A day in Jos and shopping

Trip Start Feb 01, 2010

Trip End Feb 19, 2010

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

Cedar Tree

Flag of Nigeria Jos, Nigeria
Monday, February 15, 2010

Monday – In Jos for the day. After breakfast (omelets again) at the Guest House, P, W and I went to the house of another expat couple for W's haircut appointment. (P didn’t feel well and stayed back.) The wife, Kelly, cuts hair for the missionaries for free (on the side). She is a nurse and told us about the organization with which she works. I don’t remember the name of it, but it’s with SIM (formerly known as Sudan Interior Mission, but now elsewhere, so they just go by the acronym now). They minister to orpans (have 4 orphanages), working toward reconciliation with family members when they can and keeping those kids that cannot be reconciled. She explained that often a child actually has one parent. But if the father dies of Aids, if the mother remarries, often the new husband doesn’t want the kids. Or in one culture the kids can be "blamed" for the death and therefore are not wanted. They also minister to all the blind and crippled in Jos, providing them with clinic and a hot meal and devotions at least once a week

Mashaih Ministry to Women with AIDS

. They also do prostitution and brothel rescue and help girls caught in this to get out. (Just had 7 rescued last month!) Her husband, Tim, is a Veterinarian; and he shared about how he was in Bauchi vaccinating cattle on the Sunday of the crisis in Jos and drove fast to get home before the curfew, too.

We then visited Mashaih, which was started by a woman who lives on the same compound as the LCMS and LBT families. She used to be ELCA, married a Nigerian man and now has ties to LCCN (Lutheran Church of Christ). This is a ministry to HIV Aids women and their families. The women are taught how to sew and work on crafts to be sold at their store. They also provide them with shelter, devotions and Christian teaching and have a school for their kids. I did some shopping for gifts for people at home at their shop, the “Women of Hope Shop”. It is a very good cause to help and their things were nice. To get to the shop, we walked through the sewing room, filled with old Singer sewing machines, with several women working at them.

After this, we went back to check on P and get ready to go to lunch. (P decided to stay at the GH and rest.) We went back to the Lutheran compound to meet with an LCMS missionary couple (one of only two here currently--Rasch) for lunch, David & Joyce Erber. They took us out to lunch at the Hill Station Restaurant. We talked of what it’s like to try to do mission work in today’s Nigeria and what the pitfalls are of US people donating to Nigerian churches. (More on this when there’s room.)

We returned briefly to the compound and then back to the GH. We decided to walk down to a Chinese restaurant about a quarter mile away to order take-out for later—which we picked up just before curfew and ate in our rooms. Then we passed the evening playing cards again.

Slideshow