2nd - 9th May (apologies for the missed day)

2/5 – The early starts on Sunday mornings are starting to take their toll; getting up at 7 in the morning is not exactly my idea of a perfect Sabbath day. Thankfully the sermon was actually quite refreshing (you can hardly go wrong with the subject freedom). We got home to find the national grid electricity was working well enough to power the fridge (a little bit).

After a late breakfast and a major napping session we went to visit Rose. She is the elderly lady who used to look after Billy and Linda, she now suffers from TB. It’s incredibly touching how generous she is despite her troubles (she was even apologetic for not having anything to give us). We also learnt that she is no longer able leave the house, so every Sunday we are going to give her a church service, UK style!

3/5 – Today was the day to finally begin planning the activities that I have been put in charge of. It is less than two weeks before the first Purpose Driven Youth programme, so myself, Rueben and Reverend Okponachi met to discuss publicity for the 6 area conferences. I also began planning the summer holiday club, I am starting early because organising volunteers is hard enough at home, let alone in Ogugu. I was also supposed to coach another team in Ogugu but the session was rained off.

4/5 – Today I woke bright and early after a good nights sleep. The day began with an early meeting with Rueben to discuss writing the invitation letters to the churches for the Purpose Driven Youth programme. The rest of the day I spent doing boring planning, so nothing too much to say today.

5/5 – It was very strange to wake up to rain and feeling a bit cold. Since Becki arrived late, I was not woken up until 9 (a very long lie in by Nigerian standards). The first duty of the day was rubbish collection; thankfully the lure of sweets drew in the help of some young assistance.

Wednesdays are generally very free for me, so I used the opportunity to continue planning the holiday club and write some bible studies for the older guys (every Friday we will be looking at a different characteristic of God). Later on in the day I went to coach the other team; the session went well and they even asked me to come back on Friday.

6/5 – missed out for some reason, and I cant remember what happenend. Awa

7/5 – I spent the morning in the center with Chris putting the finishing touches to the child friendly room (the center is where people come to get tested for HIV and receive free counseling). A local boy named soldier (I don’t know if that is his real name) also helped. He is always eager to help but his clumsiness meant we had to do an extra coat of paint (he didn’t see the problem in wiping his hands on the walls with different coloured paint).

I spent the afternoon doing training with my football boys and then just generally avin a bubble. Happy 50th dad!

8/5 – Like most days of this week, the morning was devoted to planning the holiday club. It is suprising how much you can get done when you are the only person in charge! The week will focus on the exodus (the club will be named ‘the great escape’). We had then planned to visit Liam and Collete for a proper goodbye (they are leaving to go back home on Tuesday). Unfortunately a tire went flat and then the petrol station filled our car with mostly water, which messed up the car big time. The evening culminated in the car fan exploding, poor Pippa!

9/5 – This Saturday has been unlike most Saturdays. Firstly I had agreed to speak at the Ogugu youth conference held by UEC. The talk went well and the turnout was good despite the fact that last nights events went on into the early hours of this morning (keeping us awake because they thought everyone in Ogugu needed to hear it on loudspeaker). We were then planning on going to Eka (a 2 hour drive) to visit some of the missionaries but Pippa continued to fall apart. Once she was fixed we decided to go to Ankpa to get some internet.

The ride home from Ankpa was epic! We had to drive through a tropical rainstorm with dodgy windscreen wipers. Along the way we managed to reverse into another car and then into a ditch (luckily no one cared in the first incident and in the middle of no where, there were 8 or 9 passers by to help us push Pippa out of the ditch). We then returned home to find the replacement tire from yesterday was flat, oh dear!