InReach

The heart of God is love.

Because he loves mankind he sent his only Son to die for us so that all who believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).  Unfortunately the words and actions of many who call themselves followers of Jesus do not reflect this love and often send out a message of exclusion and intolerance instead.  InReach is an attempt to get Christians to start examining Jesus' call upon their lives, attitudes and actions.  How can the love of God be shown in the community, especially communities around Jos which have been torn apart by violence and where hatred and fear are more apparent than love and trust?  How would these neighbourhoods be changed if all who called themselves followers of Christ displayed his love actively and indiscriminately?

We are taking lessons learned from BRICC (Building Relationships In City Centre: www.briccjos.com) to develop a six week programme aimed at getting Christians to start asking questions and considering what they can do; what God wants them to do.  Our pioneers are a group of five students at JETS Bible college but we hope the message will spread and the face of Nigeria will be changed.


 

Snake

I know there are plenty of snakes in Nigeria.  There's been the corpse of one hanging in the cashew tree from before we moved into TCNN; James and Ruth often see them at school before the groundsmen take care of them; a friend found a decent sized cobra in his veranda, but I haven't seen a live one myself before yesterday when I moved a large bin on our porch and there it was. 

I rather like snakes and usually wouldn't harm one but unfortunately ignorance breeds fear.  I didn't know enough to allow this one to slither off.  It was small but those can be the most deadly so I picked up a handy piece of wood and bashed it before finishing it off with a trowel.  Thankfully both dogs were otherwise occupied and didn't come along to help.  I couldn't allow the prospect of it getting into the house, being surprised by human or dog and biting.
If anyone can identify what it is and whether it is indeed dangerous I would be grateful.  It has stripes going around its head but lengthways on its tail.  In between there are leopardlike spots and its belly is pale yellow.  If it's harmless the next one will live.  If I'm still ignorant the trowel's coming out again.

A walk round the garden

I love sitting out in the garden and still haven't got used to the fact that the weather is pretty predictable here, unlike in the UK, but there are some hazards.  Recently we've had an army of black hairy caterpillars descend upon us, or rather they're ascending every surface, inside and out.  I leaned against the house wall before realising I should've checked for beasties and now have an itchy caterpillar shaped mark on my arm and a black smear on the outside wall.  I'm hoping they'll all turn into beautiful butterflies, not boring white ones so they are being allowed a lot of leeway.

Last Sunday I opened the curtains to discover one of our bathroom soakaways had collapsed in the night. Thankfully it's not the one that drains the toilet.

Then I turned over an empty upside down jug to discover that it wasn't empty after all.

Finally, does anyone have any tips for getting rid of a barking dog?  Our neighbours' dog, a nice enough animal, has decided that right outside our gate is the place to be throughout the night.  He's done it several times now and my patience is wearing a little thin as last night he started at 1:20am, went on for a long time, had a rest as he seemed to be losing his voice (hooray!), then started up again at 5am.  I went out to let him know he wasn't appreciated and he glared at me in a most aggrieved manner as he slunk off.  I need to put him off before Luach decides that barking though the night is what big boys do and joins in himself.