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Archive for the ‘Nigeria’ Category

The Risk of Sovereignty

09 Mar

There has been plenty of Nigeria in the news of late and some of the incidents have provoked me to really, frankly… Well, how can I put it? I feel like I’ve had a kick up my complacent backside about why I am here, doing what I do.

Recently I was involved in some conversations that led to some friends looking at moving out here to join our ministry. BRILLIANT! Then I saw this post on facebook. At first, it made me giggle. 

loves her son, last night's take was "so there are no earthquakes, tsunamis or tornadoes in Nigeria" (me – not that I am aware), "so we just have to be careful about diseases and getting shot, that's good"…

It reminded me that everywhere has it’s up and downs. So I replied, twice.

 HAHAHAHA brill. no tornados or tsunamis — not liable to earthquakes.. all good!

 actually getting shot isn't too high a risk either!

Sometimes it just appears like a high risk, because that is all the information we are reading about. Someone else posted a comment in the same conversation

Malaria, mugging, kidnapping, rape and killings of white people are very high, in my stats, so why would you put ur lifes at risk?

My jovial thought about a 7 year old’s mind at work was brought to a resounding sudden halt. I decided that I could give an answer to that, but firstly was it my place to answer?

Then I remembered that of course it was. I am in said country that is being questioned. Maybe I could share my experience and help out.  So after a couple of drafts (yes maybe I should have got someone to proof read it for me!) this is how I responded.

GREAT question! I’m not sure the reality of where we are living is accurately reflected in the news and by other sources – Malaria is a problem everywhere, but mugging and kidnappings, rape and killing of Ex-pats is none- existent in Jos. Yes such things have happen elsewhere in the country and there is a risk attached to living and working here.   Personally for us, God hasn't called us to a safe life.  He has called us to minister in this country of HUGE need.  We believe our lives belong to God and when we pray, 'God let your will be done' we are re-asserting his sovereignty over our lives.  If harm came to us  yes it would devastate some people it would probably affect our ministry here (maybe for the better) – BUT that doesn't change God's status of sovereign. And besides we'd be in Glory with him :)   We live with the risk because the people here causing the trouble are exactly the ones who need to know God for themselves, i also appreciate that everyone has different levels of acceptable risk, living out here isn't for everyone and that is okay, because God can use you where you are!  People are in need everywhere.  Hope that TINY insight helps – if not, sorry for wasting your time reading this comment.

As I pondered it even further I realise more and more that my life is not my own and maybe it has taken getting my butt out to risky Nigeria for me to truly give it up.

I’m an aspie (Asperger's). It means there is a control freak in me and it rears its head worse when I am tired or hungry or under stress. But I survive because I maintain control – and so to give up that control is a REALLY super hard, super scary and super tiring. If I give up the control it only works if I completely trust the person I am giving it up to. Gaining that trust is hard. Re-gaining after it has been broken is even harder.

I have learnt that God is trust worthy. His sovereignty isn’t something I can really test, though. God can’t earn that status – it is simple fact of life. God is sovereign.

I got some more info from the original poster and I started pondering some more and eventually replied in a message.

I don’t know what it is like trying to relate to family who aren’t Christian, I can only imagine how ridiculously difficult it must be. I wasn’t trying to stir the water, just give an honest answer to her question. God’s sovereignty is a concept that non-believe (actually many believes for that matter) don’t’ grasp. It is a work his is doing in me at the moment! To live is Christ, but to die is gain – that hard to walk balance between effectiveness and risk.

Since coming to Nigeria I have become more and more aware of 2 things.
1 – The cost of missions goes FAR beyond my comfort level. It is also a cost/potential cost to other people. I have lived far too long ignorant of the cost my decision to be involved in mission is to other people.
2 – I cannot live any longer ashamed of the gospel, not my part in getting it to people who don’t have it. A great verse that has really come out fresh of late 1 Cor 1:18 “The cross is foolishness for those who don’t believe”. They are never going to understand why we do what we do where we do it. They are going to consider it foolishness. That is tough – on them and the result I guess is that they are tough on us.
But damn it, 300 languages without a single word of scripture, I have to do all I can in the time I have here – who knows how long that may be!
 

Right now I am re-ignited about why we are here doing what we do. I’ve been complacent about it. Maybe our lifestyle is too easy-going that I’m not being kept on my knees. But I have never been more convinced than I am now of the need for God’s word to be available – in a language that people can understand.

The only way to build trust is to get to know someone. The way to get to know God is in his word. If people can’t understand his word, they’ll never get to know him any better. How will they ever trust him and rely on him and be prepared to lay their lives down for him?   

Our family is here living with those risks – the instability, the crappy power and everything else – to help make that a reality for the millions of Nigerians in the 300+ languages that don’t currently have any scripture. 

 
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Posted in Africa, Aspergers, Bible, blogs, missions, Nigeria, Tim's Work Life, Translators, Wycliffe

 

Mother Tongue Lanuague Day

04 Mar

imagesYou may or may not know that last week UNESCO held their annual Mother Tongue Language day.  For most people the day passes every year mostly unnoticed and this year was probably no exception, at least for most of you.  Our ministry is all about helping to get Bible into those mother tongues.  I may seem simple or even unnecessary; we are sometimes asked why can’t they just use the English Bible?  The speak English in Nigeria right?  For some people that might be true but to be honest for the vast majority of people here, a Bible in English is completely unintelligible.  A Mother tongue language is the language that used at home from birth, it is the language that a person understands best of all, the language they think in, process in, pray in, some might say dream in.  

Nelson Mandela said “if I read in my mother tongue language, then I know exactly what the Bible means” so simple but so poignant.

Ali shared this story in our email update a couple weeks ago.

I recently heard of some translators from a Nigerian language group who were working on a translation of some portions of the gospels into their own language. They were blown away when they finally understood that Jesus had died for THEIR sins; they had always thought that he had died for his own sins.

A subtle miss-understanding but rather fundamental to understanding the Christian faith!  Something we probably take for granted when working with other Christians but in this case it was all because they had never before had it in their own mother tongue language.  That is EXACTLY why we are involved in Bible Translation ministry. 

A local Nigerian paper just featured an article all about Nigerian languages, it speaks very highly of the ministry we are involved in – it is quiet long, but an interesting read.

 

 

 
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Posted in Africa, Nigeria, Wycliffe

 

Life in Nigeria

19 Feb

crossLife in Nigeria is complex.  We struggle to decide how much trouble is enough trouble that we should leave vs the need for the Gospel to prevail and vitality of ministry out here.  How ever sometimes things happen that get attention and so our office have released this statement that we feel might be helpful to you.

Many of you will be aware of the kidnapping that took place over this past weekend (16-17 February 2013) in northern Bauchi State, Nigeria.  Seven foreign construction workers were taken from their company’s camp and a security guard was killed.  The nationalities of those taken are still to be confirmed, but apparently includes at least one Italian, one Greek, two Lebanese, and possibly some British.

 This situation is the latest in a series of incidents that have been taking place in northern Nigeria.  Kidnappings of expatriates are on the rise in the north of the country as a strategy of terrorists and militant groups.  The most serious events have been in the far north of the country—quite a long way from Jos, where most of our staff live.  In light of our assessment of the situation, the Nigeria Group Director Team has put in place a travel restriction to places north of Jos for our expatriate staff.  We continue to monitor trends and events across the country and will make adjustments as the situation changes.

 We appreciate your prayers for us all as we seek to honor God and advance Bible translation in Nigeria.  Please do contact us if you have questions or concerns.

 
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Posted in Africa, Nigeria, vision, worship

 

Cost of being a missionary – freedom to drive.

17 Nov

Okay, so maybe this one doesn’t quite fit into the series, but having to get from A to B is part of life.

It is different everywhere you go.  Back home, you hop in a car, and the questions are:

  • Do I take the toll road, or not?
  • Which nice clean service station will I stop at to use the toilet?
  • Will there be traffic on the M25?

(OK, that one is more of an observation than a question!)

So driving here can be… umm… well… not always quiet so straightforward.

Pot holes for starters.  Not only in winter, but all the jolly time.  Some bits of road are better than others. If you drive the bad ones often enough, you can get a sense of where the bad patches are.  Dan isn’t so keen on all the snaking around we have to do when we drive for a few hours – he has been known to throw up :(

Other drivers. At home, doing driving lessons, they teach you that you need to be observant and predict what other drives might do.  You driving is fine, it is the other road users you have to worry about.  Well out here, multiply that by 100 and that is driving here! Overtaking on blind corners, blind summits (where there is a truck coming straight at you), taxis pulling over, or just stopping at a moment’s notice if you are lucky!

Around town it is even worse.

Police. Yup, I know at home they pull you over for speeding, for being on drugs, for driving like a lunatic.  Over here they pull you over because they fancy a chat with the white man, or because you drive a slightly flashy car and they want a ‘dash’ from you, or some water, or after they find out you’re a missionary they want a Bible – even if they can’t read.  There are 4 or 5 different groups of people who could stop you, all after something different, and that isn’t even the ones manning the ever increasing number of road blocks.

Next time you are in a bit of traffic, be thankful there isn’t a guy with an AK-47 chatting to you through the window. What I would give for the M25!

 
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Posted in Africa, Nigeria

 

Driving – maybe a typical journey?

07 Nov

Over the past few weeks I have been to Abuja and back 3 times. Not such a big deal on the whole, different routes, different passengers. I enjoy driving and talking with people.

One of the challenges here is being stopped by the vehicle inspection officers, or police, or whoever else. One journey I got fined for not having one particular piece of paper that showed the change of ownership of the vehicle I was driving. It not being my car, I hadn’t look through the papers closely enough to check what was there, so he fined me.

It is rubbish, but sometimes it isn’t worth the fight. But sometimes it is.

A different journey, I was stopped but a particular set of people and they were checking that people had a copy of the highway code in the car. It was our understanding that you didn’t’ need to carry a copy of it, but this guy was insistent. I offered to take a test, and the officer’s questions was “ How many corners are there between Kano (north) and Lagos (very south)?” A distance of several hundred miles. I laughed and said I had no idea. The officer responded say there are only 2; Left hand corners and right hand corners.

Needless to say, I laughed! The officer told me that clearly I didn’t know the book and that I needed to buy one from him. I insisted that I didn’t and eventually I had to call a barrister that I know to tell the guy to let us go. But 30 minutes of lost time sat in a hot car is not fun for anyone.

That same journey we were outside Abuja at a petrol station. We had been in line for only a short amount of time, but the van in front of us had got filled up, appeared to have paid for it… but he wasn’t moving. People started shouting, someone started pulling their car out, people started fighting, I was looking around wondering if we could get out of there if things got worse. Eventually, the fight stopped and the guy gets in the car and headed out. While receiving my fuel, I asked the girl at the pump what it was all about. Turns out she didn’t have the exact change – N30 (12p) to be precise – and the guy wasn’t moving his van until he got it.

It is not uncommon for people to have to send for change, and it is not uncommon for you to move away from the pump until they bring the change. No-one knows why the guy in the van was so grumpy, but it was also hilarious to the 5/6 guys hanging around after the occasion do a post-match analysis of the whole situation.

Just another typical day driving!

 
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Posted in Africa, Nigeria

 

Cost of being a missionary – electricity

24 Jul

I know I know, we all take it for granted in the UK -  my friends from America are finding it amusing how much social media has had to say about the power cuts in the us in June.  Reality is, when you move to a third world country – even a city the electricity supply is problematic. Any thing we have plugged into a Nepa* outlet must have a voltage stabilizer plugged in first.  The stabilizer must be big enough to cope with the demand placed on it and there is no guarantee that if there is a spike in the supply, that the thing or what ever is plugged into it will survive.  We knew about the power situation, it wasn’t a surprise, but I guess I am minding it is one difference between short term trips where you are pretty much prepared to cope with almost anything and living long term.  Long term you have to put more things in place to cope.   2 weeks after arriving, we stumbled upon a house and moved in and bought the contents.  It save. A lot of running around and figuring out, part of that package was a battery back up system with two 12v deep cell batteries and chargers and inverters.  We never really heard of such systems let alone though about having one.  It was such a blessing, a bunch of lights attached (yes some rooms had 2 lights, 1 Nepa and 1 battery whose switch was in a cupboard down our corridor), and the ability to charge laptops and plug the fridge in was brilliant.  but they are only good if there is charge it he batteries.  We had them hooked up to charge from Nepa, so it was fine if you got a few hours of Nepa each day but 2/3 days without and the batteries aren’t any good to you.      We are lucky not to have lost any food out of our fridge or freezer yet, but a few months in we did decide to invest in a generator that wasn’t something we had previously considered needing.  Both these things have proved invaluable to us, but the up front investment, cost of running, upkeep and maintenance are a whole lot of grief.  It does mean I got wise when we moved house and engineered our battery system. Through our fuse board to power 1 light in each room, through the normal light switch, which means we don’t have to run down a corridor to trilogy’s on, and we don’t always have 1 bulb that is not in use :) . We haven’t yet invested in solar charging system, nor a wind turbine like our neighbors (thought it’s brake keeps getting stuck on :(  )but there is still time for those additions.  Our projects however often don’t have power unless we buy a generator (small investment huge running costs now) or a solar system (large investment but as long as it works, zero running costs).

I’m not sure if it really counts as a cost, but the hassle involved here does take its toll and so I think that is a cost we pay.  I hope the real cost of losing a piece of equipment or an appliance is one that we will never have to face.

 

*Nepa is our power supplier it has such a bad reputation that a few years ago it changed it name to PHCN the Power Holding Company Nigeria.  However, everyone still refers to them as Nepa.  Among the numerous explanations of. The acronym is my favourite Never Ever Power Always.

 
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Posted in Africa, Home Life, missions, Nigeria

 

Foody Friday – Hot and cold Sorbet.

13 Jul

As inspired by our friends over at thosewinklers.wordpress.org we are starting a Foody Friday spot on our blog.   Ali will probably be the main contributor so look out for some treats  – Tim

 

Since moving to Nigeria I have developed a passion for trying to make foods that I have only ever previously bought pre-made.  Some of this has come from the difficulty of buying some food-types here and some from a desire to do something that is both enjoyable and productive.

In the pursuit of new taste sensations I have made various sorbets from fresh fruit.  An early attempt involved squeezing oranges and adding a bit of sugar and some (what I thought was) powdered ginger.  Now to explain this, I actually have to back up a bit . . .

When we moved into our first house in Jos we inherited cupboards full of food, including various herbs and spices that I did not recognise.  Among them was a unlabelled jam jar full of a powdered substance that looked like ginger, smelled like ginger and which, shockingly, I assumed was ginger!  Turns out it was ginger, but mixed with cayenne pepper (or at least the Nigerian equivalent) to be used in spicy, savory dishes.

So, in blissful ignorance, I merrily added a good dose of it to my orange sorbet mixture.  The next day I served up my creation, anticipating sighs of delight.  The first taste was fresh, a little tangy, then the tang built and developed until the heat in our mouths demanded to be cooled with another mouthful.  So it continued, each mouthful cooling the heat of the previous mouthful, only to build into an inferno of its own. It was a weird, and not altogether unpleasant, sensation.  We christened it “Hot and Cold Sorbet” and decided that we quite liked it, but I must admit that I have not made any more since!

 
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Posted in Home Life, Nigeria

 

Cost of being a missionary – safety and security

10 Jul

I have bumped this post forward a few weeks because of a conversation I had on Friday.  While we were preparing to come to Nigeria, we received 1 retraction probably more than any other.  I’ll admit that after a while it was an irritation, but for the people asking the question, it was the obvious question and although I had answered it what felt like a hundred times, for them, it was the first chance to ask.

The question: WHY on earth would you go to Nigeria, people get kidnapped there and they blow stuff up all the time.  Let alone the corruption why would you want to go there?

Our answer: 2 reasons, all those thing you think are reasons not to go there, are exactly the reason we need to go there.  The answer to the unrest, the thing people strive for is peace.  The Bible is referred to as the gospel of peace, those violent people need a bible in a langue and a form they can understand. The people who are involved in corruption need some higher moral understanding, they are only going to get that form a Bible they too need it in a language and a form they can use and understand. The second reason is that we believe god has called us to go.  He knows the state of the country and the risks involved, but he also has the freedom to do what he will with us, because we gave our lives to him.

Nigeria is in the news more than I would probably like it to be for all the wrong reasons.  Most recently arsenal have cancelled their trip here siting the inability to agree on conditions for the team.  If I was the coach, I wouldn’t want to bring my team to a major sporting even where there is a risk of being blown up.  No joke, it is a real risk.  While police stations and embassies and media headquarters have been targeted in the Capitol, I would want to bring my team here either. Jos where we live has plenty of tensions. Parts of town we don’t go to, and a security force who check every car and sometimes every person on the way into church on a Sunday morning.  In fact the past couple of morning we haven’t been to a local church because of threats that have been made on the city.  Why do we stay? Because the same reason still exist as when we were deciding to come here 2 years ago, noting has changed except our understanding of how desperate this country is and how needy this country is to see a change.

There are things here that aren’t safe to do.  The conversation that prompted the change of timetable for this port was information that some our of colleagues in the country for a workshop were on the road travelling to said workshop when they were held up at gunpoint and robbed.  I’m not too included to go to that area at the best of times but it is the first such incident that I am aware of since we arrived, that involves missionaries.

We have a gate gaurd on our compound, you can’t get in unless someone inside opens up the gate.  It is normal practice here, and all the bar wire too.  We have a gate on the front of our house that we padlock up every night.  Im not too keen driving around at not, but to be honest the main roads have traffic and planets of police and army out at the moment that popping up the road for dinner isn’t too bad.  But when bombs go off in town on Christmas morning or on other Sunday mornings and gun shots can be heard on the road out side your compound, every back fire and every car tire blowing out (we live near the main road) for a while is questionable.  We have got use to the cars now and it doesn’t take more than a second to realise it is a car, but interesting that we hear probably 50 cars a week, yet for a while our assumption was that it is the worse case scenario of a bomb.

It doesn’t always feel safe.   It isn’t always secure, but we do have plenty of things in place to make sure of both, but it is a cost we pay to be missionaries out here.   Most of the time we do actually feel fine about living here, i guess we ave adjusted to the norm of road blocks and threats.  We don’t’ feel personally under any threat but still, every time things happen, I am more convinced that these people need God and a Bible in a language and form they can understand.

 
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Posted in Africa, missions, Nigeria

 

God at work in troubled times

08 Mar

I can be a critic, discouraging pessimist. I can be mean and rude. I can be a self-centered self preservist – there I said it. Truth is, when we are pushed up against a wall, when we are driven by fear, when bad stuff is going on around us that survival instinct kicks in to the max.

Nigeria can be a troubled place. Jos has experienced its fair share of incidents. Last Sunday when there was a suicide car bomb attack at a major church denomination in town about 3km from our house, was one of those times when for a little while the survival instinct kicked in. It was the first time since getting here that I wondered ‘how bad would it have to get before I get up out of here and take my family to safety in England’. Don’t judge me – maybe I am not a very good missionary for thinking about that, maybe I am not fully prepared to pay the cost with my life to serve God and live for Jesus in Nigeria.

As a youth worker I would talk how our faith is stretched like a rubber band or stretch Armstrong toy. The whole concept of not knowing how strong your faith it until it is stretched, you can pull it and pull it and stretch it, and you will only find out how much it can withstand by doing so. God promises (yes a strong work) that we will face trials of many kinds, but he also promises that he will not let us be tested beyond what we can stand. I sometimes wonder – how much can I stand?

Even in the midst horrible badness that results in people dying, it is possible, if you look hard enough to see god working. This car bomb was set off before it reached its destination. It didn’t really go off. Only half of the bomb exploded. Who knows what damaged would have been done if the whole thing had exploded – it would have probably impacted the building to collapse kill all inside. It seems an odd way to protect people, but if you look hard enough, I take courage that God is at work even in troubled times.

 
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Posted in Africa, Nigeria

 

What, you aren’t a teacher?

04 Feb

ALI – When we headed out here to Nigeria, we though i would get involved teaching at Hillcrest school.  It turns out they don’t’ have need for a high school science teacher.   So we took some time out and explored a few options in the Wycliffe office.

I have a title which is currently ‘data archivist’ and my current project is to gather and assimilate information on Nigerian languages (all 520+ of them!) in order to provide an update for the Ethnologue (if you don’t know what this is, which you  check out www.ethnologue.org).
This is quite a mammoth undertaking as there are 3 pages of questions for each of the languages. For many of the language groups we have little or no information and no easy way of getting it. It is quite a shock coming from a culture where I am used to any information I require (and an awful lot that I don’t!) being available to me following a few clicks of a mouse. It has made me realise that the web isn’t actually as “world wide” as you might think, at least in its content.

I have also had the opportunity of dusting off my rather cobwebby database skills as we try to create a database that can enable us to keep track of what information we do have and show us the gaps of what we need to find out.

I have been working closely with one of our directors, as most of the work that I am taking on used to be done by him. However he and his wife have had to return to the US for a few months so we are now having to work by e-mail rather than face to face. Thankfully we are both quite happy working with this medium but please pray for continued clear communication.

 
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Posted in Ali's Work Life, Nigeria

 
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