Tears of grief

I met "Emmanuel," a 7-year-old, about a week after I arrived in Nigeria. He had been falsely accused of being in the Secret Society. Nevertheless, his relatives wanted to kill him in order to protect themselves. God intervened, and Emmanuel was rescued by one of our volunteers and brought to Gidan Bege. Emmanuel is one of our most joyful boys, always singing and playing. One day at camp he was very downcast, but he would not tell me what was wrong. Then he suddenly broke down in tears, sobbing. I sat down with him and held him, waiting until he could speak. "My grandmother said I cannot go home. She said Uncle Elisha (our leader) is now my father. My mother is dead. My father is dead. I am alone. It is only me. And I cannot go home." And then he broke down and wept. After talking with him, I learned that he last saw his grandmother seven months ago, before being brought to Gidan Bege. Emmanuel had become homesick while at camp and wanted to be with his grandmother. I was reminded that these boys are hurting and lonely, and many of them do not know how or choose not to share their feelings. I thank the Lord that Emmanuel trusted me with his pain.

Baboons, elephants, and flat tires

Recently a group of singles went to Yankari National Park. We had a blast! It is known for its warm springs. I have come to absolutely LOVE palm trees. We had the gift of seeing elephants up close. For some reason they were hanging around the camp. As four of us swam in the water, a family of elephants stood about 100 feet from us, eating! Since we were swimming, no picture to act as evidence, but it really happened! They hung around for a good 45 minutes. A baby was among them, no bigger than a german shepherd. Yankari is known for the baboons that hang around… many of them. I had heard that if you threw food on the roof of the small rooms we stayed in, that they would jump onto the roof and wake the people up. So, one morning, Mary and I snuck over to the boys' house. I saw a mama baboon and her cute baby about 15 feet away so I threw a piece of bread at her, to get her attention. Yikes! I also got the attention of about 5 other baboons, who were just outta sight and who came running around the corner right at me! I screamed at them and chunked the bread (real tough, right). Just as this happened, Ben came out of his room and had a good laugh. Wouldn't you know that the next morning baboons jumping on our roof waked us girls up! I looked out the window and there was my good Nigerian bud Makoji, with a huge grin, throwing the food. He later told me the baboons did not run at him because he is black. Whatever. One baboon also came into our room, since the door was open and all, and took our bag of marshmallows! And you cannot buy those here. Check out this pic of a baboon enjoying himself on top of our roof.

The entire trip was an adventure. On the way home we had FOUR flat tires! It was actually quite funny and God protected us. Makoji was along and did all the work.

Well, not all. In this pic, you can see the tough white missy's lifting up the truck. On our next to last flat, we had to pile out and wait for a while for Makoji and Ben to go to a town and get the tires fixed. So all of us ladies had a good nap under a tree, as a few curious farmers stared at us.

This pic shows our final flat -- we decided we needed to maybe not try for number five, so we all piled out and waited for Makoji to go get us a van taxi. It was a great weekend, flats and all!