Our trip to NYC

Last Saturday, December 5, Nancy and I took a trip into New York City.  It had been a long time since I was in Manhattan.  My dad was born on Long Island just outside the city, and in the years when I was growing up, we would sometimes go to my grandfather's house and take the train into downtown New York.  When I joined SIM, we also had to go into the city for medicals and some outreach.  But other than using the airports and speaking at my dad's home church, I have not been in the city for almost 25 years!

We took the bus from Scranton into New York.  Good thing we did, too as the weather was nasty and the traffic was horrendous.  We went to meet up with two colleagues who had come from Niger for a conference.  Peter Cunningham hails from Australia and works on our agricultural project in Niger.  Ayouba Saabo is a Nigerien who works on the project.  He had never been in the US before and had never seen snow.  He got to see it on December 5. 

We didn't have much time, so we elected to take the subway to Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan Island, where we walked around in the cold and dreary weather while it got increasingly more inclement.  It was raining during a good part of the day.  It would have taken all of our time to visit the Statue of Liberty with the long lines, expensive tickets, and miserable viewing conditions, so we decided to take the Staten Island Ferry. 

The ferry goes from Manhattan Island to, naturally enough, Staten Island. Here I am with Ayouba on the ferry.

When I was a kid, this ferry cost you a nickel one way.  Now it is free.  That's deflation for you.  Anyway, the ferry goes right by the Statue of Liberty and gives you a good view. 

After the crossing, we had lunch in a deli ( a very New York experience) and then went up to Rockefeller Center where we wandered around and saw the big Christmas tree, the ice skating rink in the plaza, Radio City Music Hall, and St. Patrick's cathedral. Across from St Pat's is the famous statue of Atlas straining to hold up the world.  We never saw the statue of baby Jesus holding the world in his hands in St Pat's, even though we looked for it.

By then the rain had turned to snow, and it was blowing and cold.  The snow was melting on contact.  The crowds were intense and ballooned with all the umbrellas people were carrying.  In fact the worst part of the day was all the umbrellas barreling at you down the street at eye level.  You had to dodge and weave in order to avoid getting one in your face.  We did some window shopping and had something to eat, then caught our bus back to PA.  It was great to be on the warm bus, out of the wet snow.  I don't know if the snow accumulated  in New York, but just outside the city it was laying on the ground, and when we got home, there were 4 inches (10 cm) on the ground.  Here are two pictures of Times Square, one in the morning when we got there when the weather was still okay, and one at night just before we left.  Note the snow falling!!

Thanksgiving

Since I left college, American Thanksgiving has always been the time when my family gets together.  It's even a bigger holiday than Christmas in my home.  Rarely do we all get together for Christmas.  This year we gathered, as usual, at my brother Tim's house on the fourth Thursday of November (Nov 26 this year) for the annual feast and family fun time.  My two brothers (one lives in Ohio one in Oklahoma) and their families couldn't make it, so we only had 26 people, but we had a great time eating turkey and all the trimmings. 



My family loves pie, and my sister-in-law, Laurie, and her mom are the queens of pie.  Between them I think they made at least 10 pies.  There were 13 pies in all, 1 for every 2 people (!), including the traditional pumpkin as well as pecan, blueberry, cherry, berry, strawberry, chocolate, and apple.  What a feast!  Here's a picture of some of the pies arranged on the cupboard.  The pies were gone by the end of the weekend!

It has often been the case that we have guests from other countries during our Thanksgiving celebration.  I can remember citizens of Pakistan, Iran, China, Taiwan, and Europe around the family table in years past.  This year we hosted a family from Puerto Rico who are friends of Laurie.  Here they are around the table with Laurie and some of her relatives.  We also had JR, Daniel's dorm mate who lives with his adopted family in Texas  and couldn't get home for the holidays.  He was born in Haiti. 




After the feast, we often lay around in the living room talking, singing, and having fun.  Here are Daniel and three of his cousins getting mutual scalp rubs. 

 

Finally, a picture of my beautiful daughter Suzanne sitting next to JR.
 

Music and Adventure

Anyone who knows me knows I like music. To a lesser degree, I also like variety and adventure.
In 2010 I will begin a new adventure. And that adventure involves music. I plan to begin studies leading to a PhD. And what will the subject of that degree be? I'll be studying the music of the Songhai people of Niger, with whom we have worked for the last 20 years. This plan has been a long time coming, and it promises to be a five-year adventure. I'll be writing more about it in this blog in the weeks and months to come. Suffice it to say that I'll be doing the studies through the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in Oxford, England. I have to go to England in March to begin with a 10-week "induction" course. Nancy will go with me for the first month to encourage me, sightsee, and see where I'm going to be. Then she'll return to the US to be here when Daniel and Suzanne finish college. I'll stay until early June.

While I'm in England, I'll take courses in research methods, learn about the OCMS program, and have a supervisor assigned to me for my studies. Then I return to England each year until I finish the degree and have to spend only six weeks there per year meeting with my supervisor and reviewing where we're at. The rest of the program will involve research, writing, reading, and communicating with my supervisors on line.

Today I took the first step in the pursuit of this program. I bought tickets to England for next March. I leave with Nancy on March 24.

Succes and Enthusiasm

What do these two words have in common? A while ago I wrote a blog about failure and success. In that blog I cited a quote from Winston Churchill: "Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." I like that quote. It mirrors in many important ways my experience over the past few years. And it seems to me that the oft-quoted saying in Christian circles that we just need to be faithful in order to be a success seem rather flat and empty. It seems there's more to being a success than just being faithful.

One key to success, I think, is our attitude. We need to continually have God's perspective on the events of life. I know, easier said than done. This is where the word enthusiasm comes into the picture.

Recently I learned something about the etymology of the word enthusiasm that makes the quote by Churchill seem even more inspired. While relaxing at a home by a lake, I saw a plaque on the wall that wasn't the usual Christian "kitsch." I abhor kitsch. I don't like to have what everyone else has. This plaque simply stated the definition and origin of the word "enthusiasm." I had never learned this before, and it's really neat.

Enthusiasm comes from the Greek enthousiasmos, and this word is composed of the prefix <en> and the word <theos> with suffixes.!.! Now I know there are a few Greek scholars out there who know that theos is the Greek word for God. So the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek "in God." So enthusiasm means "an exalted or ecstatic feeling, and someone who is enthusiastic is
"inspired by God" or "possessed by God." Wow, I was blown away when I saw this.

This is even more meaningful to me because the way I usually respond to people, to God, and to what's happening around me is enthusiastically. Even though I've had some of the wind knocked out of my sails over the past few years and my enthusiasm has waned as a result, I normally respond this way. Isn't it neat that God continually has a way to refresh my soul and bring me up from the pit of despair, showing me more about myself and Him in process.

So here's my definition of success: live a life inspired by God and possessed by God. Do all things with enthusiasm, even when they don't work out as I had hoped.

Marathon Journey

Nancy and I just completed a 9-week, 9,000-mile journey through 23 states in the US. It was a marathon, and we showed our power point dozens of times in many different settings in homes and churches. It wasn't all business, though, and I want to put some of my favorite photos up on my blog.

The first part of our trip was taking our kids back to college, especially Suzanne, who is beginning her freshman year. Here's a photo of Nancy and Suzanne together at Cedarville University.

After we left Cedarville we visited many beautiful spots in this beautiful land. First, however, I want to show you a shot many people would not expect. This is near Toledo, OH. It's the Islamic Center of America.


Later on, we spent a memorable, sunny day at Indiana Dunes on the southern shores of Lake Michigan.
Afterwards, we visited Chicago and saw the "Bean." Your reflection is all distorted in the "bean."



We then traveled through the Midwest from top to bottom (Minnesota to Texas) in a week. We did get to spend two nights in the Ozark Mts in Arkansas, and we saw the Pea Ridge battlefield, one of the major US Civil War battle sites.


We also spent two nights with my look-a-like brother in Oklahoma.


After a week in Texas with relatives, friends, and supporters, we moved on to Sebring, FL and the SIM Retirement Village, where Nancy's parents live. This became our home away from home away from home for two weeks.



Finally, we moved on to Charlotte, NC, SIM headquarters, for debriefing interviews and a week-long retreat. During the retreat, we spent two days relaxing and seeking God at this lake-front property.



Finally, we returned home to PA via the mountains of Virginia, which were putting on a display of their finery.


When we got back, we had a big surprise. It snowed for one entire day. Here's what it looked like outside our window. Brrr!!

My Real Double

A few years ago, I wrote a blog about my "double," Zinedine Zidane. Well, at least some Africans think I look like him at first sight. I don't think there is much resemblance.

There is someone who looks just like me, however. It's my brother, Dave. He is four years younger than I, and there are two more brothers in between us (I'm the oldest in the family). But people do really confuse us. It's not too hard to distinguish us if you know us, but you could do a "double" take if you don't know us well.

So when Dave came down dressed in a blue shirt and tie for our nephew's wedding in June, I rolled my eyes. People were going to have fun distinguishing between us that day. In the end, it worked out fairly well, and most people didn't call me Dave or ask me how things were in Oklahoma (that's where Dave and his wife and four kids live), but several people commented how much we resembled each other. See if you notice the likeness.



It's great to be back on American soil for a while. It's also great to have our family back together again for a while. Daniel has been at university the past two years, and we've missed him. He came out to visit us on May 7 and was in Niger for Nancy' birthday, Suzanne's birthday, and Suzanne's graduation from high school. What fun we had! Here's our family picture at the wedding in CT, which I mentioned above. This was only five days after our return from Niger, so we were still a bit overwhelmed and tired.

Conflagration

A huge cloud of black smoke cast a long shadow over Niamey on the afternoon of May 27, 2009. The big, central market was on fire. The market is like a open-air bazaar confined to a vast walled-in spot in the center of Niamey. Here's a picture of the black cloud from across the Niger river.



The immense fire burned all afternoon from 2 p.m. until about 7 p.m. At 5, I happened to be traveling in the center of town via taxi. I hopped off the taxi and took a walk up near the market to see the conflagration. Though traffic was obviously being blocked, people could walk quite close to the market where a cordon of police was keeping everybody away. I could still see big, black plumes of smoke rising up out of the center of the market, though I couldn't see the flames. Just then, the wind shifted as a storm started moving in from the northeast, and it made the flames go back in the direction from which they had come. The contrary winds made it difficult to control the blaze.

Many shops crowded into the center aisle of the market were completely destroyed. The government news service said over 100 shops were totally obliterated. Hundreds more were damaged. But thanks to the work of many firemen and police, many hundreds more were spared much damage. Still, the loss of goods and income is incalculable. Pray for these poor people. They have suffered much. What caused the fire? I heard by the grapevine that it was an electrical short circuit. This is not the first time this market has burned. Back in 1982 (before I arrived in Niger), the market completely burned to the ground. Other markets in Niamey have suffered fires during our time in Niger. One even experienced a flood!

Fire can be so destructive. But it can be beneficial when under control. In that case it gives heat and light to those who are around. That's why there are two words in French for "fire:" "incendie" for the out-of-control, destructive fire; and "feu" for the under-control, beneficial fire. I want to be a fire like the latter, lighting the path for those who are around and bring beneficial heat to the world.