A story of resurrection

Last Sunday Morning I had two sermons in two churches and a mad dash between the two places. The reason was that I wanted to squeeze in a visit to the COCIN(Church Of Christ In Nigeria) church which is at Gamboru district of Maiduguri. This was burned down in the shameful Moslem riot of Feb 18, 2006 during which over 20 churches were destroyed or damaged and many people were murdered in cowardly fashion. It was supposedly a “response” to those mild Danish cartoons which neither rioters not victims had even seen. The whole story of that day has not been told and the authorities are doing their best to keep it secret.

The people of the church have been meeting continuously in the ruins and they are in the process of rebuilding it to three times the former capacity. I wanted to meet and encourage such faithful brothers and sisters. It seemed appropriate to speak on the hope of resurrection.

Mrs. Pattison invades Nigeria

Africa greeted the First Lady of the Lighthouse for the first time last week. She stepped off the internal flight to Maiduguri on Tuesday and received a hot welcome from both weather and friends. As the picture shows, she is really in the swing of things, relaxing under a mango tree.

Boys Brigade take over

Sunday 14th October and the (“half hour”) Boys Brigade parade takes an hour and a half of the service, leaving me to start preaching an hour after the service was slated to end. People were very patient though and they were very receptive and well over 600 stayed for a very delayed communion.

Then, the local Boys and Girls Brigades did a very long and complex session of Marching, salutes and exercises. Impressively disciplined performances on a very hot day. Then I joined in inspecting the troops and just managed to suppress the urge to mimic the Sergeant Major in “It ain’t ‘alf hot, Mum”.