Around town and at home

These pictures are taken from inside the "golf course/country club" looking out. Now, this course was rather feable, but it's amazing how great it was to just walk around in something so open. The "members only" restrooms weren't fit for anyone, member or not. The greens weren't very and the grass needed weeding something fierce. Yet, with all of those negatives, these folks were staring inside with such curiosity and wonder. It made us feel amazingly grateful.









A typical scene along the roadside in the "country."








Jim is flying into a village near the ocean via some sort of small amphibious (is that the word?) plane tomorrow morning. I'm sure it will prove to be quite an adventure!

I got these three pictures loaded on in just one hour -- that's progress! Of course, I'd tried three other times earlier today.

Our search for a church where we truly want to plant our roots and get involved is proving to be disappointing. Sunday, we tried to get to two churches. We missed one completely and completely wished we'd missed the other one. I realize that sounds a bit harsh, but ... legalistic is not a strong enough word to describe this one. Women not only wear head coverings, they can't wear jewelry or makeup, and they must have their ankles and wrists covered (in addition to everything else.) I felt like a true infidel!!

Materialism or legalism, that seems to be the options thus far. But this weekend we'll visit two other churches -- one is Lucy's church. Actually, we'll be at the Civic Center with all of the parishes in her denomination in this region on Friday evening. And then on Sunday we're going to a church that Prince has been confident we'd like all along. He warned us of his concerns about the church that disappointed us so much. I told him that next time we'd listen to him. But we want to be careful not to be too critical. Certainly, the people in each of these churches are dear. But we'll be here a while and so we need to find something we can fully support.

Prince and Lucy and I went to the river beach yesterday. We were out because we'd gone to the fruits market and as we were driving (better stated -- sitting in traffic) I said something about the river. Lucy seemed so interested in going there that Prince turned around and we headed to a beach. Lucy's lived here 6 years and had not been to a river -- and the place is filled with rivers. She was utterly delighted with the canoes and fishermen -- hadn't seen anything like it since she was 5 years old. As Prince later told me, Lucy is such a country girl that she can't imagine just heading out and seeing something. The only parts of the city she's seen is what she can trek to and even that is limited to only the places she has to go. She's never seen the ocean and it's about 45 minutes in crazy traffic. She's never been on a plane, of course. She's never seen a salt and pepper shaker before ours'.

Lucy's birthday is Thursday and I'm fixing her a birthday dinner -- guacamole with pita bread (we mix our trans-continental cuisine, here, out of necessity!), prawns, rice (cooked in our new rice cooker), veggie salad, and shortbread with pineapple and pawpaw slushies. Prince will join us, too. We've got a few little gifts and some fun birthday hats, a birthday banner, and a candle that sings "Happy Birthday!" I'm tempted to do more for her but she's never had a dinner, a party, ... nothing. So, I don't want to overdo it! We'll play this great Nigerian game that we bought -- Lucy says she grew up playing it in the dirt under a tree.

Tomorrow, Prince and I are going to get started on writing his stories. We'll start with what the elders told him about when the first white missionaries came to his village. He warned me that it's a bloody story but he wants to start there. This guy is such a great story-teller. He used to drive a bus/van for the engineers headed out to the rigs. So, he hung around with other drivers waiting for their next orders. And during those times, he did what he does so well -- he entertained them with stories. Those drivers are begging him to come back so I told him he'd better plan on visiting them once a week.
Here's the story teller in action! Notice Jim's trousered knee, below -- he's getting a relaxing break from his rigorous work!
Don't forget that you can always double click on any photo you'd like to enlarge for a better view!! Enjoy!