Sunday, February 7, 2010

This is still Saturday's news. We traveled to Pastor Jillian's home where we were to have lunch at 1 pm. The time is now after 4pm. The lunch was a beautiful buffet of rice, red sauce with meat in it, and chicken. I took very small portions, because at this point I knew my stomach was rebelling against movement and the food would just make it worse. We took a tour of his palm oil factory and had an agriculture lesson on distinguishing banana trees from plantain trees etc. He was able to identify a number of plants that we'd had questions about. One plant is called the living stick. It is what Devin and Bridget would like to have planted around the school borders' area. They will make a wonderful fence and be nice and green. They will require much water to begin, so will be planted when this soon to come rainy season starts.

About six pm we left there and since we were so near Bassey's home, we stopped by there to visit. We brought him with us to visit his family. He will return with us on Monday. By the time we started home it was dusk. It is not safe to travel after dark, so we all said a prayer for safety and off we went. We got to Phyllis' town of Eket after dark and the Saturday night festivities were in full swing. We turned a corner about 4 blocks from her house when an awful noise sopped us. The rear axle had come off its pin and was resing on the springs or shocks. Devin, Paul and Bature all got out and immeidately went to work. Phyllis called her second in line mechanic since number one was far away. At that moment a man came to the window and introduced himself as Kevin. Phyllis knew him and was so happy he had appeared. The guys assessed the situation and said we could not dirve the car, but if she backed up a little they might be able to get things to a point where we could slowly drive home. Paul grabbed a 2x4 by the side of the road and used it as a lever to punch the axle back in place. At this point I thought I might lose my dinner, so kept the window wide open. The fumes from the hundreds of "machines" (motorcycles) made things worse. Fortunately I didn't lose anything, and we slowly drove home with Paul constantly reminding Phyllis to go slow and don't hit any potholes. That's the joke of the year. You have to pick the least damaging of the potholes to hit - slowly!!! God is so good! Had this happened in the bush or anyplace else we were, we'd have been in serious trouble. So thankfully it happened in town where people knew Phyllis and were able to help.

I showered, ate a piece of bread - all I could muster, and went to bed. The Lord was still pouring out blessings. I slept until 5:30 am. I knew when I awoke though, that I needed to remain close to the bed and bath for the day. So here I am typing a humungous blog and resting. The rest of the crew is out visiting several churches. They say they will be back early - but I know what that means in Nigeria. I also know I'm missing another adventure. Paul has promised to video everything and give me a copy.

That's it for now.

Carol