more of an understanding of what they do. Allow me to share some things about Rurcon, plus other things that have been on my mind as of late.

A couple weeks ago I went with a group of Rurcon staff members as they went around the city interviewing women stone-breakers. Some of them had been doing this for decades. Most are widows or have sick husbands so no other source of income. They only way they can feed themselves or their family is by getting up every morning, standing out in the hot African sun all day and hammering rocks. They then sell these rocks for a fraction of the price of a company would get had a machine broken them. It was pretty eye-opening. Makes you think about how poverty really is relative. Someone may be poor in Canada, but they can still go on welfare, can still go to school, still have healthcare… these women have nothing. If they were unable to lift the hammer, they would be stuck begging at the market or the side of a road. This is real poverty. I'll see about posting some of the pictures I took soon.

Another thing I've been thinking about and has popped up is that throughout the world, there is a lack of vision in churches to live completely for God. Sometimes people refer to this as being a 'Sunday Christian'. But it's deeper than that. I'm not referring to a person or persons. I mean churches. Church leaders and members often don't recognize that the church is more than a congregation: we are a community, we are part of the Kingdom of God. We can exist socially, politically, economically, environmentally, culturally and spiritually whole - as God intended. We are a part of the body of Christ. This exceeds farther than just the members of a particular congregation. Every congregation of God is a part of the body. We make up THE Church. To clarify: I'm not referring to Burlington South, West and East as being parts of THE Church: Canadian Reformed. I mean that members of the Canadian Reformed in Canada, the Christian Reformed in America, the Baptists in England, the Catholics in China… ALL make up THE Church: the body of Christ. We all make up a part of the body and need to work together as one. Telling one denomination off, saying they are "close to the truth, but not as close as us" or considering them not 'real' Christians is telling that part of the body that it doesn't belong. In my opinion, saying this is the same cutting ourselves off of the body. If Christ is the confessed saviour to a Catholic in China, he/she could very well be praising God right beside you someday in Heaven. I'm not denouncing denominations. We wouldn't be able to get along without being in one. Each part of the body (denomination/congregation/individual) looks and acts differently. We often forget that Christ is the head, not our particular denomination. Here is a quote from The Message (a paraphrased translation of The Bible that I love), 1 Corinthians 12: 27-31a

You are Christ's body—that's who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your "part" mean anything. You're familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his "body":

apostles

prophets

teachers

miracle workers

healers

helpers

organizers

those who pray in tongues.

But it's obvious by now, isn't it, that Christ's church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It's not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called "important" parts.

We may never outright speak out against another denomination, but we often think it. It ends up being reflected in our lives, especially our church lives. For example, you might hear about someone from your congregation who is attending a different denomination's services. And what do we call this? 'Leaving the church'. Not just our church (a congregation), but the church. Could this not be a time for (dare I say it) rejoicing? This person has found the part of the Christ's body he can be an active part of! He realized he wasn't a toe, but actually a thumb. It very well could be that he, by joining this other church, is now able to grow in his faith in a way that he couldn't have otherwise. This goes the same for someone who joins our church, she may never have achieved the faith life she now has without being a part of this church. Now, before I get hate e-mails or something, let me say that I'm not saying ALL denominations are fine. Also, I feel I should say that I love the Canadian Reformed church and am in NO way saying another denomination is 'better'. But I'm not saying CanRef is either… That being said, back to Rurcon.

Rurcon's staff is a group people of different denominations who aim to have Africa transformed through the church. They hope to have churches realize the impact they have to reach poor and marginalized communities. They are mainly a consulting agency who work to teach other organizations, businesses and churches how to live with their entire lives devoted to God. This is a problem that exists in Canada too, but in Africa it's a bit different. The African culture and religious background is one that has a focus of their entire life revolving around their belief. When Christianity was introduced, it wasn't always done well, and people went back to doing things the way they always did Monday to Saturday because they couldn't understand how they could put this 'new' religion into practice in their daily life. This isn't an African problem, it exists across the globe but its cause is different in Africa. We also struggle to have God shine through in our daily activities. Every single thing we do must be centred around Him. We cannot blame the way we act, the things we do or what where we go, etc. on the country we live in, the job we have, the neighbours beside us… none of this should be an excuse for failing to live a God-centred life.

An interesting thing I learned about Nigeria is that it's FULL of resources. It's the 5th largest producer of oil in the world. It has enough building materials in one small area to satisfy the entire country. If invested properly, these could generate huge income for the country. But because of corrupt governments (and a large chuck of the population being unaware of their rights), a lot of money goes into their pockets and resources are exported for the good of few, rather than used for the good of the country. Just today Ben, a staff member of Rurcon showed me where he had started to build a house a few years ago just outside of town. It's unfinished. Why? The area is too nice. Sound weird? Yeah. Turns out the area is so nice, the government decided the homes they were living in at the time weren't good enough and now plan to live there. So they took over the area and stopped the work going on. Ben's fighting it of course, but he's lost a lot of money in the process. And the houses the government members live in now? Beautiful. They would stand out anywhere. They're big, well taken care of, powered… but still, somehow not good enough.

But another problem of was in the churches. Leaders often taught their congregations they were not allowed to farm or make more money than what they absolutely needed to survive. They told them that to have a big field is a sign of greed and therefore a sin. So people starve not realizing they have the resources and ability to thrive. With half of the population being Christian, that has a large impact on the country. This wasn't an on-purpose thing, the leaders had no benefit of doing this, they had honestly felt it was the right thing to do. Sometimes I wonder if we need to take a more drastic approach to the way we run business… Rurcon runs a two-week course every year for leaders to properly show pastors/managers/organization presidents/NGOs how to properly analyze and effectively develop relief (and I get to go to it!) God has gifted them with the ability to farm resources and they can glorify God through it! A bigger business can mean sending your children to school, eating healthy, strengthening the community and the economy, helping someone in need - things that would give God pleasure.

Like I said earlier, I hope to stay the 6 months, but there's some complications with that. Turns out Rurcon wasn't actually expecting a volunteer right now. They had asked for one a while ago, but had then hired someone for that position, so when I came along they were sent scrambling to make work for me. I've been told that I will get busy, that the stuff they have for me is coming soon. I hope so, it's been almost a month now and I've basically sat on my laptop all day, every day. I'm not complaining (ok, I kinda am) it's just not what I'd like to be doing. Not the reason I came. I came with the intent to be able to somehow figure out where I fit into God's plan. To find out where I belong in His world and how best to serve Him with the talents and abilities He's given me. No big revelation on that yet, but I know it'll come. I should find out by the end of this week if Rurcon wants me to stay the 6 months here, but I'm not sure if I'll want to… I want to stay in Africa for the whole 6 months, but if I'll be doing computer stuff (something anyone could do) I'd rather find another organization I could help out for 3 months. And there's lots here in Jos. I just feel I have more to offer than tech support. But that could just be the hubris talking.

So yeah, that's just some stuff that's been on my mind. It's kinda all over the map (geography pun!) but I think I made some sort of point in there somewhere.

But hey, I could be wrong about stuff. Humans are like that.

To hear His voice.

2008-02-14T21:04:00.004Z

Last night, I was laying in bed and something popped in my head. What does the Bible mean when it speaks of a 'reward in heaven'? I've always considered Heaven as being the reward. But several passages (Matthew 5:12; 6:1; Luke 6:23) speak of a reward IN Heaven. What would it be?

Then I started thinking about God's voice. Have you ever had someone you love and respect tell you 'good work'? You have done something that he or she approves of. I could be something they told you to do (which, God does). But to hear that appreciation, it feels good. Makes you happy. Imagine God telling you 'good work, you made me happy'.

God.

God telling you that.

God spoke and things popped into existence. His voice created stars. Giant balls of gas burning billions of miles away blinked on. Because He said so. That's a powerful voice. I don't think I can come up with a better reward.

So I slept pretty good.

To-do list

2008-02-05T13:34:00.002Z

I was thinking of some of my goals for what I'd like to do in the near and far future so I thought I would right some of them down. Places to go, people to see, things to learn, goals I have... et cetera. Some a little more unlikely than others. But if you don't aim high you're just shooting yourself in the foot! And I'm well aware that doesn't really make sense. In no particular order:

Visit Machu Picchu in Peru
Go to Chichén-Itzá and climb the El Castillo pyramid
Bungee jump off a bridge
Hike the whole Bruce Trail
Skydive from a plane
Take a photography course
Take a religion course
Walk on the Great Wall
Portage Algonquin (or another park)
Learn to play an instrument
Fly a helicopter (or a plane, I'm not picky)
Learn to speak another language
Learn to read the Bible in its original languages
Scuba dive
See Stonehenge
Learn how to make food where all the ingredients aren't all in the same package
See the Acropolis
Listen to all the sermons on www.imagodeicommunity.com (new addition thanks to Justine)
Go to the next Urbana
See Abu Simbel

This is a list that is will never be complete, but that's what I can think of so far.

Some picture's for ya!

2008-02-03T17:36:00.000Z

Heya folks! I got some pictures uploaded to Facebook, and I know you old-timers don't know what Facebook is, but that's okay, you managed to figure out how to read my blog, so that counts for something. Anyway, I've got a couple albums up on there, but relax, you don't have to sign up to another website or even add me as a friend (I know how embarrassing that would be) so all you have to do is visit these two links! Yay for convenience!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15269&l=5438d&id=297901410
Will let you see the pictures of me in London, and

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15498&l=63838&id=297901410
will let you see the pictures of the first bit of me in Nigeria!

Hooray!

Well it is true...

2008-01-29T08:55:00.000Z

So, last week, (when I'd barely been here a week), I already had someone say to me

"... and I know how much you love free food."

Crazy how fast people get to know you...

yay!

2008-01-24T17:11:00.000Z

Drumroll….

It’s that time! Time for the update. THE update.

So it’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally been able to update. The only reason that I am able to is because I’m actually writing this in Word over the course of ~~an entire day~~ ~~two days~~ a week, and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post it. But if you’re reading this, then it’s safe to assume I’ve gotten an internet connection and have posted it. I’ve been all over the place since I landed, so I’ll start at the very beginning, which Julie Andrews would tell us is a very good place to start.

My flight to London was pretty long (more than 7 hours) and I didn’t get too much sleep during it. I managed to watch 3:10 to Yuma above the roar of the engines (everyone had their own touch-screen VOD TV!) and ate a bunch of food, even when I wasn’t hungry. My Dutchness can’t let me pass up free food… I landed in London at 9am, local time – the start of a new day! (Despite my body going ‘what in the world are you doing?? It’s 3 in the morning!!) I took the Underground (mind the gap!) to Green Park (not surprising, it’s pretty green). From there I hopped on a double-decker (bus, not hamburger, silly) and started my grand tour of merry ol’ London! It was a bit chilly at the top floor of the hamburger bus. Especially since it didn’t have a roof, but I’m a man and I can take a little chill. So as soon as I finished crying I started looking around. Was pretty sweet. I wasn’t on the bus very long before I was told that Madame Tussauds was coming up and that the tour company sells tickets cheaper! My Dutchness was freaking out by this point. I almost jumped right off the bus. (Turns out he meant the next next stop) So after I waited for the next bus, I went in and enjoyed the wax museum. I’ll probably post those pictures on Facebook when I get the chance. I won’t bore you all everything I saw in London, as I’m sure many people have already given up reading this having seen how long it is, and I haven’t even gotten to Africa yet! So I’ll loo-loo-skip-to-my-loo ahead to Africa now.

I landed in Abuja (the capital) at 5 in the morning and was greeted by the smiling faces of Chinyere and Kyle. After going through customs and immigration (turns out my visa is only valid for 30 days, but this is apparently normal and quite rare that they give one for any longer than that. It is also very easy to get it extended here and will only take one day. Quite the difference…) Kyle and Chinyere drove me to a nearby Baptist house run by a older couple who’s son I happened to sit beside on the plane. Small world! I got some much needed sleep there and at 11 or 12 we went to a couple’s compound in Abuja. Megan and Mike live there with their two incredibly cute kids. Chinyere and Megan ‘showed’ me the market in Abuja (they were really going fabric shopping and I basically tagged along). The markets here are very busy places. Tons of people and tons more stuff. (For some reason everyone there wanted to sell me a belt. I have no idea why. I have a belt…) We did random other stuff. Shopping for pirated movies (I got Rome season 2!), ice cream stop (more vanilla-y and creamy-y than home), went for lunch… Kyle asked if I wanted fish and chips, and if you happen to know some of my favorite foods, you would know that fish and chips is(are?) near the top of that list. It’s a tad different here though. Rather than deep-frying a frozen chunk of fish, you go to the lady behind the BBQ, tell her what you want and she grabs an entire fresh fish and BBQs it for you. You sit down and she then brings over the freshly crispy fish and you eat the meat off the bones. Delicious. Really.

The next day Kyle, his wife Anna, their two kids (I have to teach Zion hockey one day), Chinyere and I drive out to Jos. A 3 hour drive and I’m there! After leaving Abuja, I’m told I’ve finally left the West, as Abuja has so much influence of the West it’s not quite like the rest of Nigeria. I spend the next two nights at the Orkars, who will drive me to one of the compounds before I move into the other compound for good. So I’ve been steadily on the go since I landed and haven’t had a steady, strong signal or power supply to be able to email or update properly. Pretty much every day the power has gone out at least once. Usually right before I try to send an email or post this…

I’m going to be moving to the other compound this Saturday and hopefully will have steady internet. The place I’m working (Rurcon, the second ‘r’ is silent) has pretty slow internet, especially email. Rurcon is a pretty cool place. I’ve been learning a lot about what they do here. They’ve given me a lot of information to wade through. In a nutshell, they train church leaders and Christian leaders to treat all areas of life in a religious manner. So they can then go and teach the same to all those under them (which is a lot). Their goal is ‘an African community transformed as God intends’ – they take this from a Biblical standpoint of how Jesus called us to spread the word, but also to help the needy. Often we hold the preaching aspect above helping and do not feed the needy or help the injured… but preach to them, often forgetting that Jesus did both! We tell poor people “don’t worry, put your trust in God and He’ll provide” then go back to our fully-stocked fridges. Did God maybe give you that fully-stocked fridge to feed those hungry people?? God tells us to rely on Him, yes. But He also tells us to help those in need. Matthew 23:23 says: “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things”. We can’t keep doing the bare minimum. Jesus quotes a prophecy from Isaiah in Luke 4:18-19 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." We’re supposed to strive to be like Jesus. So let’s go preach the good news to the poor! Proclaim freedom for the prisoners! Recover the sight for the blind! Release the oppressed! Proclaim God’s favor!!

But anyway, I’m supposed to be updating y’all.

What else, what else…
I’ve got a cell phone here… if you ever wanna chat via cell or text message, just drop me a line! My number is 001+234+0808-158-3288. Or comment me with your cell phone number and I’ll message you sometime. I remember like 3 different people’s numbers, so if you don’t tell me, I won’t know. I have all that info stored in my cell back home. But that’s not here. And there’s a 6 hour time difference here too, so no messaging me past 6pm in Ontario.

I hope to be able to keep a more regular contact as soon as I’m settled in. I hope everything is doing well wherever you’re reading this from. Things here are excellent!

So I had a huge, long update for everyone...

2008-01-20T15:16:00.000Z

...but I didn't want to bore you. Just kidding! I love boring you.

I do have a huge, long update, but I can't connect to the internet with my laptop, so I'm using Chinyere's. And since I can't get to my file with the huge, long update, I've got to give you a tiny, short one until I can. Here goes:

I'm okay.

Too short? FINE.

I'm being moved all over the place until other places are ready, so I'm not able to send out emails or blog regularly. Be patient! sheesh.

I've had quite the adventure, and I've only been here a few days. From blowing a tire about a block from the compound and having to change it before it gets dark (quite the feat as tires have a safety nut on them and require a special part. One wish couldn't be found... until John had gone back to the compound. Then I found and got the tire changed by the time he came back with another car.)

Driving in itself is an adventure. It's pretty much a free-for-all. Got to do some driving myself (John has lent me one of his cars for me to use if I need it) and it can be quite nerve-wracking.

I'll fill you all in on more details soon, until then, take care!

From Africa with love.

PS, Stef: You will find my previous posts chock-full of useful information! (you just need to sift through all the useless information...)

PPS, Justine: I didn't even have time to go in St. Paul's. I know, I know, huge shame. But that whole getting lost part took a big chunk of time out of my schedule... and I didn't know how long it would take to get to the other side of London to catch my flight. (I basically saw it to say I've seen it).

Quick update

2008-01-17T19:44:00.000Z

Hello all! I would like to report that I am in Nigeria safe and sound! I'll post again later about all my travels in London and my journey through Nigeria. Hard to sum the whole thing off the top of my head! I'm still in the capital, Abuja, and will be heading out to Jos later - not today (it's almost 9pm here now, 6 hours ahead of you folks). But I know you're all curious as to what I've been up to, so I will give you a real quick summary of London.

As follows:

Flying
Sleeping
More flying
Eating while flying
Movie while flying (no Into the Wild thought Jamie, although I did meet a couple on the plane who had heard a lot about the guy while they were in Alaska)
Trying to sleep while flying
More flying
Eating while flying (again)
Landing
Subway
Bus tour
Madame Tussauds
Amusing myself by asking people to take pictures of me with wax figures and seeing their looks off terror when I hand them a big 'complicated' camera
More bus tour
Meet a fellow Canadian
Boating down the Themes
St Paul's
Fleet Street (and there's a barber on it!)
Lost
Lost
Find directions
Get more lost
See bus
Chase bus
Lose bus
Find cab
Take cab
Take subway
Kill three extra hours at Heathrow
MORE flying
Flying...

this concludes my summary of London, tune in next time for my summary of my first day(s) of Nigeria!! I'm excited for it!

London!

2008-01-16T19:34:00.001Z

Pip pip!

Pre-Africa update

2008-01-13T17:33:00.000Z

Hello to all my loyal followers and die-hard fans! I'm going to be busy the next few days, and I'm not too sure if I'll be able to update this again before I go. I leave in a couple days and still have way too much stuff to do. Even though I've been packing for the past 2 months, I'm still not done...

My flight leaves Tuesday night from Toronto and I land in London after a nice 7+ hour flight. Then I spend the next 11 or so hours in London waiting for my flight to Nigeria. Another 6+ hours of flying, a 3 hour drive and then I'm there! Assuming everything goes according to plan and I don't get lost in London. Which I wouldn't surprise me. I get lost a lot.

Bring on the jet lag!!

This many!!

2008-01-11T16:57:00.001Z

I'm only this many fingers away from leaving! Craziness.

I leave you with a picture of my nephew giving me a look of "Yeah, I did something bad. Whadda ya gonna do about it?"

This was mainly a test at uploading pictures from my new camera. I think it worked quite well...

Less than two hands left!

2008-01-06T19:19:00.000Z

So I'm leaving for Africa next week. Next week. Next week. That's pretty weird. So unreal. I'm still waiting for my visa to come in the mail, so hopefully that comes before I'm supposed to leave on the 15th. If not, I'll be leaving as soon as I can after my visa comes. Hoping it's sooner rather than later!

As I finish up my last-minute preparations, I'd like to thank everyone for the support they've given me. I really appreciate everything everyone has done. First for all the donations I've gotten to make this possible. Second, and something I really, really appreciate, is the encouragement and support I've gotten. Talking to me about it or letting me blather on about it to you, I appreciate it so much. You have no idea. Really.

My time in Canada is winding down, nine days as of today. I started packing a little while ago already, just to make sure I don't rush it and bring everything I need. Hopefully I don't forget anything vital like my malaria pills... kinda gonna need those.

I do hope to keep this blog updated as much as I can, but I don't know how things are going to go, so I'm not making any promises! Don't know exactly what things will be like, so we'll see.

Hope to see as much as I can of everyone before I go! Call/email/text/comment me and I'll squeeze ya in!

oh yeah, one more thing. I was requested to post my address. As far as I know, this:

~~Sudan~~ ~~United~~ ~~Mission~~ - CRC Branch
8 Nassarawa Road
PO Box 261
Jos, ~~Plateau State~~
~~Nigeria~~

is my mailing address. (I expect lots of letters!!)

EDIT:
Mail anything to...

Trevor Malda
C/O CRWM Canada
PO Box 5070 STN LCD 1
Burlington, ON L7R 3Y8

In the Sun - Joseph Arthur

2007-12-31T02:22:00.000Z

I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

May God's love be with you
Always
May God's love be with you

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
'Cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You can't keep awake

May God's love be with you
Always
May God's love be with you

'Cause if I find
If i find my own way
How much will i find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
You

I don't know anymore
What it's for
I'm not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
'Cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe you're not even sure what it's for
Any more than me

May God's love be with you
Always
May God's love be with you

I like this song. I recommend a listen!

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T23:11:00.000Z

I wish you, your family, your friends and everyone else out there a good and safe Christmas!
As we celebrate this day of our Saviour's birth, it's hard not to get caught up in the consumerism that comes with living in North America. We are blessed with so much, but it never seems quite enough. We are swamped with movies, TV shows, advertisements and the like, all claiming to show us the 'true meaning of Christmas'. I know I'm guilty. My bank account has suffered the wrath of the 'holiday season'. It's hard, but it's time to ignore these 'true messages' and see that Christmas is in fact about Christ. It's all about God!

It's a love/hate relationship

2007-12-21T03:36:00.000Z

So I bought the TimCard more than a month ago. For those of you living under a rock (or outside Canada), the TimCard is the latest scheme by an already wealthy business (aka Tim Hortons) to suck more money out of you.

and it works...

I've spent at least $50 on this thing so far. That's a lot of coffee. It's a wonder I get any sleep at all.

So I obviously use it a fair bit. It's much easier than cash, as cash can be quite the hassle. Let me take you through a bit of a typical Tim Hortons experience using cash:

You're waiting in line, you got your cash ready, you know what you want - a large double-double (if you're living under that rock I talked about earlier, a double-double is a coffee with two sugar and two cream). It's your turn, you get called over, hooray!! You tell the person behind the wall of doughnuts - that's the real spelling, by the way - what you want. "Large double-double." Just rolls off the tounge. If you're lucky enough to get a person who can handle the complex task of filling a cup with addictive black liquid, this doesn't take too long. I never get that person.

But anyway. So, you give him/her the twenty (you only ever have twenties because banks refuse to dispense any other bills except green ones, but that's a rant for another blog), and get the change back. This change then disappears the way change does. Just vanishes. Lose it, spend it trying to get a stuffed SpongeBob out of one of those machines... whatever, as soon as that twenty is broken, say goodbye to the rest of it, you won't see it anymore. You can't even remember what you end up spending it on, but it's gone either way. Now you leave the Tim Hortons with your $20 coffee to feed your addiction until your next hit.

Pretty typical Timmies run. Now, with a TimCard, things change. Granted, things like the extreme length of time it takes to get your liquid cocaine stays the same, but there are some pluses. Namely, no more change. Which is nice. Coats are lighter. Pants have less jingle. You aren't losing $18 for every cup of coffee you buy... which is nice. Unfortunately, the biggest problem I have (besides the fact that I now spend more money on coffee in a week than I normally would) is the employees. Now, no offence to any Tim Hortons employees out there, but you don't all have the greatest reputation as being speedy, nor for remembering multiple items. Throw in a newfangled thing like the TimCard, and they're a lost cause.

What I can't understand is, with a company as huge as Tim Hortons spending tons of money to start something like the TimCard and putting tons more money into promoting it, why, WHY have they not taught their employees how to use it?!? I don't get it. Now, it has gotten better, but even now I still get a look of terror when I pull out the brown card. "oh no! Not that thing!" is in the minds of each cashier. I can see it in their eyes. Now they have to figure out how to get the machine to work, print off a receipt AND get a coffee. woah.

I once tried to add money to my card. It took no less than 5 employees (one being the supervisor), me offering my input, as I pretty much could do it myself by now, plus a map/description sheet of how to use the machine - just to put $10 onto my card. And then I had the nerve of wanting a coffee after that.

Tim Hortons employees have nightmares about me.
I daydream about Tim Hortons coffee.

Would I recommend the TimCard? Yeah, I love it while I hate it. Maybe I just love to hate it... hmm.

Nigeria

2007-12-11T03:37:00.001Z

This is a profile page that the cool people at the CRWRC made for me. It's got a bunch of info on it about what I'll be doing, what RURCON does in Nigeria and other great stuff! Check it out, hopefully this works and you can actually read it... Try clicking on it. It might go really big. Sorry, I'm still new to this whole blog thing. Gimme a break.

Shaver of pain in the neck.

2007-12-07T03:33:00.000Z

Random!

I've been using a razor lately for shaving. Never have before, always used an electric one. Nice and easy. Rub it over face and hair goes away! Magical.

But I've got stupid sensitive skin on my face, so my neck gets all cut up and hurts. I'm enjoying the smoothiness, but the neck of pain is not as enjoyable.
Plus it makes me feel like someone will assume I'm less like a man because I have 'sensitive skin'. Whatever. I'll arm wrestle anyone who challenges my manhood.

And I'll have you know, these guns aren't just for show...

a quote

2007-12-03T02:54:00.000Z

Here's an excerpt from a book I'm reading right now called Cat and Dog Theology by Bob Sjogren & Ferald Robinson:

Life wasn't designed to be fair. Where did we ever get that idea? Life was designed to be a series of events to reveal God's glory and point us and others to that glory. That's what life is all about! Paul writes, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)

I'm enjoying this book, I'm only about half-way right now and it's really good. Making me think a lot about how we view Christianity. We pray about, preach about, sing about and praise about how Christ came and died for humans. But forget a part. It's not just for us. He died so that we can glorify God forever. More to come later....

*suspense*

My name is Trevor, and I am a blogger

2007-11-10T04:03:00.000Z

As of today, right now, I have a blog. I hope to use this to keep people up-to-date on my Africa adventures. Plus post random ramblings and alliterating annoyances.

enjoy!