November 11, 2016: I made to Nigeria without much trouble. I left Minneapolis Tuesday morning and arrived here on Thursday at Noon. While packing I found almost everything I needed for the trip. The one exception was my portable short wave radio. I will be without the BBC world news for a month. I may buy a small AM/FM radio and listen to the local stations.

Several people had asked that I bring items to Nigeria for their friends or partner congregations. I had an ice chest weighing 49.5 pounds filled with items for the Deaf Church and my large travel bag with my clothes and a large present for Pastor Ruth Ulea from the Bread of Life Deaf Church in Minneapolis. For carry-on I had a maximum sized carry-on filled with items for Pastor Ruth and my computer bag with two computers and three spare computer batteries. One of the computers is a donation for the Deaf Secondary School with a spare battery. The other spare batteries are for people here that have donated computers that they cannot find good batteries for in Nigeria. I got lucky at Minneapolis, they asked for volunteers to check carry-on bags to the final destination for free. I checked the 35 pound carry-on all the way to Abuja. I only had the computer bag to lug around.

This is my first time on British Airways. I have flown Delta, KLM, Air France, Lufthansa, and Ethiopian before. Pretty much whichever offers the lowest fare. The low fares usually comes with the worst connections. I fly on my own dime so cost is a major consideration. Lutheran Partners in Global Missions (LPGM) has paid my transportation on one trip. I was mostly working on their Demsa Health Referral Center Renovation Project.

I flew out of Minneapolis to Dallas on American Airlines. After a 9 hour layover in Dallas I flew an overnight flight on American Airlines to London Heathrow for another 9 hour layover. I watched the early returns at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and got on the plane to London with Trump having the early lead but most of the battleground states undecided. At some point over the Atlantic I woke up and looked at my seatback screen that was set to CNN Live and saw that he had won. Now comes the hard part. He must put together a team and lead. With the Senate even closer to an even split, he will need to compromise with Democrats to get any legislation through. As all candidates have made promises that they cannot keep, his supporters may be disappointed. I doubt there will be much of a post election honeymoon where the Democrats give him the benefit of doubt. He will need to prove he is with all people and willing to compromise. Enough politics! (Actually, there is more later on.)

We landed at Terminal 3 in Heathrow and walked to the terminal transfer station to find out which terminal I need to go to for my next flight. My flight was not listed on the 13 screens of transfer information. Flight information ended at 8:30 PM, my flight was at 10:50 PM. I had to wait about an hour before the late night flights made their way onto screen 13. My next flight was out of Terminal 5. Heathrow Terminal 5 is an interesting place. The A Concourse is a high end shopping mall with some gates and restaurants. The bus drops you off at the Mall. There the displays only listed flight up to 5 pm. Most of those flights only listed at what time the actual gate will be announced. Several hours passed before my flight was listed. The screen said the gate would be announced at 9:25 PM. Another 2 hours to wait to see what concourse I had to go to.

A few days before I was to leave I got an email asking me to purchase 6 books to bring with me. I put five of the books in the ice chest and one copy in my computer bag. I spent most of my layover time reading the book. I am not a good reader. My eyes tire easily when reading and my mind tends to wonder. (Oh look there are kids playing outside the house. On Friday’s the ECWA school across the street brings their students over for physical activities on the Lutheran church compound. Their school has no room.)

“The Forgotten Luther: Reclaiming the Social-Economic Dimension of the Reformation” is a book based on a seminar that was given recently. It is a bit Lutheran centric, but does apply to any of the protestant religions which have their basis in the reformation. I am not a born and trained (indoctrinated) Lutheran. I have not studied and memorized Luther’s small catechism. Being married into the Lutheran tradition I have heard of it, but never read it. At the time of Luther there were similar social upheavals as we have today. There was a great deal to wealth disparity where the rich got richer while the poor got poorer. One of the most powerful and richest organizations was the Catholic Church. To finance the building of their churches and to enrich their leaders the church received “indulgences” from the poor for the forgiveness of their sins. Luther saw the teachings and life for Christ based on helping the poor, hungry, sick, stranger and others who were marginalized in society. Christ never took fees for forgiveness. The Reformations was more than the creation of the Protestant churches but was a call for social justice. Luther and his followers created many of the concepts we now call welfare or the social safety net. Today, opponents of helping the poor ( Maybe opponents is a little harsh. Lets say, the people would rather accumulate their own wealth than help the poor.) have done a good job of demonizing the poor as “Welfare Queens” and drug addicts. Many holes have been cut in the safety net. In reality, the Welfare Queen and drug addicts are only a minority of those in need. But do we want to let their children go hungry and remain caught in poverty because of the actions of their parents? This is not the place to have a long discussion on social justice. The book was an interesting read. It is a call for churches to move back into seeking social justice for all. Not just in the confines of their church building but in society in general, in the government we fund and the organizations we are associated with both private and public.

In Luther’s day they set up community funds to help the poor. All paid into the fund and when needed all could receive assistance. The theory was that when the people moved back into productive work they would repay the fund with their contributions. They did not see this as a hand out but more as a hand up. Yes there were members of society who were drunks are and mentally or physically challenged who were given hand outs. Since I have gotten up on my “Soap Box” I may as well finish. (For my Nigeria readers, this is an expression used in America for someone who goes out in public and stands up on a wooden soap box and preaches or yells to or at people walking by.) My biggest criticism of the US welfare system is that it takes away assistance before the people have had a chance to accumulate enough wealth to be stable. Those of us with enough wealth to worry about financial planning are told we need to have 6 months of savings set aside to live on in case we lose our source of income. Yet, as the poor accumulate a month or two of savings they are told they have too much and we will no longer give then support. We give them a ladder with two rungs at the bottom and the next four removed. So they can never climb the ladder to the point where they are able to help those lower on the ladder. 

The overnight flight to Abuja was typical flight. I spent the first hour finishing the book and then slept most of the way to Abuja. In Abuja I walked over to the ticketing area for the local airlines and got a ticket on Medview Airlines. The fly a small fleet or refurbished 737's.  I arrived in Yola at about Noon. The Health Board driver met me outside the airport. Yakubu was in the monthly management meeting in Numan. While waiting for him I unpacked and set up the back bedroom in his office. When he got back we went out and I purchased some basic canned food stuffs, bags of drinking water and some snacks. Later in the evening I washed all the dishes and silverware that had been sitting since my last visit. Dinner was a hard boiled egg sandwich and a bowl of ramon noodles. 

As I said in previous post this trip is going to be one month in durations. This weekend is the consecration of the Jimeta Deaf Church. Many of my readers have donated to this cause over the past few years. I will be posting pictures after the event. During the next three weeks I will be assisting the Health Board administration and the Demsa Health Referral Center Construction Committee on the rehabilitation of the Demsa Health Referral Center (LPGM project), assisting with planning the training and accommodation building project at Demsa (GHM project), assisting with several water projects and hopefully, will advance the sanitation efforts. (Here comes the Soap Box again.) Clean water is only a first step towards health. Sanitation and hygiene are just, if not more, important to people’s health. It is good to get clean water to the home but if it is contaminated at the home or the water source is contaminated due to poor sanitation and hygiene there are not a lot of benefits from clean water. As I have said before, I see the priorities for people in rural areas for water are three fold. First to have enough water to keep alive (quench their thirst). Second, to have a source close to home so they will not have to take a large part of their day collecting water. Last, is to have the water pure. I have seen people go to a stream for muddy water when they could walk another 200 meters to a hand pump with clean water. When you have to carry the water on your head and make multiple trips to the water source every day, the distance you carry the water is critical.

There will be a period of time of no activity during this trip, while the Church holds their semi-annual BME (business meeting). The BME is attended by all the pastors and church leaders. For those three or four days I will be able to catch up on my blog and do other paperwork. No field work will be done. One important item of business at this BME is the election of the Archbishop. I am sure there are some behind the scene politicking going on now. But the process is fairly quick. As I understand it, nominations are taken from the floor. People are allowed to speak on behalf of their candidates and the candidates can speak. Votes are taken to bring the number of candidates down to two. They continue to vote until someone has the required super majority needed to be elected. We do not know if the current Archbishop will seek another term or will retire.