These kids should be in school. I hope they will come someday! It’s just a two mile walk, uphill both ways in 115 degrees.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
the word is trouble...
her face!
Friday night with the Myers
It’s a particularly relaxing Friday night, quite welcome after a busy week. We had something like chicken nuggets, French fries, and green beans for dinner. Except the corn meal I thought I bought was actually corn starch, so the breading wasn’t good. And we had to peel and slice the potatoes before we cooked them – we don’t do that in Wenatchee. Then we did dishes, made some banana bread, and played a round of Wii party. Now we’ll shower and go to bed??? Nah – night vigil in the Assembly Hall tonight (6 inches from my pillow). 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. every last Friday of the month, complete with drums and keyboards and max amplification. Can we sneak out and go to bed? We’ll see - we may not even want to!
Beading is fun!
hours of medical care, but small enough to do some beading. God was even so
kind as to hold the sun behind the clouds until about 11:30 :)
Monday, February 21, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
little malnourished Halima
spend his money on beans instead of medicine. We keep repeating "bettah
food."
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Dis be Cashew! :)
We have two winners to the question. The prizes are 750ml of hand roasted cashews that can be picked up at any time at the Hope Academy for Little Shepherds.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Advantage to getting older.
The small little Granola colored ants that everyone else is complaining about apparently don’t exist in my bowl.
…Note to self. No reading glasses at the breakfast table…
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
we're home
It felt like coming home. We arrived in Emi-woro just in time to come in late for church service, so now familiar African songs were playing as we brought in our things. It is extremely dry and brown and smoky. It was 106. The boarding students didn’t run out to greet us – that darned TV had their attention - but it was a great reunion after church – if you excuse the fact that I seriously almost passed out walking back. I guess I need a bit of transition time (for the heat) and I definitely needed some water! We got a call a little over an hour before we arrived home – the pump hadn’t been working so there was no water for our house or anyone – so Devin jumped right back in. He fixed lots of little things on Sunday, and didn’t know where the day went. We were stopped by road safety on the way home, and were in a go-slow (a traffic jam) for about an hour. We had ants in our luggage before we were able to unpack it in the evening, and ants on our bodies during dinner, so that felt about right! We were interrupted with knocks at the door twice during dinner, which just made us smile – “we’re back.” We were asked about our people, and specifically Pastor Mike, about 100 times that first day, and another hundred since. Internet is slow if at all and cell phone coverage is scratchy or drops altogether. The boys are so happy to be here with their friends again, and didn’t complain about any of these things even once. Why would they? We’re home.
It’s a little – actually a lot – strange to have the house to ourselves - no Stephanie, no Bassey – but it has been great. Nigeria is still “broken,” and people here, people whom we have come to love, really need to know Jesus. So, we’re in the right place. God has gone before and totally surrounds us.
Bature is out of the Hospital
Thank you all for your prayers for this wonderful person. I spoke with Bature yesterday and he is out of the hospital and may be headed back to Emi-woro soon. He apparently was suffering pain in his leg from a machine (motorcycle) accident he was in over two years ago. Haruna told me that his leg was causing him pain and swelling up.
Friday, February 4, 2011
On da way
Boarding in one hour. Off to Amsterdam at 9:35 then on to Abuja by 8:10 tomorrow night. Whaaa Whooo!!!
Blessings a plenty
Well, since we left Wenatchee, it seems much has happened to slow down our return. We have gobs of blessings, too:
No charge for luggage from Wenatchee on Horizon - most is donated goods for the school ($160 saved)
Free meals @ Abuja airport
$50 hotel with free shuttle Saturday
Free hotel Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Free wi-fi in our room
Free shuttle for dinner, grocery store, and to connect with airport for bus/train about 20 times
My ring! This was an amazing orchestration! Dale, who is a pilot, has never over-nighted in Atlanta in 20+ years, but this week he did! Knowing we were here, he contacted us to see if we needed anything or needed anything returned to Wenatchee. Well, it was so GREAT! I left my “substitute” wedding ring in a friend’s safe and my nice diamond on my finger. He was able to run shuttle for the trade!! I can’t tell you all the creative thinking I put in to what to do with that ring… Whew! Now it’s a non-issue! We had a great visit with him and his Uncle Tom.
Mike, a church member, donated a digital video camera. This is a real blessing, as ours has started to fail. The church had time to ship it to us in Atlanta (too bad it missed Dale’s charter flight). We are so thankful and look forward to making some cool videos of our amazing experiences.
The Nigerian Consulate was right on the bus line.
Everyone at the Clarion Hotel was kind to us at every turn. We were eating on the cheap so they even let us use the microwave in the kitchen to heat up our groceries.
Free Business help (printing, copying etc.)
Hand-me-down clothes, snacks, books to read, games to play in luggage – what luck!!
Coin-op laundry!!
Devin’s brother Jeff was in the hospital, but we were able to call and check on him every night (he’s out now).
Lots and lots of encouraging emails
NICE people!
We had a pretty nice time as a family, just being able to do things we can’t do in Nigeria, like take baths, watch lots of TV, and sleep in. We are so happy to be off to Nigeria after an extra week’s delay, but thankful that we were not in Kogi when there was so much political tension. God is GOOD!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
pray for our friends
Of course Phyllis has been in daily contact with Clement, and is assured everything in Emi-woro is fine, but… We would love it if you join us in prayer. Last week Phyllis transferred the salary money into our personal account, knowing we would be back (last) Monday to pay the staff. Pray for amazing provision for them. They are heavy on our hearts, because there are not many people on our staff who still have any money left at the end of the month, not even for food. It is probably worse than ever this month because they received their December salaries early because of the Christmas break. Thanks!
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
This has been a crazy week but we know who is in control and it’s not us. Sometimes less information is better. This is the case with the Nigerian consulate.
We started the application process online Sunday and learned the application website limits any one purchase to $250 and the applications were $112 each. Denied. Oh, and you can’t use one computer to apply more than once unless you wait an hour in between. But wait, there’s more! You can only use a credit card once per month. When your card is rejected because your bank can’t think of any reason a person from Wenatchee, living in Nigeria would make a charge for tickets in Nigeria and only a couple of days later try to charge from Atlanta for an entry visa to Nigeria… that counts as one use. Even calling the bank card company and telling them to allow the charge, you still need to wait a month to use that card again. After killing four cards this way (thanks Mom and Dad for trying with us), we figured we would throw ourselves on the mercy of the consulate.
Day One:
Missed the 8 am shuttle by just about two minutes, I guess. 9 am shuttle to the airport, train 20 miles to the bus connection, bus ride to the Nigerian Consulate. We went in, loaded for bear, and were given even more home work. We already have our residence permits, so all we needed were entry visas, but we wanted to be sure. When we talked to the people at the consulate, which is in a waiting room where you take a number wait to be called (and stare at yourself while talking to a one-way mirrored window), they would have liked us to start fresh requiring all the paper work in quadruplicate. After hearing our pleas (oops – they already had too much information), they told us a few things we needed to do. One included getting our friend (thanks Karin) to go wait in line for birth certificates for the boys and send them electronically. We started down that track, determined to return fully prepared the next day. We thought we would try to bring the fees we couldn’t pay online in the form of money orders. Bus, train, shuttle.
Day Two:
Shuttle, train, bus. Left the family at the hotel today. After talking to myself in the mirror again, I was told to remove one paragraph from one of the invitation letters we had received from Nigeria. I also needed to bring more money orders to cover the difference between the amount you can pay online and the “actual” cost of the visas. You can’t pay the full amount in money order, but you are allowed to pay the difference between what you thought you needed and what you actually need (oops- that too much information thing again). I went next door to Edventured. Edwin Mmereole is a Nigerian and the owner of Edventured, where he and his wife spend every day helping people fill out paperwork exclusively for passports and visas from the Nigerian consulate. I could see it on his face he knew where my mistakes were. He informed me that sometimes trying to do things the correct way confuses people and we should try to keep it simple (duh- too much information). We just need an entry visa, so after filling out two new visa apps online in his office and juggling our money orders to make everything add up, Edwin called the actual person at the consulate and hand delivered our paperwork personally. Problem solved…? Perhaps the visas will come tomorrow. Bus, train, shuttle.
Day Three:
Only had to shuttle to and from the airport to get our hotel voucher today. Things are in Edwin’s (and God’s) hands. While enjoying the best $5.99 all-you-can-eat buffet in Jonesboro- I mean, where everything from Sushi to Prime Rib is in the buffet, including an actual hibachi grill where they stir fry whatever you put on the plate - we waited for the call to tell us to come pick up our passports. When the phone did ring, we found out that apparently news travels fast in the Nigerian consulate and our end around tactics were discovered shortly after the snap and we were stopped for a loss. We called the shuttle and quickly returned to the hotel (as quickly as you can go after chasing spicy tuna rolls with chocolate chip mint ice cream) to email the letter that Edwin had removed from our stack of paperwork the day before. Edwin ran over to the consulate with a couple more money orders to make up the difference between the type of visa we need and the one we will get (thanks for trusting us to eventually pay for those, Edwin). Perhaps the visas will come tomorrow, skip click (broken record sound). Our flight is scheduled for Friday night so we still have time.
****For those of you who might be thinking I’m stalling so I can see the Steelers crush the Packers, I think I’d have been money ahead to just by a ticket and go to the game. ****
The family is hanging in there like champs and we are constantly amazed by the generosity and hospitality here in Atlanta. For example, Lucy, a Delta customer service rep, has helped us get our hotel vouchers every day. She found out that I would not make it to the airport in time to get the voucher to the hotel yesterday afternoon. She printed it and ran it out to the airport shuttle and waited in the cold wind and rain in her short-sleeved uniform to make sure we would have our room for free. Today, as Jack handed her a little bouquet of flowers, it brought tears to her eyes and hugs all around. She said “Now ya’ll di’nt hafta do that. Ya’ll are workin’ for God…” (pronounced Gah-awd)
Thanks for all the prayers and emails. Crazy week to be stuck in a hotel room watching CNN (maybe Fox News is banned in Atlanta?), with historic winter storms causing the largest cancelation of air traffic in US history AND the whole Middle East and North Africa on fire. We would like to encourage you all to boycott the “Day of Rage” scheduled for Friday and perhaps you could throw up a few more prayers for them. We feel your prayers!
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