contrasts

These two pictures are just what is on my mind today. Today I miss my family. It is such a stark contrast between when this winter / s'more making day was taken verses one month later being in Africa and dancing and sweating and just enjoying different family.

Two worlds, two families, two days, wanting both......

It is a joy to obey the calling of Christ, but today it feels a bit torn in my heart.

local establishments

Local gymnasium (it is a bummer when there is a huge drop off if you were to fall off...). Thanks John for sporting off some of your talent.

Local chicken mart. You buy them live or dead. Once you kill them and drain the blood, you can throw in boiling water for five minutes and then the feathers slide easily off. (for the record, I do already by mine in a meat market, killed and frozen. BUT, I have tried this before)

Local laundry mat. This is a common sight here, especially during this dry, dry season of time. I am grateful for our washer and dryer (even if we cannot use them often), it beats the river and rocks.

family moments

John's dad and his wife are leaving tomorrow. It is always sad to say goodbye to family when they come to encourage and bless. We are grateful for our time with them. We were able to celebrate Gus's and John's dad's birthdays this past weekend (they are both in April - yes, we were really early, but it was fun to do with Dale in town).

The other two pictures are just of our new outfits before church. If you can see, the girls have totally different clothing styles. They both were able to design their whole look and style and so here was the final result. Sami's has frills at the bottom and Sarah's is more of a chinese look, simple little collar and hemline. In the end, it fits them both well. Thank you Dale and Eileen for being here and loving on us. We are grateful!

distracting vs. strengthening

Yesterday on the way to church our whole family along with John's dad and wife, went to the Oasis house. It is a home that will be used as a resource/education center for the future as it sits right along the edge of the property where we are building and right next to the village.

Anyway, as we were driving in (which is an adventure to begin with) we came across a herd of cattle just meandering through the land. There are a group of people, the Falani, who typically travel along with them and this particular morning there were two men and one younger boy. I picture him to be no older than my son Gus (who is 9).

A thought that went through my mind yesterday was I wonder what they think about all day long. Where does their mind wander to...... do they get bored........ does it even cross their thoughts that this might be what they do for the next 40 years of their life.....

Anyway, it was a fleeting thought that I remembered this morning on mine and John's run. I was thinking about how I have chosen lately to not run with music or an iPod in my ear so I can just pray or talk to John, etc... Well, it has been a couple of grueling weeks now since I haven't run with the distraction, and this morning I found myself praying with John and being "intune" to what I was praying for and truly intent on what God was saying or leading....

I realized at that moment, that the music had become a distraction to me and I wasn't strengthening my mind with it and I now I am slowly allowing the retraining of my mind to take place again. I always say that the competition of a race takes place 90% in the mind and I also believe that to be true with the race of life. I had become weary of the mental battle so I started just distracting my mental thoughts verses strengthening them and joining in on the race again.

All of that to say is it brought me back to these Falani boys and men.... I have no idea what goes through their mind, but I do think that their distraction level might be less. I want to reenter the race. I want to retrain my thoughts to be that of Christ's and I want to enjoy the run again. So, here goes to the discipline of retraining the mind. I know in the end, I won't regret it.

a couple of sites lately

Good Morning from Nigeria. Here are a couple of pictures. One is of the track at Hillcrest school. I spend my Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons there with five teenagers (those are the number of long distance runners I personally work with) who have their first track meet this Friday and then only one more on the 20th of March. The thing I have enjoyed the most with these five are the moments I am able to talk to them about the parallels with their distance run with their walk with Christ. It is so fun for me to pass this on because a lot of my spiritual growth insight has come from my distance runs and I think there is so much to be learned by taking a moment to just train our thoughts in that direction. At first, they were a bit confused why I was bringing it up with each session. I do believe however, they are now catching on that I want to not only coach them for their meets, but I want to train them with their walks and how to persevere through the distance race of life. I love it! Now, if I can just get them to not ignore me at school when they see me (hehehehehee). Oh well, at least on the field I have their attention. Strange having a season that is so short and then cut even shorter because of the crisis earlier this year. Either way, this is common scenery for my eyes.

The other photo is of Evelyn's shower. She is at the end of the table and she is due in about one week. I think she is one of the neatest women I have met here. It is not common for women to throw baby showers here. Emilee had fun games planned and good food and I was glad to be a part of bringing a bit of America into this land. I like the celebration we offer to new mothers and I hope they saw the purpose of it as well.....

oswald chambers thoughts

"Paul's idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul's service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no ammount of ingrattude will be able to hinder us from serving one another." - devotional from February 23

The battle has seemed fierce lately. I can know in my head that the battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces in this dark world.... (paraphrased Eph. 6:12), but it can be hard for me to remember if I don't see the "crisis". I think maybe my focus has not been Christ but people. Funny, isn't it? I can be "ready" for the physical crisis that takes place here, but the spiritual battle can catch me off guard and quickly deplete what earthly energy I can muster.

These last few days I have been able to get away and spend time with Jesus and it has been so rich, allowing Him to fill me and allowing Him to minister in a way that was and is meant to be. These two pictures I have today are of a couple of places here in Jos that I have been able to find to be peaceful and no distractions (for the most part anyway). One is of a picnic table at the kid's school. I frequently can be found here after taking the kids to their school and then taking a moment to myself. The picture of the table and chairs is at a local bakery that has outside seating. The workers at this local establishment are so nice to me and I am grateful for their Coca-Light and quaint setting (all relative).

circumstances

FYI, we have lost internet in our house; therefore, it is hard to be able to get online and move forward with emails and blogging.

I promise, as soon as we can get it working again, I will be back with a tremendous blog, I am sure of it.....

God bless to you all.... I am hoping to be back in just a couple of days....

Cor & John

P.S. Tomorrow, Emilee and I are putting on a shower for a girlfriend of ours. Her name is Evelyn and she has been a part of the bible study since the first one and she is about ready to give birth to her first baby. I am so excited to be here for her entrance into motherhood. I just thought you all should know....