Passing of a Queen

Queen Elizabeth has died. She visited Nigeria two years before I was born. I don’t remember the visit but have a lot of friends just a little older than me who do. They tell their memories of pomp and circumstance and waving little Nigerian flags as they watched her pass by in varuious Nigerian cities. Nigeria was a British colony until 1960. Growing up, I sometimes didn’t know who the US President was but I always knew who Queen Elizabeth was. She was my queen. When I was born, Nigeria was still a British colony. I had duel citizenship until I was 18 so for the first two years of my life, I was one of her subjects, born in one of her colonies.

Life as I Knew It--Christmas Memories

Every child wonders if Santa Clause is real. I have two memories of times when I was pretty sure he was real or at least quite ambivalent about it.

One year the missionaries stationed in Ogbomoso had a special guest at the annual Christmas party. I found out later that he was actually a European visitor, but at the time, he appeared in the room as Santa Clause in the flesh. Many of the older MKs were convinced he was an imposter but none of us could figure out who he really was to save our lives. We would guess one missionary uncle after another only to look around the room and see them all accounted for. In my little mind, if he was not one of my missionary uncles, who else could he possibly be there in the heart of Africa at Christmas time? Though at some level, I knew he was not the real Santa.

The other memory was even more magical. One Christmas Eve as I lay in my bed about to go to sleep, I spotted what must have been an airplane in the sky through the window that was just above my bed. I lived in what we called the Wests' House then. All houses on the mission were temporarily named after the family who had most recently resided in them. That year we were living in the house the West family usually occupied, while they were in the states on furlough. (My MK friends will know which house this was by the name.)

My room had a bed right up against a window. I often looked out that window at the night sky as I was falling asleep. That night when I looked, I saw a light flying slowly across the sky. I suppose it could have also been a falling star, but it moved more like an object. 

Spotting an airplane in the sky was a rare treat in Nigeria in the 1960’s, especially in Ogbomoso where I lived. Once or twice I can remember hearing a plane through the screen window while at school. It was such a rarity that we all ran out of the classroom, turned our heads up toward the sky and just watched it—including the teacher!

So, I lay there that Christmas Eve watching that light move slowly across the sky. I was pretty convinced it was a plane, but my heart was filled with that magical feeling that perhaps, just perhaps, it was actually Rudolf’s nose pulling Santa’s sleigh. I mean, an airplane flying over Ogbomoso on Christmas Eve was equally as unbelievable.

Life as I Knew It

Driver Ants- Part 2

I shared my last blog post with fellow MK's (missionary kids, now adults). Their responses were varied and quite interesting. In today's blog I had planned to tell of other animals encounters but will save those stories for another time. Instead, today, I will share my MK friends' comments about their memories of driver ants.

CP: "I, too, used to play with driver ants! It was certainly risky business!! I would even pick them up right behind their heads, hold them up and listen for the hiss, then drop them down into the line of their ant-friends and watch the line go crazy and swarm all over the place! Then, they would calm down again and re-form their orderly line. I, too, heard the baby-eating stories. And my brother's crib stood in saucers, but I think they were filled with water."

RS: "I have heard the house story except in the version I heard the family moved out until the ants left."

JDM: "I think there should be a distinction between driver ants' 'marching' and 'driving'.  When they are moving neatly in a single, massive line, as you have described, they are "marching;" that is, they are simply getting from one place to the next. When they are 'driving' (i.e., looking for prey/food), they are not in a neat line, but are scattered over a large area by the millions, it seems. In that case, they would cover a large area of our back yard, for example, at the same time. In the story you gave about the residents of the house stepping over the ants, the ants would have been 'marching'.  If 'driving', it would not have been possible to step anywhere without being in ants and the ants would have cleaned the place out, so to speak."

PG: "I believe it was either Thomas Bowen or William Clark (both early Baptist missionaries to Nigeria) who wrote of the driver ants and said that they were actually welcomed when they swept through a house, because they would, as JDM said, clean out a house of roaches, mice, etc.
Driver ants have a distinctive smell, and if you have once learned that smell, you will instantly recognize it when you smell it again, even after an absence of many years." 

LJ: "The ant story is credible. But, the children weren't eaten, they died from all the bites/stings. My sister sat on a mound once...bad news!"

AL: "Daddy was about to preach at a little church in the bush. He was standing outside to get some fresh air before going into the stifling building. Someone yelled and pointed that he was standing in a bed of those driver ants. In an instant they had striped his clothes off and were throwing water on him to remove the ants. The same happened to my brother when he was about 3. A Nigerian friend just dunked him into a big cold pot of water. I remember my brother screaming like crazy! Both had some bad bites! "

GL: "Here's a real life story. We were staying at Frances Jones awaiting the birth of my 2nd brother in Jan 1950. Another brother & I were walking to a neighbor's house on our own.  He stepped in driver ants & started howling-and the neighbor girls came running out, sized up the situation, pulled off his clothes & de-anted him. Very clear memory! We called all black ants traveling in formation 'drivers' in my memory."

JG: "Brought back many memories. I always blamed my 'poor sleepers'on that baby story. No way was I ever going to let a baby cry itself to sleep because our version of the story included the grim surprise of the parents waking to a baby bed of bones!"

Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday.

It’s a day that always brings back childhood memories. Growing up in Africa, palms grew everywhere. Tall, stately palms dotted every horizon and smaller bush-type palms popped up seemingly in every yard, and on every hillside.

My parents spoke fluent Yoruba, the language of the people where we lived. So we attended a Yoruba speaking church. I never understood much of what was said in church because I was not fluent in the language. However, I understood enough to know when to clap along with the music or chime in with the Amens.

My mother taught the children in Sunday School along with the help of some of the Nigerian women. Many a Palm Sunday, I have helped my mom carry in armfuls of palm branches and played along with the other children in role play of that day. One child would be Jesus, pretending to ride in on a donkey, while the rest of us waved our palm branches. Even though I couldn’t speak the language, I understood fully what the role play was all about.  

There is another place in scripture that tells of a crowd waving palm branches. This scene can be found in the book of Revelation, chapter 7, verses 9-10 where it says, “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.” (KJV)

This crowd is very different from the one in Jerusalem that my friends and I mimicked. They are true believers praising God for their salvation. They are a crowd too large to number from every nation, people, and tongue.

Some years ago I was privileged to hear Steve Saint speak. He is the son of Nate Saint, the missionary to Ecuador martyred along with several other missionaries in January 1956. Steve Saint said that this verse in Revelation was the verse that drove his father and the other brave missionaries to push ahead with their evangelistic efforts to the very tribe that ended up killing them. The tribe was unreached and had a language few understood. Steve said his father and the other missionaries kept saying if people of every nation and tongue will someday stand in front of God’s throne praising Him, then the people of that rare unknown tribal tongue needed to be reached with the gospel!

It's this same calling—to help reach the unreached people of the world—that my parents heard too, and the reason I grew up waving palms on Palm Sunday alongside of other happy, laughing children whose language, culture, nationality and even skin color differed from mine. As my parents reached these others with the gospel of salvation, they reached their own child with the gospel too.

The Month of Love

The People Who Love

February is the month of love. With Valentine’s Day coming in the middle of the month, our thoughts turn to the topic of love, especially the love between a man and a woman. But there are other types of love—the love God has for His creation, and the brotherly type of love a person has for another person.

My sister told me a story once that came out of our time as a family in Nigeria when my parents were missionaries. Our dad used to sometimes travel to rural areas to hold day clinics. We lived among the Yoruba people. They speak a beautiful sing-song tonal language.

They also play a lot of drums and have a certain drum they call the talking drum. This drum was used in days gone by to beat out messages and send them to neighboring villages. Since the language is tonal, the various tones of the drum could be understood as words by the people. As children we grew used to hearing the drums and could even understand some of the words and messages beat from them. 

One day, my older sister, Alisa, accompanied our dad on one of his nearby village clinics. She rode on the back of his bicycle as he peddled them to the village. As they approached she heard the usual drums but as she listened, she realized it was not the usual message she was accustomed to.

Usually the drums beat out Oyinbo, which meant peeled one. This was the Yoruba word for white people and it was the drums letting the villagers know the missionaries were visiting. But that day, the sound was different.

Alisa asked our dad, who was fluent in the Yoruba language, why the drums were different, what were they saying? He listened a minute and then told her the drums were saying “The people who love are coming.” He explained that this would be understood by the villagers as the medical people were coming. It was their way of letting the people know a clinic would be held. Health professionals were seen as people who cared about the well-being of the villagers. They were the people who loved.

Life as I Knew It

This is a reprinted post. It first appeared February 24, 2010.

The Secret of my Birth

I was born in Joinkrama. It is located in what was then the Eastern Region of Nigeria but is today “Rivers State”; in the Niger River delta. Joinkrama was a tiny place across the river from Port Harcourt–a crocodile infested river. In order to get to Joinkrama, my parents crossed the river with their two small children and all their belongings on a thatched roof pontoon type boat, somewhat like the boats at Disney World’s Jungle Cruise except of course, the boat my parents was on, was wooden instead of aluminum (or whatever metal the Disney ride is made of) and the animals and danger in this river were real!

My father, a medical doctor, and my mother, a registered nurse, staffed a small mission hospital with my father as the only doctor there. Joinkrama is located in the small part of Nigeria that is in the tropical rain forest. It is an area of jungles. There were monkeys swinging in the trees outside of my house, elephants that occasionally tromped close enough to the village to be a danger to the villagers, and crocodiles in the river. The buildings were raised, for the occasions when the river overflowed its banks during the rainy season. It was in this remote part of the African jungle that I was born.

There are two stories about my birth…
One story has it that when my mother went in labor with me, she walked down a little jungle path to the hospital with my brother and sister in tow. According to this story, my father delivered me at the hospital once my mother arrived and then sent us back to convalesce at home. My mother was sent home on a stretcher carried by four men. She had me in her arms. Seeing us carried in this manner, the villagers assumed we had both died and began to weep and wail! One of the men alerted my mother to the situation and she quickly sat up, smiled, and waved so the people could see she was alive. Then, she lifted me up for them to see as well. The people’s weeping turned into dancing (literally) and they followed us home in a joyful procession! –that’s one story.

But my dad told me the real story when I was a little girl.
My dad told me that the stork was on his way to London, England–to Buckingham palace carrying in his beak the newest member of the royal family–a little princess (me) but unfortunately, he developed the hiccups, just as he was flying in the airspace above Joinkrama. …I don’t know where the stork lives, but apparently to get to London, it involves a trip over the Niger River delta. Well, overcome by one giant hiccup, the stork did something he had never done before–he dropped his bundle!

My father said he just happened to be walking home down that little jungle path when a bundle fell to the ground right in front of him! He said he knew immediately what had happened! …Now, my father never explained just how he knew all about the royal family, the stork’s hiccups, and all of that–but my father is a man of integrity so I never doubted his story!
“So you see” my father would conclude, “You are really a princess!”

….you can decide which story you want to believe, but I know the truth… I know I’m a princess!

According to the Bible, I really am a princess. I am a child of the King!

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” Romans 8:16-18

Life as I knew It

This post was originally posted on 2/5/11

Prejudice–What does that word mean?

 “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all” Romans 10:12

Awudi came to live with us when I was about three months old. We lived in Joinkrama at the time. She was a new convert to Christianity. Before becoming a Christian, she was married to a man who beat her often. She bore him three children. One day she fled his beatings and in so doing, she lost her home and her children and she was never allowed to see them again. She was banished!

So she came to live with us. While both of my parents worked at the hospital, Awudi stayed at our home with us children. She was like a second mother to me. All of my first memories are filled with Awodi’s presence. She bathed us, dressed us, fed us, and loved on us. For her part, she was happy to be around children again. It made the loss of her children a little easier to bear. She poured her love on all of us. I was a newborn when she came to our family. She called me her baby. As I grew, she changed it to her “big baby”.  I can still hear her saying in her broken (or Pigeon) English, “You ah ma Beeg Bebe!”

After a few years in Joinkrama, the mission moved my family, first to Oyo for language school and after that to Ogbomoso, the home to most of my childhood memories.

When I was ten, the Biafran war broke out. This was a difficult time for everyone in Nigeria. The Eastern part of Nigeria which included Joinkrama waged war against the rest of the country in a futile attempt to gain its independence. At its core, this was a tribal war. The Igbo tribe living in the East was at odds with the other tribes. The conflict hit home at our house because Awudi was Inguini (a small tribe closely related to the Igbos and supportive of their cause).  But Ogbomoso was Yoruba land, home to the Yoruba tribe.

Fearing for Awudi’s life, my parents arranged for her to travel back to her region (the part that was trying to become Biafra). This was a wise and gracious move on the part of my parents and God blessed it. Awudi made a safe journey back and lived many more years among her own people. But it was devastating to me!

I could not understand it! My parents tried to explain to me that Awudi was in danger if she remained among the Yorubas. They tried their best to help me understand the term prejudice, a word I had never heard before. But I had never experienced it and simply could not wrap my brain around the idea that a person might harm another just because of the tribe they belonged to (or the color of their skin, or all the other equally absurd reasons people have for hating one another). I begged my parents to let Awodi stay! She was the embodiment of love to me and I simply could not understand why anyone would want to hurt her.

You know, to this day I do not fully understand prejudice. I was a white minority child in an African world and knew only love from those around me. To this day, I do not fully understand how people can hate others they do not know. I hope I never outgrow this aspect of my childhood.

 

Those who fear God

Rev. Paul Ogunyale was the pastor of Oja Oba Baptist Church (which being translated means King’s Mountain Baptist Church). This was the church my family attended when I was a child. Rev. Ogunyale was my pastor.

 

His is a story of reckless faith. When he was a young boy, his family sent him to a Christian school because they wanted him to learn to read and write. They had no intention of him becoming a Christian. They already had a mix of Moslem and Pagan in the family and that was enough religion for them. But since this mission school was the only way he was going to be able to get an education, they allowed him to attend.

 

But one day at school, young Paul learned how Jesus had come to the world to save people like him from their sins. Paul made a profession of faith in Jesus as his savior. He was so happy and just couldn’t wait to share the good news with his family!

 

Sadly, his family was not happy for him. No, they were not happy at all! The people of his village were steeped in superstition and one of those superstitions was that the number three was an evil number. Because of this, his family could not allow Paul to bring a third religion into the family and they demanded he renounce his newfound faith.

 

Paul refused.

 

So his family held a council where the elders of his family concluded they absolutely could not allow this third religion into the family or it would draw the anger of the gods and they would surely all fall into some type of doom. So strong was their belief that this was the case, they concluded the only thing they could do if Paul continued to refuse to announce his belief in Jesus was to kill young Paul.

 

The elders informed him of their decision and offered him the choice of becoming either pagan or Muslim. But still Paul refused. Before going to bed that night, his mother made a tearful plea with him to renounce Christianity and choose one of the other religions. Paul lay down on the floor that night as he did every night on the mat he used for sleeping so as to not be sleeping directly on the dirt floor of his mud walled house underneath the window where he always slept. But he did not go to sleep. Instead after all others in the household were fast asleep, Paul who was about twelve at the time, quietly climbed out the window near his bed and fled for his life. He ran to the house of a British Anglican missionary who was one of his teachers. This man took Paul in and became like family to him.

 

What a privilege I had to know people who had actually given up everything for the sake of Christ!! 

 

Life as I Knew It

CJ Caboodle

Once upon a time in the jungles of Africa, a hunter by the name of John did something hunters should never do. He fired his weapon before actually seeing the animal he was firing upon. John saw some trees limbs moving and shot his gun. After all, he was in the depths of the jungle; the movement could not be anything but a ferocious animal, right? Wrong.

After firing the gun, John heard a thud when the animal hit the ground. But as he approached, it became clear that the animal (or at least the animal that was still living) was not ferocious at all. There on the ground before him lay the body of a dead monkey and with her a tiny newborn monkey, clung to his mother for dear life.

John felt terrible! He picked up the baby monkey and brought him home where he cared for him like a baby, feeding him through a bottle until the little guy was strong enough to eat solid food. Then he called his friend, Cecil Roberson.

Cecil was “Uncle Cecil” to me. He was one of my missionary uncles. At the time I knew him and his wife, “Aunt Marie” their children were grown and had moved on. Since my real grandparents were half a world away, Uncle Cecil and Aunt Marie became like adopted grandparents to me.

John asked Cecil if he knew a family that might want a pet monkey. Uncle Cecil thought of my family with our four children. When he called my dad to see if we wanted the monkey, he said he already had a cage too and if we would take the monkey, he could make a trip our way bringing the monkey, and cage – the whole caboodle to us. My dad named our pet Cecil John Caboodle, but we called him CJ.

CJ was different from most pet monkeys. He lived in a cage in our back yard, yes, but unlike other pet monkeys who had to stay in their cage or they would escape; CJ could be let out to play with us. We did this almost daily. In fact, CJ was a bit of an escape artist. He managed to pick lock after lock of his cage. I assume his tiny finger would fit in the key hole and he just manipulated it until it came open. Once, my father even placed a combination lock on the cage. CJ managed to open it as well.

But no worries, CJ never left our yard. We think he was afraid of the bush, after all he had never known anything but humans. He was one of us. And oh the fun we had with him! I remember sitting on a tree limb with CJ on another limb and telling him to jump to me. I learned the hard way that a monkey, even a small monkey, jumps with considerable force. The first time CJ jumped to me, I fell backwards onto the ground and had the wind knocked out of me. After that, I made sure there was also a branch behind my back to stabilize me. There is nothing quite like having a tiny monkey jump into your open arms from ten feet away. He always landed with his little arms open clinging to my shirt.

Sometimes CJ was trouble though. Sometimes he got into our house and raided my mothers costume jewelry. He especially liked her earrings which he put in his mouth. Did you know that monkeys have pouches on either side of their mouths? They put food in these pouches to save and eat later. I guess CJ thought my mom’s earrings were food. We would have to hold him down and pry open his mouth to retrieve the jewelry. And CJ loved to chase the cats. We had two cats who were both afraid of CJ. I have eaten many a dinner to the sound of animals running across the tin roof above me. First would come the sound of a scamper and then another scamper followed by CJ’s paws sort of lopping across. My dad would roll his eyes and say, “CJ got out of his cage again. After dinner one of you kids has to catch him and put him up for the night.”

My childhood was a rare treasure indeed!

 

Merry Christmas

And Lo, the Star Went Before Them – Part 2

In another part of the yard, a group of little angels dressed in white sheets with glittered wings and tin foil halos, stood elevated on a table that had been draped with a white table cloth. These were the Heavenly Hosts standing on clouds singing to the shepherds.  However, owing to the fact that the Heavenly Hosts were actually little elementary age girls who did not have microphones, their song was very difficult to hear. As they sang, the little shepherds alternated between chasing lost sheep and shouting to the angels in a loud stage whisper, “Louder! Louder!”

But the show must go on, and our play was no exception.  Soon it was time for the Wisemen to make their entrance.  My brother and his cohorts began their trek from the corner of Francis Jones Guest House to the stable following the lighted star and singing as they went. “We three kings of Orient are… bearing gifts; we traverse afar. Field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star. O star of wonder, star of night star with royal beauty bright…” 

But midway to the stable, catastrophe struck!  The rope broke and the “star of wonder, star of night” went crashing to the ground!  Undeterred, the Wisemen continued on their journey to the stable; each stepping over the fallen star as they came upon it on the ground, still singing its praises and looking upward as if it was still in front of them.

What a funny Christmas pageant!  That year the errant sheep were not needed for comic relief! They were nothing compared with the star! After the play was over, the mission family who had gathered on that warm, clear, African night shared refreshments, gifts, and laughs. And to this day, I never think of the Christmas story without giggling a little as my heart remembers, with fondness, that pageant and the ill-fated star. 

 

 

Merry Christmas

 

And Lo, the Star Went Before Them – Part 1

This story has appeared in two Christmas anthologies – “Klutzin Around the Christmas Tree” and “Christmas Tales, Christmas Bells” I will post it in two parts.

It felt more like a warm summer evening than Christmas time. The crowd had gathered on the back lawn of Francis Jones – a missionary guest house named for a former missionary who lost her life to Yellow Fever in this tropical country of Nigeria. I was a child in the audience, too young and untalented to have made the cast. A person needed to be able to sing in order to be in this play and I have never been able to sing. But my sister was an angel. She sang a group song with the other angels and my brother was a Wiseman. That was a huge honor! He would be joining his voice with the voices of the other two Wisemen in a rendition of, “We Three Kings”. I was excited for them….but mostly; I was just excited. The play was always a highlight of the Christmas season in this African country I had learned to call home.

On the far end of the huge lawn was a wooden stable made by one of the missionary men. In it were Mary, Joseph, and “baby Jesus”. This year the baby was just a doll but in some of the past years it had been a real baby. The year my siblings were in the play, there was a shortage of real missionary babies. Next to the stable were some live sheep which another group of little “shepherds” worked very hard to control. These always made the play interesting. They often provided comic relief…or perhaps I should say a comic distraction as the actors tried their best to remain serious.

Usually, there was a large star made of cardboard and covered in tinfoil which rested on top of the stable, but this year was different. This year was special! One of the missionaries had attached a rope to the roof of the stable and extended it across the lawn to the roof of Francis Jones. This year, the star was suspended from the rope. It was to be pulled across the lawn in front of the Wisemen as they walked towards the stable. Also as the star moved across the lawn, it was to be illuminated by a spotlight from the ground. What a great play it was going to be this year!! And, how lucky my brother was to be walking under that spotlighted star as he sang his song!

 

Two Edged Sword

The Marks of a Christian

“For we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” Philippians 3:3 (NAS)

Growing up in Nigeria, I often encountered people with scars on their faces – marks which had been purposefully carved into their faces when they were babies. This may sound like a barbaric practice but it actually had an intelligent purpose. The marks served to identify the child’s tribe and family. I have heard different reasons for the practice and am honestly not certain which one is accurate. But one report claims that it began many years ago during the slave trade. Nigeria was one of the African nations hit hardest by the trade. In those days, ships came to the west cost of Africa with men who invaded villages, and captured the people to sell as slaves. The Africans were stripped of all possessions including anything that might identify them. When babies and children became separated from their families, they grew up with no knowledge of who they were. By placing a mark on the child which distinguished which tribe and family that child belonged to, if he or she ever found his way back to his homeland, he could be identified immediately.

 The book of Revelation tells of another mark - “the mark of the Beast”.  Like the facial marks in Nigeria, the Beast’s mark will identify a group of people – those who follow the Antichrist. Do Christians have “marks” by which we can be identified? If so, what are they? What are the marks of a Christian? John 13:35 says men will know we are Jesus’ disciples if we love one another. Love then, must be one of the marks of a Christian; but are there others?

The 3^rd chapter of Philippians gives a very good description of what a believer should look like.  Philippians 3:3 says we will “worship in the Spirit, glory in Christ, and put no confidence in the flesh.” There it is – the marks of a Christian.  But what do these words mean?

Thankfully, the apostle Paul continues to explain what he meant in the rest of Philippians 3. Paul explains in great detail what it means to worship in the Spirit, glory in Christ, and put no confidence in the flesh. He says it well in verses 7-8, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in the view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.”

What about you and me? Are we worshipping in the Spirit? Are we glorying in Jesus? And the hardest question of all – are we putting any (even the smallest amount) of confidence in the flesh?

In Recollection of my First Bicycle – Part 2

By: John David Magee

On the trip back to Igede after purchasing the bike, we picked up a missionary nurse who was coming to assist with the monthly medical clinic at the small "dispensary" at the bottom of our Igede compound. I'm not certain who the nurse was. It could have been Ms. Sanders, and probably was. It was a little later than usual, around 6:30 PM, before we got out of Oshogbo, headed to Ilesha; then down the main road a few miles further to Erinmo, where we turned off onto the bush, dirt, road that would wind through the hills and rain forest to a few other places and finally up to Igede.  I remember that road so well, having traveled it often over the years. During that time in the history of Nigeria, night travel was more of an adventure when it came to possibly seeing animals, than a real danger and hazard as night travel became after the Biafran war, when bandits and thieves became a problem.

Usually, Dad stopped at Oshogbo and gas up with the last available petrol (gas) station before getting to Igede, where we had our own fifty-five gallon drums of petrol stored in the garage. Then, at Ilesha, we typically would stop briefly and buy some fresh bread from the vendors who crowded around the car windows. That night, by the time we turned off the main road to head towards Igede, it was probably 7:30 or 8 PM. From there it was thirty miles, but would take about an hour under ordinary conditions. Not only was it dark, but it had started to rain really hard. This was not during the heart of the rainy season, otherwise we would not have been driving my Dad's '49 Chevy, and pulling a trailer. When the rains really got started, the only way to navigate these roads was by Jeep, in four-wheel drive; and, sometimes in "bull-dog" extra-low gear. So, this was just a hard rain, with nothing unusual to worry about, or so we thought.

Mother and Dad sat up front; Sid and I, and the missionary nurse in the back seat (I'm almost positive it was Ms. Eva Sanders, so I'm gonna call her that), when suddenly in the headlights appeared a tree across the road. This was not particularly unusual, especially when traveling on a dirt road through the woods. Part of Dad's travelling equipment was a good, sharp axe, because this kind of roadway interruption was routine. Years later, he added a chain saw to his car supplies. It's just impossible for ordinary Americans to appreciate how much good will was generated over the years by Dad with his chain saw.  But, not that night, when there was neither a chain-saw, nor an audience.

 

He stopped the car; left the engine running so he would have lights to work by; put on his boots and raincoat (he ALWAYS carried his boots!); got his axe; and, cut out one section of the tree, to give us enough room in the road to drive around. Not a problem. Until about a half mile further, there was another tree down. He repeated the routine. Another quarter-mile down the road; another tree down. Some of these were pretty formidable. It was not just the cutting of the trunk, limbs and assorted vines, and pulling these out of the road in the rain. It was the ants, the original and eternal habitants of trees in Africa. It was dark; there were all kinds of fire flies and sounds in the forest. Mother's job was to keep calm and order in the car.

Twenty-nine trees and many hours later, we were only seven miles from home in Igede.  It was nearly five o'clock in the morning, and Dad had been cutting trees all night.  Suddenly we were confronted with a HUGE tree across the road. No way that trunk was going to be cut with only Dad’s axe! He got out of the car with his flash light; surveyed the situation; looked further down the road and saw another huge tree. In the past ten hours or so, we had traveled maybe fifteen miles. He knew it would have to go to "Plan B” and we yielded to the situation. Somehow he managed to back the car and trailer to a clearing in the road, so we would be at less risk of a tree falling on us and we waited out the rest of the night there. It wasn't until morning that we fully realized the extent of the damage that a tornado had done!

At day break, Mother, Ms. Sanders, Sid and I walked into town, over and around the fallen trees; secured the services of the only taxi in town (or at least someone who had a car), and went on to Igede. Dad stayed behind with all of the able men in town, and together they finally got the road cleared in time for Dad to get to Igede around mid-afternoon. Years later, we would still pass the remaining logs of those trees on the outskirts of Ara, reminding us of that night - long after I had outgrown that bike. 

 

 

 

Life as I Knew it

In Recollection of my First Bicycle - Part 1                     

Written by John David Magee, the son of missionaries John and Doris Magee who served in Nigeria from 1945 – 1978.

 

Around the summer of 1950, my family was into our first tour at Igede, Ekiti, which was a big adjustment from the previous tour at the Baptist College campus at Iwo. At Iwo, my mode of transportation around the compound between our house and my buddies' residences (Conrad Roberson; Roger Congdon; John Whirley) was on a hobby horse, or similar foot travel. It's just amazing that none of us kids ever encountered the big cobra and mamba snakes that would easily have done us in.

When my folks hauled my brother, Sidney, and me to Igede, we learned what real bush was. I recall our first trip to the old fourteen-acre compound, to the big house that Missionary Donath had built. Nearly two thousand feet above sea level in the hills and rain forest of Ekiti country. This was to be my home for the rest of my days in Nigeria, until I returned home to the States in 1957 at the age of fourteen.

The Humphreys traveled with us that first trip. Rachael Humphreys was my mother's sister. She and her husband, Ed, had arrived in Nigeria after we had returned to the States from Tour number one, so my folks had never met Ed until our return to Nigeria in 1949, soon after; they accompanied us to our new mission station. I recall the first night, mainly because of the tree dogs that barked all over the place, which I had never heard before. They made an incredible sound; one that always sent me under the covers, with chills down my back. From what appeared to be a great distance away, they would begin their routine with a series of snapping-clacking sounds, punctuated at the end by a single bark. This was repeated maybe a dozen times, each time with the snapping sounds getting louder and more and more slow, like a clock winding down, with the bark at the end getting louder each time too. Suddenly, they would break out into this fast, extended series of barks, which would get slower towards the end. This, they repeated seven or eight times, each time slower, and louder, until finally there was a loud single bark, then silence. In all my years in Nigeria I never saw one of these critters, so I always imagined the worst.

My folks managed to provide Sidney and me with basic kid transportation for us to use around the yard, including a pretty nice, red tricycle from Sears; the standard red wagon; and, a little peddle scooter. My mom had a bike, and some of our Nigerian help pushed me around the yard on this adult-sized bike until I gradually gained the sense of balance required for two wheels. Because it was a bike designed for women, I learned how to stand on one of the pedals, and push myself along somewhat like a scooter, thereby learning to coast by myself for short distances. Finally, I was ready for my own bicycle.

I don't remember where my folks got the bike, but probably the city of Ibadan or some similar large shopping place. But I do remember that the bicycle was a black Hercules, just my size, and man, was I excited! 

 

 

Through my Kitchen Window

 

Last Thursday about mid day, I went outside to eat lunch on the patio. My sixteen year old son joined me. We chatted and laughed – had a delightful time – until it started to rain. With the first drop, he announced that he was going inside. I teased him about being afraid of a few raindrops, reminding him that as a child I used to play in the rain. I said I was going to finish my lunch and then look at the garden. He laughed at me for staying out in the rain and ran back inside, taking his plate with him.

It was only sprinkling so I finished my food and then headed to the garden on the side of the yard. But I was distracted along the way by a long vine type weed growing along the house in the rock landscaping. I stopped to pull it. As I did, I stepped back into a hole my dogs had dug, twisting and as it turns out, breaking my foot as I fell.

There I was on the ground in pain, unable to get up and raindrops falling on me. I called my son’s name but he didn’t hear me since he was inside. So I began to scoot on my butt to the door. It seemed to be miles and miles away and I was making slow, painful, progress, when my son opened the backdoor. Surprised to see me on the ground, he said he knew something must have happened for me to still be outside in the rain, no matter how much I liked rain. He helped me inside where I called my husband to tell him the news.

Now I’m laid up. I’m not supposed to put any weight on it for two weeks. I grew tired of watching TV after just a couple of days and pulled out a sketch pad I haven’t opened in years. I like to draw, I just never make the time for it. So, these weeks off my feet, I’m enjoying sketching. The two I am posting are from my childhood. One is my childhood home in Nigeria. I had a parrot hanging on the front porch, a monkey in a cage in the back, and a guava orchard in the back where I spent endless hours climbing the trees in search of the perfect guava. The stones around my driveway were white and flat. I used to lay my head on them and watch the clouds drift by. The second picture is of the chapel at the boarding school. It was such a beautiful structure.

Yesterday, my son saw me sitting on my bed sketching away. He sat down at the foot of my bed in disbelief saying, “Mom, I didn’t know you draw?”

I replied, “You know how your sister is an amazing artist?” He nodded. I continued, “Well, I’m the gene pool. It’s just that my talent is rusty and was never developed like hers was when she majored in it in college.” He laughed.

It’s a pleasant way to spend hours that could otherwise become very boring.

Cheery Countenance

Life’s a Blast!

*This story is posted with permission from Richard Hill.

The mission children in Nigeria, also referred to as missionary kids or mk’s, attended the boarding school called Newton Memorial School. Mk’s were home schooled until the 5^th grade when Newton began. Newton offered classes for 5^th – 10^th grades, after which the mk’s either went back to the states to finish high school or to another boarding school in the northern Nigerian city of Jos, called Hillcrest. There are numerous stories from Newton and Hillcrest - most are good.

This story is true. It happened to a fellow mk named Richard, but I remember it well. Richard’s family, like mine served in Nigeria during the Biafran war. At that time, the night watchmen or “magardi” also had another job selling gunpowder. He sold to soldiers and whoever else would buy gunpowder by day and kept watch over the sleeping mk’s at the boarding school by night.

Well, not all of the boys slept like they were supposed to at night. While the girl’s dorm stayed mostly quiet, many of the boys snuck out and roamed the campus. There wasn’t much to do at night but sneaking past the house parents was an adventure in itself. Richard was one of the worst offenders. Oh, there were others…some other names definitely come to mind (Kevin, are you reading this? Phil?...) But Richard in particular, was all over the place at night when he was supposed to be sleeping.

The magardi knew of Richard’s antics but kept the secret under one condition – Richard had to buy a small amount of gunpowder whenever he was caught. Mk”s had a little money given to them each week to purchase snacks at the school’s canteen. So, that was the deal: Richard bought the margardi’s silence by purchasing some of his wares, which just happened to be gunpowder!

Consequently, Richard had a growing supply of gunpowder in his room.

What was an 8^th grader to do with gunpowder?? Richard stored it in a metal coffee tin he had gotten his hands on and played a little game with it. Every day during rest period when the mk’s were required to be in their rooms in order to keep them out of the tropical sun in the heat of the day, Richard would spill out a small teaspoon of gunpowder onto the concrete floor of his room. Then, sitting on his bed, he would light a match, and throw it on the gunpowder – a few feet away. The gunpowder would ignite and make a very small, controlled explosion on the floor. Richard and his roommate watched the gunpowder make a little puff as it was consumed and the smoke ascended, then dispersed, in the room until it was gone. Richard did this nearly everyday.

But one day…things went a little wrong. That day, when Richard threw the match onto the small amount of gunpowder in the middle of his floor, a spark flew back and landed in the metal coffee can. BOOM!! The tin, full of gunpowder, acted like a small bomb. The explosion shook the dormitory, rattling the louvered glass window on one side of the building. But the only casualties were Richard’s eyebrows and the hair off of his right arm.

For years, no one knew what caused the explosion. The school was thoroughly inspected by the missionaries and nothing was ever found.

Now that he’s an adult, Richard has confessed and everyone has had a good laugh out of an adventure we all knew about but to quote Paul Harvey, “Now we know the rest of the story!” 

Confessions of a Prayer Warrior

“I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” John 17:11(NIV)

This passage is from a prayer Jesus prayed at the last supper. He was praying for His disciples and other followers yet to come. He prayed that we, His followers, would be one just like He and the Father were one.

Becoming one with other believers is not always easy, especially if those believers live in a strange land, speak a strange tongue, and have different customs, languages, and even skin color from you. When my parents served as missionaries in Nigeria, they and the other missionaries worked at becoming one with the people among whom they lived and ministered.

When I was eight years old, I made a profession of faith in Jesus and wanted to be baptized. Being a doctor, my father felt he should not be the one to baptize me, but desired instead to have me baptized by a minister. Though there were other missionary ministers he could have asked, he chose to ask Reverend Asaju, the hospital chaplain. Here is the man’s response as written in a thank you note to my parents which they still posses.

In a letter dated, 11/12/67 from Rev. Asaju , the chaplain of the Baptist Hospital Ogbomosho.  Address: Ogbomosho Baptist Hospital, Ogbomosho Nigeria, Po. Box 15.

Dear Dr. & Mrs. T. K. Edwards,

            The occasion of yesterday afternoon was one of those I will never forget in my life for the meaning it has for me and for the cause of Christ in this land.

            Your daughter was the first American Baptist Missionary I had the privilege to baptize. The most important thing about it is this – that oneness in Christ you preach is practicalized. That is you prove to us that you do not say by mouth that you love the Nigerians but you demonstrate it. May the love of Christ continue to flow through you to many more in this land as you dedicate your lives for the service of our Lord, Amen.

                                                                                                I am,

                                                                                                     Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                                             D.A.Asju

 

Through My Kitchen Window

I am reading author Chinua Achebe’s newest book titled, “There was a Country – a Personal History of Biafra” Chinua is a well respected writer and poet. Perhaps his best known work is “Things Fall Apart.”

Born in 1930, he and I have something in common. We were both born in the part of Nigeria once known as the Eastern Region which tried to secede and form the new nation of Biafra. Achebe was born in Ogidi and I was born in Joinkrama. Actually our birthplaces are not all that close. His was on the northern edge of the area that tried to become Biafra in what is today called the South Eastern State. I was born in the most southern region near the ocean in a wild, jungle area in the Niger River Delta which today is called The Rivers State. Joinkrama where I was born was once referred to as “The Back Side of Nowhere” by missionary Jo Scaggs in her book. Aunt Jo, as I called her when I knew her, served in Joinkrama a.k.a. “the backside of nowhere” with my parents and was a big help to my mother the year I was born.

Achebe writes, "Most members of my generation, who were born before Nigeria’s independence, remember a time when things were very different. Nigeria was once a land of great hope and progress, a nation with immense resources at its disposal—natural resources, yes, but even more so, human resources. But the Biafran war changed the course of Nigeria. In my view it was a cataclysmic experience that changed the history of Africa."

Well, to me personally it was a cataclysmic experience that changed my personal history. The war ripped me out of the country of my birth – my happy childhood homeland and set me squarely back on US soil. The first couple of years back I was so homesick for Nigeria and the friends I knew there. I was an extremely unhappy little girl.

But then as time went by, I became accustomed to my new home in America and even grew to love it. I had many friends and experiences in the years that followed which I treasure also. And when I look back on my life, I marvel at all the adventures God has allowed me to have. From tropical Africa where I happily played barefoot, chasing lizards and eating guavas straight from the trees to quintessential Americana where I had the privilege of being a high school cheerleader for a state championship football team – my experiences have been many and diverse and I marvel at the God who has led me all of my life.

Christmas in Ogbomosho Part 3

By: Peter Gilliland

There was a special progression of events that unfolded on Christmas morning which could not be altered. It was the way Christmas is supposed to happen.

As we made our way onto the porch in the pre-dawn damp darkness of the Harmattan mist, coming closer and closer was one of the most beautiful sounds in all the world. Then we could see them. Along the path near the house approached a line of angelic figures, all in white, carrying candles and singing Christmas carols. They were the nurses and nursing students, plus several missionaries. This was their present to us and others. Sometimes the carols were in English, sometimes in Yoruba, and Bill William's flute sang through the mist between the voices with a sound that, to this day, I have never heard equaled for the thrill it produced in me.

Slowly, but all too quickly, the singers-in-white circled our house and then moved on. They never stayed long enough, but it was OK for them to leave, because it meant that we could move on to the next thing. After all, there was a precise order to the way Christmas unfolded.

 

By the time the singers left, Daddy had the lights on. Electricity was very important to a Christmas morning (Christmas trees don't really look as nice by lamp light). Usually, the station light plant was working, but if not, Daddy would have our small generator cranked up. We could not go downstairs until Daddy said we could.

Then the word was given, and we rushed down the big front outside stairway into the dining room door – then into the living room. What would be under the tree? Had Santa Claus come?

Santa was remarkable in his ability always to come through for us. Besides the wrapped presents under the tree, there would be other marvelous things that had mysteriously appeared in the night. My sister and I would descend upon them with delightedly selfish tunnel-vision, while Mother urged us to slow down, and Daddy busied himself tuning in the BBC with its all-day Christmas music that crackled over the short-wave radio.

The two contenders for Best Christmas Ever are '51 and '59.

In '51 Santa brought me one of those wonderful huge English Raleigh tricycles and a wooden "Tommy" gun with a handle-and-ratchet I could turn to produce a rat-tat-tat sound. That tricycle was the beginning of my independence, and I could go anywhere on the compound (at least until the bush dogs around the hospital chased me home).

In '59 there was a full-size bicycle and a Daisy Model 25 BB-gun by the tree. I would love to know how many miles I put on that bike. I wore the BB-gun out completely in two-and-a-half years. I could ride that bike without holding on and shoot my BB-gun and hit every tree along one side of Teak Boulevard while going as fast as I could pedal.

There were always other people to share Christmas with us, too. Martha Tanner came some years, and the Seats and Griffins and Browns. They always made Christmas more special, and having them with us spoiled me. I still do not think it is really Christmas unless we can share our table with non-family.

After the first rush at the Christmas tree, and the presents had been summarily dealt with, we would have a big breakfast, with special goodies and then play with the new toys. Christmas mornings seemed to pass in a blur, and I have very few clear memories of them. I might go to check on what other kids had received, but that was usually anti-climactic, because for the most part, since our parents all shopped at the same stores in Lagos, we all got pretty much the same basic presents. The only opportunities for envy came with special items sent from the States, and I don't remember too many of those.

Sometime during the morning, all the various Nigerian friends would come by all dressed in their fanciest clothes. They often had wives and children in tow.

One Christmas, the old “peanut woman,” who sold peanuts around the compound and the town from a calabash on her head, came by. The once-brightly-painted calabash was faded and scratched and the colors were hardly recognizable. Daddy took her calabash and repainted its designs in fresh, bright, good-quality paints – and a new Christmas tradition was born.

Lunch time. A lingering excitement. Then the grownups went off for their naps, and I would be alone in the living room. This was the only day of the year I didn’t have to take a nap after lunch. But by this time, it would be too hot to go outside, so I would sit in the semi-darkness of the now-unlit living room and look at my gifts.

Sometimes, there was a sense of disappointment, because I was already getting bored with my new toys. I remember marveling that one could so anticipate Christmas, and it be SO wonderful and exciting, and then it could leave one feeling so deflated – and there was nothing special left to look forward to for a very long time. It took me years to realize that the real delight is mostly in the anticipation and preparation and the doing-for-others, not in the getting.

Eventually bath time came, and supper, and a quite evening, and off to bed, knowing that when I awoke, it would be a whole year 'til next Christmas.

Memories are remarkably personal things, and not necessarily "accurate" in the strict historical sense. But they are ours, and they give us our perspective on the present.