The weather here is beautiful. Sunny and warm......rather hot 32-35 degrees. When wel eave Jos on Thursday for Kaduna we will have warmer temperatures due to a lower elevation. Then the temp will be around 40 degrees. Jos is at a higher elevation and situated on a very large plateau thus cooler.
The seminars at ECWA church were well attended and very successful. John preached on Sunday at two services which were also well attended (over 500). John preached becasue it is not acceptable for a woman to preach. Pastor Emmanuel, the Sr. Pastor is very much in favour of women pastors but some of the elders are not. It is interesting because many women with theological degrees (PhD) teach the pastors at the seminary.
We had planned to have lunch with the Pridham's today at a small restauant that they frequent. We have changed these plans because of local violence. We have seen smoke billowing from a burned car and heard guns and even some machine gun fire from our front porch at the guest house. It was 1 -2 km away but still very evident to us at the house. We continue to be well looked after here at the house. There is 24 hour security and also a house attendant (Jonathan) who is wonderful. He even offered to do our laundry. Pastor Bitrus' wife Monica is bringing prepared food to us. We are in a safe location here.
We were invited to Pastor Emmanuel's home last night with his wife Lydia. We watched the news and saw the police report aboout yesterday's violence. Pastor Emmanuel lives on the ECWA compound so it was very close to the guest house. Yesterday two men on a motorcycle had a bomb and "blew themselves up" when the bomb detonated before they got to their intended target. Since it was a Sunday morning it is presumed that the target was one of two nearby churches. This was in another section of Jos. Bitrus' daughter says this is now on facebook.
John thought we should go closer and do an "I-report video" for CNN. (just kidding). People here climb the water tower for a better view of what is happening.
Our itinerary changes frequently and we are very flexible so this is not a problem for us. We are currently scheduled to do an extra 3 day seminar for a specific church that could not attend the week-end seminars. This new teaching will take place Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but this may also change due to the current events of the day.
Both yesterday and today we have had lots of email communication with the Canadian embassy located in Abuja. We have been surprised by the contact. They are definitely keeping us informed and also wanting to know where we are and that we are safe. They had tried phoning all day yesterday but we had the phone turned off most of the day because we were at church, had afternoon naps and then out to dinner. We check John's blackberry frequently and have told them to contact us via email and the blackberry.
We have borrowed Pastor Emmanuels computer to do this posting so we are not sure when we will be able to make another posting..............but please keep checking.
Love to all
John and Shirley
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