A Dayin the Life of Me.....

I wrote this quite awhile ago, and since then a lot has happened. Many of you have heard that Stella went to be with Jesus Nov 11… this blog is about the day before that and I thought you would still want to know about it…

In a response to the massive need to catch my blog up on life, my goal is to write at least 5 separate blogs… you don’t have to read them all at the same time :P… that is once I actually write them.

To start out, a few days ago I had a crazy busy and memorable day that a bunch of people asked about on facebook… so...

5am- I woke up, spent time in the Word, was amazed that we had power all night and that for once it was useful at 5am J I drank fake (aka instant) coffee and found out we were getting picked up at 6 instead of 5:30 because there is still a curfew on the city after the riots a year ago.

6am- Left for the hospital where we got to see Stella. She was released on bail and because of a Dr’s letter explaining the gravity of her illness and the fact that she only has 1-2 months to live. We had a sweet time joking with her, asking if she’s excited to see her children, making sure we know all the words to a song she taught us, ect. The whole time, the court appointed shirtee(that’s probably spelled wrong…), whose job it is to get all the signatures and prove to the court that everything was done for her case, was flirting with my neighbor Karis. Here is a sample of our conversation while she was out of the room.

Him: Did you see my wife? She is very beautiful!

Me: yes she is, but I hear you have a lot of work to do before she is your wife.

Him: Ah yes, I told her I will send her father 500 cows.

Me: What if he says no?
Him: O! then I will follow him with love saying “daddy, give to me this one”.

Me: Her father is a very big man!

Him: So am I!

Me: He is very tall.

Lisa: He is an angry man. (not true, by the way…)

Me: He is a farmer, so you will have to work for her seven years- its biblical.

Him: Ah! But I cannot do that!

Lisa: And then you may get the wrong sister.

Him: Oh I will look very carefully to make sure I get my beautiful wife. Besides, that was before Christ, we don’t have to do this anymore.

…Karis later said: So you’re saying women were more valuable before Christ?

… end of the story, he was really annoying.

In the middle of this all the doctor came with the results of all of Stella’s tests and they had to tell her she is DOUBLE dying. Cervical cancer that is inoperable plus the stigma of HIV.

Then we found out we needed to go to the police station to get the personal belongings they took when she first went to prison.

7 am- We squeeze 7 people into a stationwagon with Karis in the boot. Mr. Shirtee says to me “why do you put my wife in the boot? You go!” We then explain that a real gentleman would take her place, but he continued to tell ME to sit in the back instead and eventually just let her stay there.

While Stell, Mr. Shirtee and Patience(another recently released prisoner) go into the station we talk about all the crazy culturalness going on and see more big guns than I’ve seen in my entire life.

8am- We have to leave the station (where they are still waiting for her stuff… Mr. S says “my white wife is in the car, she is even more beautiful than these two!”) Drop kids off at school, take Lisa home, and go back to the hospital to try to pay the bill.

9am- I get dropped at the Zoo, when I’m met by 16 boys, 3 Nigerian adults, 7 Danish, and 1 English girl. We have a blast taking pictures of the boys and seeing the lions, chimps, cheetah, camel, snakes, ostrich, peacock, random birds, 5 kinds of monkey, doves, and alligators.

11am- We start walking home from the Zoo with the boys. At one crossing point is my FAVORITE traffic director. Some people call them “yellow fever guys” because of their bright vests. This one loves his job and dances the entire time. I stupidly forgot that it is probably a really bad place to take a picture and called attention to our already attention gaining group. Three minutes down the road we were chased down by some form of National Security and had a heated discussion for 20 minutes about how it isn’t a safe area to walk in, that we don’t know the place well, if anything happened it would be blamed on the country, we were putting the kids in danger and if we had told them white people were walking there they would have sent us security guards… the whole time I was thinking—so now I can’ walk because I’m white? I walk every day!

12- We finally arrived back to Gidan Bege, with five Nigerians from Security in tow to talk to Uncle Joseph. Soon after they were calmed down the boys started a program to say goodbye to the Danish group. EVERYONE was crying and it made me think about how I will be leaving soon…

Then I was picked up for a craft meeting where we talked about what we could sell to help the ministry be more self sustaining as well as holistic. We want to train the kids (especially the older ones) so that they can support themselves through a skill once they leave the ministry.

4pm- I got home and found our new compound pig got loose and helped chase it around for 20 minutes until it gave up and just sat down in the mud. The pig was originally a “gift” hidden in Lisa’s bathroom when she came home from England last week. We plan to roast it!

The rest is a blur… eating dinner at Heather’s, talking to Josh and Tricia and my parents on skype… and that’s a day in the life of me.