And the World is Saved Yet Again!

*Warning*

**Animals in this story were in fact, actually harmed and some may easily misconstrue our definition of “survival of the fittest”, as animal cruelty. Contents of this story are based on true events (which I may have embellished a little…) that may give your children nightmares, but besides that…..it’s quite entertaining. You have been warned!**

On a night just like any other night the three superhero members of The Living Hope Africa Force relaxed in their secret lair located in the heart of West Africa. Each had had a fulfilling but tiring day of superheroing and were all ready to call it a night and let those who worked 24-7 like Superman, Wonder woman and God, take over for the evening. Little did they know, their evil archenemy MOUSE (The very name which undoubtedly sends chills down the spine of you the reader), planned a secret evil mission ~don don don~.

As Lazar (living under the secret identity of Lisa Dovale…not so secret anymore :S) and her Onyeocha husband Da Broom (aka Derek Dovale) rested peacefully, The HC (aka Abigail Ndukwe) settled herself in her own room.  As she meditated on the days events, she heard a noise coming from a bag resting on her desk.  The rustle of the bag didn’t worry her at first, and when it subsided she went back to her relaxing. 

~Rustle Rustle~

The sound came again, and this time she saw movement from the florescent pink plastic.  Instantly her superhero instincts kicked into gear.  She stood in fighting stance on her bed ready for whatever horrors were about to come her way.  And Oh the horrors that were unleashed!  Out from the bag jumped MOUSE…but at once The HC knew that this was not MOUSE in his ordinary form.  Her superhero knowledge ad skilled once again failed her not.  As MOUSE scurried away to a dark unknown corner of the HC’s room, he left a note which read:

          

“Today your days are numbered.  Prepare to face the wrath an my new evil self: MOUSE-ZILLA!”

Now for those with children, I urge you to cover their eyes at what is coming next.  MOUSE had changed himself into a horrific rat like evil rodent bent on the destruction of the Living Hope Africa Force.  Behold the sight they saw:

 

 

 

To the reader of this story, I apologize for the disgusting, frightful monstrosity your eyes have had to behold today.  I beg you to turn away from your fears and ask God for strength to continue with this story.  I assure you, that like every story with a villain, a hero is always there to save the day.( Examples:  Lex Luther and Superman, Goliath and David, Satan and God!).  And on this day, the mischievous bloodthirsty MOUSE-ZILLA not only had one hero to deal with, but THREE!  Using her echolocation calling gift she called upon the rest of the Living Hope Africa Force.  Although she could deduct that this demon mouse/rat ran into hiding in hopes of luring a three members into one room for their destruction, the HC knew that a greater force was working on the side of the L.H.A. Force.  She knew that today, his days were numbered!!!!

Sooner rather than later, Da Broom burst through the door.  Not knowing what trouble laid in front of him, he had picked up the first weapon he could get his hands on: An oval torpedo (which to normal human eyes, looked very much like a football).  Armed and ready to fight, the HC explained the situation to Da Broom.  Distressed about not knowing the exact whereabouts of MOUSE-ZILLA, the two members decided to call upon the third point of their indestructible three person triangle team, LAZER!  As Da Broom began flipping over furniture in an attempt at located the horrible fiend, the HC ran out to call LAZER!  In seconds the two amazing super women were back and ready for action.  LAZER held in her hand her most useful weapon, the beam of majestic light (which to many looked a lot like a flashlight).  By this time, Da Broom was holding a more familiar weapon, his trusty Whiskanator  which closely resembled a Nigerian broom.  He held the bristled area in his hand so that the heavy handle was the part which packed a heavy punch (he looked a lot like Thor with his mighty hammer!).  At this point, Da Broom had the couch in the HC’s room flipped so that the cushions were touching the ground and the bottom of the couch was in the air.  He tapped on the bottom of the couch with the broom.  A rustling sound was heard.  Once again he tapped on the mouse chewed surface, and again a rustling sound was heard.  MOUSE-ZILLA had been located!

In an attempt to scare him out, Da Broom flipped the couch over fast so that the bottom of the couch hit the ground fast.  Nothing.  Again Da Broom used his superhuman strength to flip the couch upside down and then back down on the ground fast and hard.  Nothing.  This technique didn’t seem to be working.  Da Broom had one more idea.  As the couch rested normally, he stepped on top of it, and jumped hard!  Out ran MOUSE-ZILLA! He scurried under the bed and made LAZER jump, however she only jumped because she was a little sceptical about MOUSE-ZILLA even being in the HC’s room.  Dow on his Da Broom went with LAZER and her flashlight.  They looked under the bed, and to their surprise….nothing!  The sneaky villain had used his superfast skills to escape! 

The team was left scratching their heads.  Was he in the closet?  No.  In the bathroom? No.  They all knew that MOUSE-ZILLA could not have possibly escaped.  There was only one place left to look.  Under the dresser!  Da Broom, using his amazing strength lifted the dresser, LAZER took out her beam of majestic light and shone it under the dresser.  One second went by….two….then on the third second……we realised that nothing was there.  That was the end of our adventure. 

Or was it!!!  As Da Broom rested the dresser back down, he was unconvinced that MOUSE-ZILLA was not there.  As he looked in one of the drawers as a last resort…out jumped MOUSE-ZILLA!  THE CANIVING MONSTER WAS STILL IN THE HC’S ROOM!!!!!!!! MOUSE-ZILLA jumped out and ran towards the bathroom.  The three fighters of all that is good, went running after him.  The bathroom.  MOUSE-ZILLA was trapped!!!!! As he hid in a corner one his mind was only able to think of his own stupidity of even attempting to attack just one member of the force.  As the door shut to the bathroom, Da Broom located, once again, MOUSE-ZILLA’s whereabouts.  They had him now.  On the count of three Da Broom moved the bucket he was hiding behind and MOUSE-ZILLA jumped out!  He ran as fast as his legs could carry him.  He attempted to crawl through little hole by the edge of the door to get out, and he actually succeed, but not before Da Broom smacked his backside hard with the top of the Whiskenator.  Luckily our trusty transport officer (who goes by T.O,) had heard all the commotion and was about to open the bathroom door to see what was going on.  His very presence scared MOUSE-ZILLA back into the bathroom.  It was the forces second chance for success.  MOUSE-ZILLA ran desperately for cover wherever his little legs could take him.  This ended up being behind the ceramic lid of the toilet tank.  The HC, with her super speedy reflexes, pounced and pushed the lid up against MOUSE-ZILLA.  But this wasn’t fully crushing him.  Da Broom made his way over to the lid.  As he moved it, MOUSE-ZILLA jumped up and out and ran out the door, and at the same time the toilet lid fell out of Da Broom’s hands and smashed into a million and one pieces.  MOUSE-ZILLA had slipped through the Forces fingers yet again!

As many of you know, the Force would not be the force without Jesus Christ, the Lord.  He is the creator of their special abilities, the strength to the team and the real hero of the team.  The team decided it was time for divine intervention.  A quick prayer was said and the team dashed out after MOUSE-ZILLA.  MOUSE-ZILLA came face to face with T.O yet again.  He managed to slow MOUSE-ZILLA down by stepping on him three times…….with his bare feet!  This scared MOUSE-ZILLA and in a last attempt to be safe he ran over to the couch.  Da Broom had flipped the couch over on its back so that MOUSE-ZILLA could not get back in to the couch by the bottom.  So this time, MOUSE-ZILLA ran under the back of the couch.  Knowing that this was her only chance to finally put an end to the evil MOUSE-ZILLA, the HC shouts out “IT’S OVER RAT!” and jumps onto the couch.  The battle had ended and the Force had won!  MOUSE-ZILLA had fallen…and when all hope seemed lost….The LIVING HOPE Africa FORCE brought hope where there was none. 

                                              THE END

Stay tuned for the next episode where the FORCE defeats a GIANT SPIDER!

Children’s Laughter is the Best Medicine

We visited the same motherless babies home that Abigail and Lisa went to 2 weeks ago on Tuesday night. There are about 20 kids there and there was one little girl who had been dropped off the night before and was only 1 week old!

We dropped off 5 boxes of toys and clothes for the kids and for the women there that were donated by various people. They were very happy to receive them.

This little guy was very upset when we left.

When we got there the kids just stared at us and some of them waved and said hello. It didn't take long for them to warm up with us and before I knew it I had 3 kids grabbing my legs wanting to play and be picked up. 1 boy was scared to death of Lisa and I and when I reached out my hand to him, he shrieked and hid behind on the ladies who worked there. They tried to show him that I wasn't scary but when they pushed him near me, he turned into a little ball frightened tears.

There were many high fives to be had

Maybe Lisa had some food on her face

There was a pudgy little fellow in one of the cribs and when I got close to him, he stood up and put his hands out, so I picked him up and held him for a while. I went to put him down back in his crib and he started to cry, so I held onto him a little longer. At one point, there was a girl who very carefully walked 2 steps over to me and grabbed onto my hands. The lady she walked from told me that those were her very first steps!

Mr Pudgy

The 2 oldest girls kept running into the room, hitting me, and then running out in hopes that I would chase them. After a few times of this, I went running after them as they clumsily ran away down the hall laughing. This happened a few times and more kids wanted to get in on the game. One little boy kept running up to me and clutching on to my legs so I couldn't move. I tickled him and he flung his head back and let out the most adorable laugh that I've heard in a long time. When I stopped tickling him, he got up and ran over to me so I could do it again. Abigail got some video of all this so we can show you guys when we get home.

The little guy with the adorable laugh.

Time flew by while we were playing with the kids and before we knew it we had to put the kids down and pull them off of our legs and say goodbye. We gave all of the kids hugs and high fives and thanked the ladies who worked there for letting us come and see the kids and the boy who was scared of Lisa and I, willingly shook my hand as we left and he didn't cry! The kids stood at the door waving at us as we pulled away in our vehicle. Most of them were smiling as they waved but a few of them did not look happy that we were leaving and one of them was crying.

Mr Pudgy going for a stroll

I didn’t want to leave…

*** A Note From Lisa***
In Nigeria, it’s not very common for children to be adopted, so when a child’s mother dies or the parents are unable to care for the baby, the motherless babies home will take him or her in until the age of two. Then the child will go back to either the father, or extended family. Carrying on family name and heritage is very important to the culture here, even if it means the family has to struggle to take on an extra child. There’s something to be said for this deep commitment to family, but at the same time, it breaks my heart to see these motherless babies homes scraping by to care for more children than there is room for. The homes are funded almost entirely by donations and run by amazing women who make no profit and commit all their time and love to these children. I guess it’s good that the option to adopt the children is not there because I know I would be spending the rest of my time figuring out how many children Derek and I could bring home! … One day!

Photo Update – Small Small

We found this guy in the window sill of our room when we got home one day, So we caught him and tossed him back out side where he belongs.

Abigail’s cousins spent the day with us one Saturday and we took them to a nearby field to play some soccer… I mean football. :-)
I saw this little guy peering around the corner, so I grabbed the camera.

Lisa and Abigail went and visited another motherless babies home. We’ll be stopping by for another visit before we come home.

This little cutie sat with Lisa and I for a good 1/2 hour and we could not get her to smile, but as soon as we brought the camera out…

Thanks for all of your prayers!

A Broken Church Building and a Mexican Beach

  

We were in Lagos last weekend to visit some of Abigail’s family and to go to a church that Paul was preaching at on that day.  The church we went to was half demolished because the government is widening the highway and needs 65 feet of land on either side of the highway the whole length of the road to do so.  Half of the church building is on some of that land and the people who own the church have been slowly dismantling it before the bulldozers come in so they can keep some of the building supplies.  A lot of the churches we have been to here have a slogan for every year, it’s really cool and I think it’s something Living Hope should adopt as well.

After church we headed for our very first African beach!  The beach was beautiful.  It felt like we stepped out of Africa into Mexico.  Paul ordered lunch and 30 minutes later a big plate showed up with a whole BBQ’d fish and some fries.  They didn’t have any utensils so we all dug into the fish and chips with our hands.  The food was excellent and fish reminded me of being at my parents house and having some delicious BBQ’d salmon that my dad prepared.

Abigail and Lisa are both at the secondary school this week teaching biology together and I’m waiting for some software to come in to the library so I can start networking all the computers together.  I hope the software gets here soon so I can get it all set up before we come home.

Oh and I almost forgot… We found a rat in Abigail’s room 2 nights ago and we managed to “get rid of it.”  It’s a funny story and it’s best when Abigail tells it, so I’ll leave it up to her.

Miss you all!

Lisa’s Cure for Home Sickness… Updated!

…is getting creative and drawing pictures of our friends on paper and putting them up on the wall in our room.

Here’s a closer look… Photo updated Aug 17.

(Click for the full size image)

All the drawings do is make us miss you guys even more.

Video Update!

Hi everyone!

We recorded a video last week and Abigail edited it adding in some photos and some other video we have taken on the trip thus far.

We miss you all!

Cockroaches, Mice, Giant Spiders & Rats, Oh my!

Hello everyone!

Last week Abigail was awoken in the middle of the night (when the power was off) to the noise of a mouse scurrying around her room, squeaking and chewing on a bag on the floor.  She called me and we both looked in her room for the mouse but didn’t find it.  The next evening, we saw something scurrying across her floor and I tried to step on it 4 times to no avail.  At first we thought it was a mouse but as I was trying to squish it, we realized it was a large cockroach.  It ran under her bed, so we got the flash light and looked for it, as I put my head down to the floor to peak under her bed, I heard a “Hisssssssss!” noise in my ear coming from under the couch, 2 inches away from my head.  I sprung up and shouted “That giant cockroach just hissed in my ear!” So we flipped up the couch in search of it, but instead of finding a cockroach, we found 4 holes chewed into the couch by mice, or cockroaches or whatever else decided to make the couch it’s home.  We then saw the cockroach hanging off of the side of the couch so I whacked it with a shoe, it fell to the ground and Abigail yelled, “Kill it again!” So I whacked it again, we duct taped the holes on the couch shut and called it a night.

 

The next day, I was walking through the side room next to the kitchen and I saw something scurry across the floor and under one of the arm chairs.  I flipped up the chair and found the hole that the mouse had scurried into.  I called Abigail and Lisa in the room and together we carried the chair outside and cut the bottom of the chair out so no more mice would live it.  As we cut the chair open, a dead, dried mouse body fell out with it’s head missing.  We brought the chair back inside and after much debate, we decided to check all of the other chairs and couches in the room.  We flipped up the other arm chair, no holes.  We flipped up the big couch, no holes.  In the corner of the room sat a piece of furniture with 4 small mattresses stacked on top of it.  We reluctantly removed them to reveal a small, old, dark and dirty couch that was sitting underneath them.  We knew something had to living in it.  Abigail, broom in hand, awaited whatever monstrosity would fall out from under it as Lisa and I quickly flipped the couch on it’s side.  Out from under it fell a big, nasty brown rat.  The girls screamed and jumped up on the coffee table when they saw it as the panicked rat jumped 2 feet up the corner of the wall trying to escape.  It turned, ran towards me, I jumped up on to the now sideways couch as the rat ran underneath me and out the door (At least we think it ran out the door).  We then moved the nasty hole filled couch outside on the patio and forgot about it.

The next evening, Abigail and I were playing video games as Lisa went to the kitchen to look for something.  5 minutes later Lisa comes bursting into the room, out of breath “Didn’t you guys hear me screaming?” she asked in between breaths.  “We didn’t hear anything” we replied.  "I was looking for something in the cupboards, then I saw a big cockroach and tried to kill it, but it ran into the next cupboard, so I followed it and another big cockroach was there, then they both ran into another cupboard, so I followed them into that cupboard and there was a giant spider in there and now I’m here.  Can you come and help me kill them?”  So off we went to the kitchen brooms in hand to kill some bugs.  We looked in the cupboards and the cockroaches were no where to be found, but we found the spider, and it was big and harry.  Besides tarantulas, it was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life and it was in our kitchen! I tried to poke it with the broom but this ninja spider side stepped the broom 3 times!  Then it ran up a loose board in the cupboard and the board fell over from the weight of the spider!  So we called Christian to come and save us.  He brought rat poison and Raid with him and sprayed the raid all inside the kitchen cupboards and laid rat poison in the corners of some rooms.  We thanked him profusely and he left.

In the morning we found the 2 cockroaches almost dead so we finished them off and threw them outside.  Christian then told us that we might notice some bad smells in the house as the rats eat the poison, die, and start rotting.  We haven’t smelled anything bad yet, but when we do, we’ll have to go on a dead rat & mouse hunt.

T.I.A.

Here’s some more photos.

Read the caption on the left side of the of the truck.

 

We visited the motherless baby home that Lisa visited the last time she was in Nigeria.
 

We also visited the National War Museum

A little mouse we found in the backyard. Probably one of the mice that’s been in the house.

Lisa and I had to wait for a ride from the Library.  Lisa got out her book and i got out the camera.

A Mercedes Benz dealership that we drove by.

Some giant snails that are in the backyard that we are apparently going to eat one day soon.

Lisa and Abigail helping out with dinner.

I love books!!!

So… I’ve been teaching at the primary school for three days now. My task of teaching 1 hour of science to a grade 6 class quickly turned into me teaching 2 grade 6 classes combined for the full day, and then finding a way to teach a few science lessons somewhere in between to the grade 3, 4, and 5 classes! T.I.A. (This is Africa)

If you ever want to feel like a celebrity, be white and visit a primary school. On the first day, I naively thought it would be a fun to play with the kids during their lunch break. The minute I stepped foot outside of the classroom, I was swarmed by the entire school – all 250 plus students!!! Most were too shy to talk to me so they just stood close and stared. Those who managed to push close enough were grabbing at my hands and arms to touch my pale skin. By the end of the day, I was so covered in sweat and stickiness I dumped a bucket of cold water all over myself as soon as I got home.

Today – I brought in the box of books to the school. A retiring teacher at my mom’s school donated her entire library of children’s books. I gave each student one of the new books, and had them all write down a question about the book’s subject before they could open it. Then, when reading the book, they had to look for the answer. (intro to research).I have never seen children so excited about information as I did today!!! It made my heart smile. For an hour and a half, they read book after book, excitedly telling me the answers to their questions, and sharing the new things they were finding out about in the books! Turns out Magic School Bus books are now popular here too! The principal and the teacher were right into the action too! At one point I saw two girls with their notebooks, furiously copying down all the notes they could from a book they were reading on the human body. I told them they were not required to take notes, but they told me they wanted to take the information home to remember! It was so cool to see such eagerness about learning!!! I don’t know if it’s just a ‘teacher thing’, but there’s something truly magical when you see someone excited about reading! That hour and a half made my year!

Photo Updates!

Ndiwo! (That’s the Igbo word for hello) I have a bit of time now, so here’s some photos from our trip so far.

These are the walls that surround our building and every building in Nigeria. Yes those are rusty steel spikes.

We asked for some fruit to have as snacks and this is what they brought us!

This is a soldier ant hole. These ants are bigger than any at home and we’ve been told that they hurt a lot when they bite you.

This is a praying mantis that we saw one night.

They were going to slaughter this chicken in front of us, but Paul asked them not to. So she’s still alive and kicking.

This is a pet Lisa got from one of her students free of charge!

That’s all for now. I’ll try to write another post tomorrow. We miss you all!

Settled in

We are all settled into the University now. It was a crazy drive getting over here. Lisa and I were in a Toyota van (we don't have this model at home) with no seat belts with Paul’s brother Bennet. Bennet is a really cool guy and I hope we get to see a lot more of him while we are here. Abigail and Paul were in an SUV ahead of us most of the time. When we were on the highway, we were driving fast all the time, pedal to the floor whenever there was space. I checked the speedometer a couple times and we were doing about 150km/hr and we were 8 to 10 feet behind Abigail & Paul’s SUV. It got a little sketchy when the SUV in front had to slam on the brakes for various reasons like giant pot holes, other cars, motor cycles or people. I was worried at first but then I soon realized that the drivers we had were very good at their jobs and if they’ve survived this far in life driving like this, then I’ve got nothing to worry about and I managed to get some sleep in the car. I took some videos of the driving and I’ll upload them to You Tube when I get a chance.

As you can tell, we got internet today but we have to pay for it by the hour. Hopefully this is something we can change for the students while we are here. We also just got running water today in our building. Apparently it wasn’t working because they hooked up the plumbing into the electrical system by accident. I don’t know how one would accomplish that, but it happened… somehow.

All of the people we have met here and very friendly, happy and are genuinely glad to have us here. The police look very intimidating dressed in all black with the flak jackets and AKs either in their hand or slung on their shoulder, but the officers that we have talked to have all been very friendly and welcoming. I haven’t got any photos of the police yet, but they will come.
Almost everyone speaks English but they use the language differently than we are used to. For example, whenever we meet someone, they say “you are welcome” to us. I thought it was weird at first, because we say you’re welcome after someone says thank you, but if you think about, the way they use it makes more sense. We met a very friendly, funny guy in Kaduna who greeted us by saying “My name is not MediumMedium, or HiHi, but Lolo.” Lisa and I laughed and he said “She laughs in verses and he laughs in chapters, you two make a good couple.”

The food here has been really good so far and they have the best tea I’ve ever had. I’m going to try to bring some home with me. We had a whole lot of fresh fruits and vegetables dropped off to us today. That made Lisa an extremely happy girl. We sat down and talked to Christian (a guy who works at the university) and he told us that if there is anything we want to eat, we just have to get him the list of ingredients and he’ll get them for us. Hope fully, we can make some food that we eat back in Canada for some of the people here to try out.

We should be able to blog a lot more now that we have internet. Twitter works sometimes here. I think it’s blocked because when I go to Twitter.com, it tells me that this web service is unavailable. I’m working on getting an app that will hopefully work around this.

Well, Lisa is asleep and I should get ready for bed and join her before the power goes out.

Arrived in Abuja

We arrived in Abuja Nigeria about 2 hours ago and we've been driving around the city in a 2 car convoy. Lots of interesting things to see so far including a minivan with about 30 kids inside. Lisa and Abigail have been making fun of my greasy hair today, but it's ok, cause I get to make fun of Abigail's shoes and Lisa's frizzy hair. We're at the Sheraton right now exchanging money and then we're off to the Canadian Embassy to get our Visa's. Abigail wanted me to mention that she has ginormous welts all over her legs. I think she's just a whiner. :-)

P.S. AK-47's are a lot smaller than I thought.