Vacation!

At Sheraton hotel for a week...all donated, TTL!

We're all here for a good relaxing break...as a result I won't be online as much..

c u all wen I get back..

Happy New Year in advance! May it be your most significant ever!!

Love to all..

P.S. Pray for the people of Palestine & Israel, who many of which will not be having a "Happy New Year"..they need our desperate prayers..

Christmas!

Highlights:

--Had friends over for Christmas Eve..Soup, starters, Turkey, Stuffed pork-roll, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce etc. etc..the works..ended with Christmas stories, Caroling & partying..

--Mary got me an office chair for my Christmas gift..(we all picked names out of a hat & I got Mary & Mary picked me..heh..)

gift frm Abner /Anisa

--Then another Christmas dinner on 25th..

--Got to call all of my family & even a few friends in Iceland, Madagascar, etc. that was a special Christmas gift (from me to me).

--My U. Julius is back from Iraq & he's not going again!!!!!...that was such an answer to prayer that he got back safely & is home for good..

Kai! My uncle Julius fought in the Gulf war in the early 90s & now in Iraq..Obama better give him some kind of award..he deserves it..

Benefit!

Held on the 15th of December as planned (Thank God)..

Due to the fact that we were largely last-minute, slightly disorganized (we tried, but it was our first benefit dinner as a home) we thus relied heavily on the Lord...and it was a large success..

Held at the Nicon Luxury hotel here in Abuja, with about 250 or so guests invited, some of our program's features included:

-Buffet dinner
-Power-point presentation/speech showcasing FCEIS projects conducted during the course of 2008

-Shows by our own talented performers, Abner/Anisa/Kids & our Guest performers, Simon & his daughters Jenny & Lisa..

-Guest speakers

-A raffle to finish off where we raffled off a good variety of quality prizes all donated by various companies & stores throughout Abuja..

My part was the emceeing, as well as hosting the raffle...but of course there were all the in-between bits (that I probably should've skipped out on..heh..) like greeting, picture-taking, filming, selling tickets, tools, etc. that kept me thoroughly running around the entire time ...
but all efforts worth it, as the turn out was good (between 120 & 150), people were happy with the program, a good witness went out & we were able to raise a hefty sum for next year's projects..

Thankfully Josh came up from Lagos & brought his SLR to take some good shots that my little Konica would never have managed...

Enjoy the following..in no particular order:

w/ some of the attendees picking up their "Christmas goodies" after the show..


Lisa, Josh & Simon (far right) with some of our friends..

Sam & Christina (who perform at hotels as a duo) stepped in to add a Christmas Lounge feel to the whole thing...

I got Ang to help me with the raffle, she did the "shake" of the ticket bag..

Then I'd call up one of the attendees to pull the winning number..that way there was no chance of rigging...


Then it got more complex...I was stumbling through my prize giving, calling people up stage, naming the gifts raffled as well as the sponsors, yaddyadda,...about half the prizes were actually gift vouchers from different stores, worth from about $50 to about $500 in the case of the higher ones...anyways, all my vouchers were all bunched up in my hand & I started stumbling over myself, slightly...so then Richard came up & started organizing the vouchers on the table next to me..
so by the end Ang would do the shake, then a guest would come up & draw the number, then the winner would come up & the person who drew the number would help Richard hand them their prize...thus I exceeeded my stumbling & in the end we had it down to a finery art..

Anisa w/ 2 of her beautiful daughters..

Josh & Mary sporting their wears..

Christmas so far!

In full swing, really..

Because a lot of (most, actually) the expats go home for Christmas, they do their company events & official Christmas parties early in December...

Our school also closed for the year on the 6th, so we had our year-end party & Cultural day for them then..complete with lunch, C'mas gifts & raffle (all thanks to our many wonderfully generous & kind-hearted sponsors)..



At the Berger Christmas Bazaar on the last Saturday of November..Notice the German Gluwien (I'm sure it's spelled wrong...correct me, Germans..) in my hand...while Mary looks on enjoying Dutch Heineken (loved equally by Germans, obviously)..



Sampling sweet potatoes in coconut milk at the Thai food stand (at least that's what the sign said)...it sounds bad, but it was surprisingly "delightful"..of course, out of theme with the German saugage stand that had about a 3-mile cue behind it...forget it, right?

..But hey, for all I know i was correctly in theme with a traditional Thai C'mas...Any Thai's out there to concur with or deny this speculation?

The 'Secondary School Singers' group perform an accapela of the '12 days of Christmas'..they were pretty good actually..

One of the Primary groups perform a cultural dance

Proud parents enjoying the show..

w/ Mary, a friend, & Arturo at the PW Christmas party last Saturday..(PW is an Irish construction company that have been supporting our projects for the last 4 or 5 years at least.. every year they put up a great Christmas party complete with full traditional C'mas dinner & even Irish cider (sported above) this was my 3rd PW C'mas party, and I'd say the best as far as the actual partying, although last year's food was better (this year they had less of a spread and the abscence of home-made desserts, due to a lot of the wives traveling out early)...

Look how big she's getting? Unfortunately for her, not quite big enough for Irish Cider...a couple more years, Chloe...

Chloe & Mary doin' the "Booty-Bang"..we got to some serious dancing after the kids left, but hey, no one to take pics then..so i'll leave u w/ this lovely shot..

Back in Nigeria!

Have been back since the 25th...

I anticipated it being a lot rougher to get back in the swing of things after being gone so long..

But all anxieties wasted as it's been great fun getting right in there & enjoying the Christmas push/Nigerian everything again...the timing is good..

The main thing I had to adjust to was the heat/humidity in Lagos & then the heat/dryness/hamatan here in Abuja...this resulted in about 5 or so sleepless nights & a bit of scratchy throat, but the Lord's working all that out too...Hal!

Some big events coming up here over the course of the month...

Stay tuned...

Sam Krome's goodbye!

Sam was off to Mex (made it there safely by now, DV)..so that was all the excuse I needed to go & "hang" w/ my friends at the Phoenix home...coolness..

The "Foozball" table competed seriously for our time & attention with the snack table (pic 2)..of course, the snack table won..

I think Prem beat me...actually..ok...I don't remember..

Kate & DJ

Check out my "strongbow" tower...Chris kept knocking it down..but thru the keys of perserverance I insisted on it staying up...

Kate, Heather & I..

w/ Heidi sporting her beautiful smile..

Of course, not leaving out Mr. Krome, who the whole party was for...have fun in Mex, man...GB!

History re-written!

It is a big day for America, isn't it?

The fact is that whatever the future now holds, as everyone's saying, this was a "historic election".

We haven't hooked up the TV yet, so I only caught the news of Obama's victory online..ha. It's gonna be quite something...

I agree that Obama is an excellent speaker...time will tell if his actions truly match up, tho...

Like I said...history re-written...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20081105/twl-us-elects-obama-as-its-first-black-p-2802f3e.html

London, Baby, Yeah!

(Post title said in an Austin Powers accent..re-read w/ that in mind)

This one posted from the nearest library, as Mom's new place doesn't have interet...yet!

That serving as the official notice that the request I solicited prayer help for the other day (2 posts back) came through...Hal! Mom got her new place (pics soon)..

Also, my new passport arrived like, 2 or 3 days after I posted the prayer request...cool..

Enjoy the following random pics over the last couple weeks (I wonder how many thousand times I've said that since the inception of this blog)

Somehow this computer doesn't load blogger fully, so I'm having a hard time working on this..captions will have to wait..if you can decipher what's what, tho..do comment & we'll c if u'r right...ha.

Sure enough, Anj got it right! C 1st comment in 'comments' box for captions...i'm adding a few more, but to be fair to her well-named captions, I'll put the next batch under here...(except I put up another pic in the beginning...stay tuned for Anj's caption for that one 2...heh..)

last 2 pics: At Kennington Park with Mom, Petra & Sarah, after above said happening, which Anj will caption for us...(small snickers ensue...)

More than I bargained for...

It SNOWED last night....hmmmm...

As I was waiting for my train to London from Portsmouth, despite the fact that I was pretty "well-wrapped", it was so cold that I had to walk up and down the track platform to keep from freezing..then as I got off my train at Waterloo I saw everybody walking in the station shaking & brushing stuff off their shoulders half in disbelief...I looked out the station door & could not believe my eyes...thankfully none of it stuck & that extremely cold front has blown off now...

It shouldn't be snowing in London now!!! It's October, for God's sakes..

Autumn!

It's been about 6 years since I saw Autumn...actually, no..I saw a bit before I left the UK to Nigeria (2 years ago)...

In any case, it's a season of such color & variety in the nature...since London has so many parks & so MANY magnificent trees, Autumn is extra beautiful here..

These taken just the other day at Kennigton park--enjoy! (thank you Photoshop)...

2 prayer requests!

Getting my passport renewed was a major run-around due to the American Embassy requiring not only a mail-in application (since it was a standard renewal, doing it in person was not an option) but extremely restricted payment options, not to mention the selective passport photo locations which I had to travel far for...big headache..

After running around for a week trying to buy an international money order, which had to be in dollars, but which every British monetary institution would only issue in pounds (figures, we are in "Pound land"), I was able to complete all the requirements & pay via a friend's credit card, Hal!

Prayer request 1: Now I need help in praying that my new passport will arrive back here in the UK within the 2 week time-frame that it's meant to, which will be well in time for me to travel.

2nd prayer request: (& the more important one, obviously) is that my Mom will be moving house--just where she'll be moving is not yet confirmed. Though she does have a house that she's claiming by faith, she's still not sure whether or not she'll get it.

Please pray, claiming the keys of supply & timing, that the real estate agent will confirm this week that she can have the house & that next week we'll be able to start the move.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!--Much appreciated!

Belgium!

Spent about a week in Belgium with...well my whole family apart from Phebe and her sister..including my Dad, & meeting his new wife & kids for the first time...
In random order:

Brunch at Stein & Gunther's...


Falling in the lake after volleyball at one of Belgium's largest parks "De Ster"...this was going waaaaaay back down memory lane...back in the day we used to meet here for area fellowships during the summer months from when I was like 15-18...I'm gonna try to get my hands on some of those archaic shots & post..


Saturday night out with the Maurits & Ms. Kempeneer...Photo by John..

Left Janet's eyes red for the effect..

w/ Nina Maurits...back at her place, she teasingly asked me to show her my "moves"...that resulted in some serious "shakin' " on the hip-hop floor...we all got our exercise for the week between 1 & 4 that morning..


Don't mind the quality of these next ones..these were taken from my sisters still & then I snapped them with my digital...

Dinner at Dad's...he was doing curry, but threw in some fried chicken for old times sake..
Emilio entertains Christina...probably w/ a story...