It is late afternoon on my last week in Jos. I stand at the third floor window of the office I am working in and look out on the street. The air is heavy with pollution and dust – no doubt the cause of this dry cough that I have. The Santa Special Bakery across the street is baking again and I draw deep breaths filled with the scent of fresh baked breads. It invokes a fantasy of my bursting down their doors with about ten pounds of soft, fresh butter and simply drowning in hot buttered bread. (If I put a little effort to it I am fairly sure I could talk Biana & Char into joining me in bursting through the door – but I am making an effort to behave with dignity. Quit laughing Pastor B!) Across the street a mama and her children are preparing to go somewhere on a motorbike. The driver scoots as far forward as he can, the oldest boy is perched in front of him, the middle boy is between the driver and his mom, and the baby is tied to mama’s back while she is barely on the bike. The American in me shudders with the safety issues, the Nigerian in me shrugs – what else can you do if you have no other means of transportation? The heavily-laden bike zips into traffic seemingly risking life and limb as it dodges a couple of cars. The bike beeps, the cars beep and everybody is satisfied that they have made their opinion of the other’s driving skills known. Although I have seen many mama and baby goats in the neighborhood, across the street is the first billy-goat that I have seen. He really does have a long beard hanging from his chin! He is surrounded by a small grouping of females and babies and one by one they leap nimbly over the sewer and into the street – well except for the last baby who almost falls into the sewer. I am glad that Baba does not serve us goat to eat. Having seen what they eat……..
Baba fixed pancakes this morning and as I cleared my plate he told me that I could not go home – that I had to stay and bring my family and my tribe over here to Jos. It may be a bit of a challenge to get my family to move over here – and I wonder how my tribe – Fresno First Baptist Church – is going to react to the news that they are moving?
Although I miss my family, my church family, my friends, and my life in the USA, there is a great deal of sorrow in me as my time here begins to disappear. How could it slide away so fast? I am a person split in two – half of me is Valerie Hanneman of California and half of me is Mama G of Jos, Nigeria. Half of me wants to go home and half of me is home. When I am back in California it will be the same – half of me wanting to come home and half of me being home. It is not simply a matter of where I am and the people and family that I am missing – I am a different person here than I am in California. Valerie is a very busy woman, zipping from home to work to home to church to home to bed and then it starts over again. Even my personal time in the presence of my God and Savior is specifically scheduled with few bursts of spontaneous moments. I do what I am supposed to do to support my job and I do what I am supposed to do to support my family and I do what I am supposed to do to support my church and serve my God. I know that the presence of God is always with me – but sometimes the clutter of my life gets in the way. (Please do not think that I am complaining about my life, I am deeply aware of how rich my life is and of how abundantly I am blessed by God. I love my life.)
But Mama G’s life is different. My work here at Faith Alive is just as important as my work in Fresno, as I help Faith Alive get stronger in their accounting practices. I love my family – those here and those in California – just as deeply as I do in California and am just as deeply committed to them. It is my relationship with God that is so different. When so much of the clutter is stripped away and my life is so much simpler – it is astounding to me the power and majesty of God’s presence in my life. He floods my spirit. When NEPA is out (and it always is) and I am in bed at 9:30 at night, prayer and worship is a blessed sacrament of my day – something that I long for, not something that I have to squeeze in time for. I see people who face tremendous issues of poverty singing, dancing and rejoicing in the little that they can give, and my attitude towards how I give to God is transformed. I join in the singing and dancing with gusto not worried about how I look or what others think and feel the freedom of worshiping only in the presence of God knowing that He hears my scratchy voice and says it is beautiful to His ears, and that He looks at my dancing that resembles a chicken on electricity, and says that it is beautiful to His eyes, because it is just for Him.
When I came back to California last August I brought Mama G with me, determined not to lose touch with God, not to allow the clutter of stuff to get in between us again, and for awhile Mama G was in California. But then the clutter of life slowly but surely inched its way into me again, and Mama G became who I am in Jos. When I come back to California this time, Mama G is going to be with me – and I am going to try even harder to make sure that she sticks around.
Staff meetings at Faith Alive close with a vow. It is the vow that I am going to make part of my life so that Mama G and Valerie will be the same woman.
“To my LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, I say: However, Whenever, Wherever, and Whatever You ask me to do, my answer in advance is YES! I want to be used by You in such a way that on that final day I’ll hear You say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.””