Tuesday: Another Day in Niamey

(Sorry for the delay in posting updates. The internet here has been down for three days, so here is the blog I wrote on Tuesday evening.)

We are getting down to a routine here in the EERN compound. We wake up and lay out the makings of a continental breakfast. We help ourselves to local fruit (washed with Clorox water of course.) We boil water for instant coffee or tea and make some instant milk for cereal. Someone else makes oatmeal, and if you are real nice to Laurie Hawley, she’ll cook some eggs for you. After breakfast we have devotions. Our theme this week is “Faith is . . . .” So far we have had Bible studies on “Faith is journey,” Faith is hoping,” and “Faith is wrestling.”

After devotions we are off and running on the various work projects on site. This time we saw real progress in the building project. They started mixing cement (by hand, of course) and poured it in the pits the others dug. They pour it one wheelbarrow at a time.

At about 1 pm we have our largest meal of the day. It’s prepared by Hazura, the “housekeeper” who sweeps our floors and prepares this mid-day meal. It’s always a wonderful African dish! Typically, it is some meat (chicken, beef or mutton) in a thick sauce served over a starch such as rice, couscous, or African yams. She carries her little baby (her sixth child) strapped tightly on her back as she sweeps, cleans and cooks.

A local welder came to us today. You would not believe his “rig.” He came with a wheelbarrow carrying a large wash tub filled with motor oil. Sitting in the oil were two transformers wrapped in old wires. He took a cord with no plug – just two open wires – and stuck them in the socket of an extension cord. He took another line with a metal flap at its end and used it as a ground, laying the flap on a piece of piping lying on the ground. He then connected his welding line and the bright sparks flew. His eye protection? A cheap pair of sun glasses!

The infrastructure here is so fragile! The water stops flowing several times a day. All my “showers” so far have been cups of water splashed on me from a tub of water we have saved as a back up when the water shuts off. I am writing this blog on the Hawley’s laptop computer, but I have no idea when I will be able to post it; the internet has been down for more than 24 hours. The phones are down too. But hey, it’s been a great day for electricity! It shut down only once today.

But today, as I was inside scraping paint off the ceiling in preparation for a new coat of paint, I heard Hazura humming a lovely African praise song as she was sweeping the dust on the floors:

“Zo ka dandana ka gain
Abun al’ajabi
Zo ka dandana ka gain”

Or: “Come, taste and see
For the Lord is so wonderful,
Taste and see.”

In this place where things don’t often work very well, God is working. And God is wonderful indeed.

- Pastor Dave Corlett