Every morning at 8:30 a.m. in our office—just like our office in Orlando—we gather for devotions and prayer. We’re currently reading through the book of Isaiah, and this past week we read the following:

“Now I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a rich and fertile hill. He plowed the land, cleared its stones, and planted it with the best vines. In the middle he built a watchtower and carved a winepress in the nearby rocks. Then he waited for a harvest of sweet grapes, but the grapes that grew were bitter.

“Now, you people of Jerusalem and Judah, you judge between me and my vineyard. What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not already done? When I expected sweet grapes, why did my vineyard give me bitter grapes?”

Isaiah 5:1-4, New Living Translation

As we reflected on this passage, I couldn’t help but look at my own life. The Lord has given me so much—a beautiful family, financial provision, meaningful labor, tremendous colleagues and partners all over the world. If I apply this passage directly to my life, I would say that He has given me everything that I need to produce sweet grapes. In theory, good fruit should be emanating from all aspects of my life, both personally and professionally.

…But what I kept wondering is whether or not I am letting God work through me to make this sweet-grape-thing happen. What more could He do to make that happen? Or, as He alluded to with the Israelites, am I the hindrance that is producing bitter grapes in some areas? (The answer to that rhetorical question is a resounding, “Yes!”) Thank God for His grace and mercy!

Chris

…So this morning I sent Sarah, the woman who works for us, to the market with a list of things.  When she came home, however, and started unpacking, she showed me what she got and somewhat hesitantly pulled out a  bottle of Worcestershire sauce as she told me that she didn’t have enough money to buy most of the vegetables and other items because of the cost of the sauce.  So we have nothing for dinner now – but we have Worcestershire sauce, mind you.  Worcestershire sauce that was HALF of the total amount I was expecting to spend on our week’s groceries.  Worcestershire sauce that cost more than TWICE the amount I had seen it for sale a week ago. 

I was feeling a little overwhelmed about our recent sauce purchase while I was getting lunch ready when a roach decided to make an appearance.  Bad timing.  I was getting a spoon for Judah and there it was – camping out on the spoon.  The spoon my cute little baby was about to eat off of. 

And then I lost it.  In retrospect, none of this is really a big deal, is it?  But a couple hours ago, it was A Big Enough Deal that I threw two spoons across the room as a cuss word flew out of my mouth and was hurled at the roach.  Yes, I cussed at the roach (Wait, are my parents reading this?  Or my boss??  Crud.    ). 

Last week, Chris attended a seminar on crisis management, and Judah and I went with him so we could enjoy a little get away.  One of the sections at the seminar focused on stress, and the book he read referenced a study that had been done on stress.  This study mentioned that on a stress scale, a score of 300 per year indicates a high level of stress and a problem that affects health and one’s ability to function properly on a day-to-day basis.  Most cross-cultural workers, however, had scores of 600 and higher (from various factors, including but not limited to cross-cultural communication, work overload, cross-cultural living, etc.).

… I have to say that, despite that knowledge, I never really considered myself to be stressed about much in general….

Until I cussed at a roach.

I also had a realization akin to this at the retreat center last week.   Our first night there, I was reading a book and I didn’t have my constant nighttime companion with me, my trusty headlamp.  I wasn’t sure what the power situation would be where we were staying, but I figured it wouldn’t be good and I would inevitably need the flashlight sometime that night.  I felt a bit panicked: Where did I leave the light?  Had I unpacked it yet?  This was a new place, and if it got pitch black, I would have a hard time making my way to the bathroom and to Judah when he woke up to be fed at night.  Suddenly I was a bit overwhelmed with this thought of groping around in the pitch black in a strange new place.

Just as quickly, though, I realized that we had light for now, anyway, a somewhat rare occurrence at night for us.

And suddenly in that moment, I felt this release of stress that I didn’t even realize I had been carrying.  It took having lights at night and this apprehension about when they would go out for me to realize that most of the time, I live with bated breath, just waiting for the power to go out.  When I cook dinner at night and we happen to have power, I walk around on eggshells, rushing to get things done before my light source becomes limited to a single beam from my head or a little portable light we have.  I quickly open the fridge and get things out so too much air won’t escape because who knows when we’ll get it again.  When I do laundry, I wonder if the power will go off in the middle of a load and I’ll have to rewash the clothes yet again because they’ve sat too long and end up smelling musty (The record for one load is rewashing them 3 times).  A load of diapers actually sat in the wash for 3 days a couple weeks ago because something went wrong with the power…. (Really, I prefer to think that they just had a really long pre-soak in bleach…..)

We only lost power twice while we were in Miango – though I still kept the flashlight under the pillow, just in case.

I find myself wondering, though, what it will be like when we go back to the States for a month in December… what it will be like to sleep without a flashlight tucked in the bed… how Judah, who sometimes looks up in wonder when the lights come on, will react to having Those Bright Things on all the time…. I wonder, too, if I literally felt a physical release of unknown stress when we drove an hour away from our house to a place that mostly had constant electricity, what other stress am I carrying that I am not aware of, and how much of that will I feel leave when I step off the plane in New York?

…And beyond that, will I ever get to a point here where my body doesn’t unknowingly carry this burden, where my body becomes so adjusted to life here, with all its ups and downs, that it doesn’t react to those downs?

Judah, stress free

Looking forward to cheap Worcestershire sauce in the States,

Christie (“I wonder if Nigerian stores have a return policy?”)
Chris (“I’m  surprised Christie was the first one to throw something, because I’ve been tempted to several times – and not just tonight when she served me fries for dinner.  Yes, that’s right – fries.  Period.”)
Judah (“Aw, man, I was this close to having a roach spoon-fed to me this time instead of having to chase it!”)

P.S.  So that you won’t imagine the worst and be afraid to leave your small children with me lest I wrongly influence them, it was the “d” word.    Because I know someone’s going to ask.

Dear Mr. Taxi Driver,

Thank you for the ride home after playing ultimate frisbee today.  While I understand your need to maximize profits–and therefore have as many passengers as possible in your small sedan–I think what you attempted to do today was a little mean.  Granted, I was fine with being smashed into the back of your vehicle with three other people (not counting the three up front) along with all of our bags and such.  But the people sitting next to me that had to deal with my sweaty, smelly post-ultimate self?  Combined with the exhaust from the motorcycle that you insisted on following all the way home?  Wow, those other passengers must be stronger than I am.

But, hey, one can’t beat 30 Naira (18 cents)–so thanks again!

Chris

[This is the first in what we hope will be a regular feature on our blog: "Dear...."]

We realize that we have been quite bad at updating this blog, and we apologize for that.  We really appreciate those who have been following along, despite our inconsistency, and we are especially grateful for the comments.  They are encouraging to us, and we’re grateful that you take the time to leave them.  Thank you!  

We really want to do a better job of communicating, too, so we are going to make an effort to update this at least once a week – so look for an update on Wednesdays (We just got back from a week-long conference where we had no internet, so that’s why this one is coming on a Thursday.)…. And who knows, we may even bore you multiple times a week!   ;)

I was going to a Bible study with some Nigerian women for a while, and one afternoon (well, technically evening, as it was at 4 pm, and that’s the start of evening here) about a month ago we had a fellowship time scheduled at the leader’s house.  Chris, who already was taking off work early one day a week so I could attend the study, was working, so I texted the leader and subtly asked about bringing Judah with me to the fellowship.  She wrote back and said that as long as he wasn’t a distraction, that would be fine.

A distraction?  He’s 10 months old.  He wiggles, crawls and babbles (loudly) – and he’s cute (in my unbiased opinion); of course he’s a distraction!  I decided not to attend and let her know that, and she responded with a message letting me know that they were all disappointed that I didn’t come and they had really wanted to meet Judah but they didn’t want to pressure me into coming, that they felt it had to be my decision about whether or not to come (A message which, of course, with the sometimes bad phone connections, I didn’t get until it was too late to go anyway.).  In a later conversation – much later, really (me thinking, “Why is she bringing this up again?  This is really odd.”) – she told me again that they had really hoped I would come and they were looking forward to meeting my baby and seeing me, and they were disappointed I hadn’t come, but they wanted me to decide for myself about coming because after all, they couldn’t force me to come.

How can a smile this cute not be a distraction??

And that’s when it hit me. 

That part of our training before coming to Nigeria, and even in some of the “on the job” training we received here, that dealt with cultural communication.  That part that was a theoretical blur until I obviously offended someone here.  That part about direct and indirect styles of communication.

And the fact that typically Americans tend to be on one side of the spectrum (direct) while Africans tend to be on the complete opposite side (indirect).  Obviously there are individual exceptions to this, but for the most part, culturally, Americans value directness, while Africans often won’t come right out and say certain things (or at least that’s the perception of my more-direct-than-I-thought-American-self).  Even apologies here, we’ve noticed, would probably not pass as apologies in the States; they would look more like excuses (especially in situations where saving face is involved since that’s an important facet of the culture as well). 

So this young woman who invited me to her home really did want us to come.  In my mind, the minute she said that Judah could come if he wasn’t a distraction, he was not welcome (what with him being a distraction and all  – or at least with me unable to guarantee that he WOULDN’T be one).  Even her message about it being my decision was, to me, like saying, “Do what you want, but if you had any social sense, you wouldn’t bring your loud, wiggly – though cute – baby.”  Nothing personal, of course, but for the sake of the others who would be there, it would be better for him not to come. 

…Except for here, everything is personal, in many ways.  It’s all about relationships.  She opened her home to me – and my 10 month old, by extension, distraction or not – and by opting not to come, I was, in many ways, choosing practicality over the relationship.

I still don’t get it, really.  Why not just say, “Of course it’s no problem!  Bring the baby!”?  I’m not sure what exactly went awry in that series of communication.  In a culture of indirect communication where relationships are highly valued and saving face is important, maybe she thought I was looking for an excuse to NOT come and she was giving me a way out. 

Or maybe what went awry is that I’m a product of my culture, she’s a product of hers, and neither of us even thought that the other could possibly understand anything other than, well, what we meant by what we said. 

This cross-cultural communication has more grey areas than I thought. 

What a rich morning!

A few weeks ago, we met a pastor who serves a church here in Jos that is part of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) denomination. He invited us to his church sometime, with lunch following. The only catch was that he was pastor of their Hausa service, which comes after two English services. So, in order to maximize our time there, he said we should come to the 8 a.m. English service, stay for the 10 a.m. Hausa service, and then join him and his wife for lunch—whew! We decided that it could be a good experience, so we took him up on his offer and we were really blessed yesterday morning.

The church was quite large—the sanctuary seats more than 1,000 people—and welcomed us warmly. Between services we went to the pastor’s house (on the same compound) for a glass of water, and as we were returning for the Hausa service, he informed me (Chris) that they will have a time of prayer during the service for our work, as well as for a group from their church that was taking a mission trip to Cameroon. During that time, he would expect us to greet the congregation and say a few words. Note to our readers: Keep in mind that this was the Hausa service…you know, that language in which we took a six-week course and in which we are unable to carry on any sort of conversation after the greetings finish.

The time came and we were called to the front. (Of course, the invitation was in Hausa and it wasn’t until I realized that everyone was looking at me that I was supposed to go up to the platform.) Conveniently, Christie was out in the parking lot feeding Judah, leaving me to go up on stage by myself. Since we had been sitting near the front of the church, it wasn’t until I got on stage and turned around to look at the congregation that I realized how many hundreds of people were actually there (the pastor guessed 1,200). Up to that point I had been rehearsing what words to use, and the Lord brought to mind everything that I had wanted to say—that was a blessing.  (Granted, it was only something like four sentences, but still…)

And then they (because at this point there are about six pastors on stage with me, along a representative of the group going to Cameroon) told me to kneel down. Realizing that they were putting me in an awkward position, I hesitated and then eventually kneeled. At that point, Christie appeared out of nowhere—someone had found her and told her “they are looking for you” and brought her up to the front.

So there we were, all three of Those Winklers kneeling on a stage in Jos, Nigeria, being prayed for in Hausa, in front of more than a thousand people. All that capped by a yummy Nigerian lunch with the pastor and his wife, and we had a very rich morning.

Of course we KNEW we should back up our computer…. Of course we MEANT to send the e-mail to insure it….

And of course it seems that something else always comes up that’s more urgent, and the urgent always seems to take precedence over the important.  One never thinks that anything will actually happen that will necessitate backing up one’s computer until That Thing happens and leaves you in shock that It happened…  leaves you thinking about the pictures of your son as a newborn, your wedding, that trip to the zoo, the last time you were with your grandparents, that amazingly captured picture of your precious little boy looking up at you… wondering if anything can actually be done to recover them (especially when the IT guy says sorry, looks “irrecoverable” to me)… leaves you kicking yourself for allowing the seemingly urgent things to dictate your time.

I know they’re only things…. I know the Bible says not to store up treasures on earth but to store up treasures in heaven where thieves and moth and rust (and concrete when somehow computers take dives???) will not destroy….

But I’m upset.

Pictures… poems…. essays…. scrapbooking pages that were supposed to be Christmas gifts showing how much Judah has grown….

Is it being melodramatic to say that my heart rather hurts for this?  I feel a little lost.  “They” say the computer itself is probably recoverable, but the data may not be.  (I’m too sad to even make some parallel between the body and soul….)  Part of me feels like I don’t even know what to do for a creative outlet now.  I loved working on these scrapbooking pages and recording on them the things that God has done in our lives, but the pages are gone, along with all the digital supplies that were stored on the computer as well — hours and hours and hours of organizing and labeling supplies and pictures, of downloading stuff that, between poor internet connections and certain supplies no longer being available, I couldn’t do again here even if I had a computer to put them on.  Which I don’t. I can come to the office to use Chris’s computer when he’s home for lunch, but beyond that, things don’t look so promising.

It’s not just files that have been lost — it’s work… Lots of work… And memories.

So I’m hoping and praying that somehow the data can be recovered.  Please let it be recoverable!

And next time I’ll back up.

Learning the hard way,
Christie (and Chris)

We went to the zoo yesterday, where we had to buy tickets for ourselves – and our camera. An admission price that cost more than the adult ticket price. Judah was free; perhaps they figured a baby wouldn’t get as much out of a trip to the zoo as a camera would. (Actually, they may have been right: In typical Judah fashion, he was much more intrigued by the people he saw at the zoo than by the animals (with the exception of one very loud, urine flinging chimpanzee, and even then I’m pretty sure he was watching it more out of wariness than intrigue).)

Two adults and a camera....

The zoo was quite different than zoos we’ve been to the in States. Apparently lawyers here have not yet caught onto suing for little things like animal attacks because of too-close proximity to people because that’s the closest I’ve ever been to a lion or chimpanzee in a cage before. One monkey kept reaching its paws out to grab more food from the ground, and were I more daring (or idiotic), we could have touched it with no struggles. Some vague recollection about not getting between an animal and its food rang in my head, though. There were definitely not any significant barriers between Us and Them to keep anyone – small, unsupervised children included – from marching right up to a cage and sticking his or her hand in.

Look, Ma, no zoom! (This was as close to the lion's cage as we dared get - but not as close as we COULD get.)

  The cages were smaller than what one would typically see in the States as well – though when I mentioned that, someone told me I was “thinking like a Westerner.” Well, yes, I suppose I was. One finds it difficult to step outside of the worldview one is raised with, no matter how far physically one is removed from that place.

…At least the cage for the camel and the donkey weren’t restrictive, though.

Oh, wait – that’s because they didn’t have one. They were just wandering around. Chris noted, “Interesting. At home the camels would be in a cage and the geese would be wandering around. Here the geese are in a cage and the camels are wandering around.”

Despite being spit on and covered in urine by some particularly impish chimpanzees, we had a really good day and enjoyed being outside and walking around. We think our camera enjoyed the day, too.

Chimp imps. The one on the right is the spit flinging one (The one of the left just threatened it....). The urine flinging one was in another cage. Gotta spread out the moisture, I guess.

Us, enjoying that we were not the main zoo attraction this time.

From outside the cage this time,
Christie, Chris & Judah

I went to a women’s tea yesterday, and I was amazed at the nationalities represented there. Of the 11 women there, there were….

-2 Americans
-2 Canadians
-2 from the UK
-1 Russian
-1 from Czech Republic
-1 from France
-1 from Switzerland
-1 from Germany

It was really neat to hear the stories of how these women from all these different places and backgrounds ended up in Nigeria. I love that God’s kingdom is made up of such diversity.

…But our tea time was just a minute glimpse of what we will one day see in heaven:

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: ‘Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!’” (Revelation 7:9-12)

It feels as though there are three pillars to life here: electricity, Internet and water. These three issues tend to dominate conversations and often dictate what one does in a certain part of the day. For instance:

If electricity has been scarce, but you happen to notice that it comes on at 2 a.m. (for instance if your infant son is screaming at that time), it is not uncommon to be seen doing a load of laundry in the wee hours of the morning.

When we first arrived, our only potential for Internet was at the office. Because this bandwidth was shared with hundreds (if not thousands) of other people in Jos, it was usually faster at non-peak times, e.g. early in the morning and late at night. This led to coming in to the office very early (before 7 a.m.) in order to do e-mail–and even then, it was terribly slow. (However, this is all changing soon.)

If you prefer to take showers in the morning, or at night, or following a long game of ultimate frisbee in the hot sun, your preferences cannot always be accommodated here. Last week, there were three mornings in a row where we did not have water. Even when we do have water, the chances of there being decent (or at least what we would consider decent) AND hot at the same time are slim to none.

Chris (I stink and need a shower),
Christie (why am I awake at 2 a.m.: to shower, do laundry or feed Judah?) and
Judah (I had darkness for nine months, what’s the big deal?)