I am finally beginning to understand the motor-traffic communication here. Everybody uses a series of car horn beeps to communicate their intentions. The first one that I understood was as a pedestrian. When you as a motor vehicle driver are coming up behind a pedestrian you beep your horn to warn them that you are coming. The pedestrian promptly (and I speak from experience when I saw promptly!) moves off of the paved part of the road. Once the motorist is past, they beep once again – this serves the duel purpose of telling you “thanks!” and lets you know that it is now safe for you to return to the paved road. (As a pedestrian, I have learned that it is just easier to walk off the pavement – although they still beep – just in case you are possessed by a sudden lunatic urge to jump into the middle of the road) When you are making a right turn, you beep. When you are making a left turn, you beep. When you are passing another car, you beep. When a car is passing you, you beep. If you think the other driver is going too slow, you beep. Or going too fast – you beep. If you think the other driver is driving good, you beep or driving bad, you beep. If you are in a good mood, you beep – or a bad mood, you beep. If nobody else has beeped for the last nano-second, you beep, and if too many people are beeping – you beep. If you don’t know what to do – you beep, and when all else fails – you beep. All of this contributes to the swirl of movement, color, sounds and hair-raising close calls that is traffic in Jos.
I prefer to walk.
Slowly but surely my presence is being accepted and woven into the daily life of the neighborhood around the clinic. The street vendors greet me with a wave and a smile, and the women at Blessing’s sewing school call out through the door, “MamaG! MamaG!” as I pass by. All of the children who were once so shy of me now run out to shake my hand or take my hand to walk with me for a bit. Even the goats, chickens turkeys and ducks no longer flee in panic from me. There is a group of about 20 children around Blessing’s shop who run to me when they see me crying out, “MamaG!” They give me hugs and take my hand and walk with me to Faith Alive. They argue over who’s turn it is to walk close to me. Sometimes the little ones cry because they cannot get close to me and I end up carrying them. (Try walking with a group of children plastered to every inch of your legs and side and surrounding you three deep in every direction, chickens and other farm animals standing in your way and motorcycles swerving around you beeping while you are balancing a child – who may or may not be wearing a diaper – on one arm and carrying your laptop on the other!). It is no wonder that people come out of the doors of the shops to smile and wave as they watch the pied piper, MamaG, and her parade. When I leave Faith Alive I am once again surrounded by the children who then walk me part of the way home. I am beginning to think that it would be a REALLY cool thing if one of our teams were to do a VBS here. These kids would love it.
In my letter last week I really debated about telling you about Emily – the comatose little girl brought in. When Dr. Ogbeh, Dele (her nurse), the neighbor and I prayed over Emily as they prepared to take her to the hospital I asked Jesus, “When You welcome Emily home, please, LORD, tell her that I loved her in the brief time I knew her, and LORD, tell her that I cried at her passing.” Thursday night, as I wrote you, I did not want to include her because I did not want to have to write this week’s e-mail to tell you that she had died. I even prepared myself to write of my sorrow as part of the light and hope of Nigeria’s future was lost. On Monday morning, during the clinic devotional time, Dr. Ogbeh hurried into the clinic, and came up to me immediately. I told myself that I WOULD NOT CRY! when she told me about Emily. But I did. I cried because Emily has made a miraculous turnaround. She was no longer in intensive care she had been moved to critical care. She was awake and responsive, although she still needed help with breathing and eating. By Tuesday Emily had been moved to a regular ward, her breathing tube removed, she was able to eat on her own. She continues to have some physical challenges– but Emily is alive – and her prognosis is good. The news is not so good on Jovita. When I did not see her in clinic today I asked Dr. Ogbeh and she told me that last week Jovita’s father had taken Jovita to his tribe to be cured using native herbs and medicines. He brought Jovita back and told the mother not to give the child any more ARVs – just the herbs. He also told the mother not to bring Jovita back to Faith Alive because only HIV-positives go there and he does not want anybody to think that there is HIV in his family. (The father – who most assuredly is positive and is probably the one who introduced it into the family– refuses to even consider such a thing.) Jovita’s mom now has to give her the drugs secretly – praying that they do not interact with the herbs - and has to sneak Jovita to Faith Alive when the father is not around.
I have been singing a song lately, “Restore in me the joy of Your salvation, Restore in me the wonder of Your love.” I needed to be restored. I have come to a realization here that I would never have come to in the United States. The world looks at the USA and says that we are rich because we have an abundance of everything. We have so much of it that we take it for granted. We take for granted that we have toilets and they flush. And we Christians often take God for granted as well. We have stuck Him in a little box that we go and visit once a week and if He is lucky we actually stay awake during the visit. We try to remember to live like He taught us during the visit, but we are careless with even that. The world says that Jos is poverty-stricken because they have nothing. So they take nothing for granted – especially not God. God permeates their lives on Sonday and on every other day of the week. They know the joy of God’s salvation and the wonder of His love like nothing I have ever seen. The world says that we are rich because we have so much stuff and Nigeria is poor because they have no stuff. But the things of this world – the stuff – will pass away and only God will remain. And on that day – who will be the richer?
LORD God, restore in me – Valerie – the joy and wonder of You.