Monday, March 26, 2018

Diary w/e 31 Mar 18

Sun 25 Mar

Christ Roberts adult Sunday School on Christ's resurrection means glorification. Morning service highlight was the baptism of an Afghan convert. I love to see a Mohammed being baptised. That is a special thrill. He is a penniless asylum seeker twice refused leave to stay so surviving on friends' charity. Often such men, for they are men not women, are employed for a pittance in the black economy - restaurants etc. Our dinner guests were Zimbabwean and Singapore Chinese British. This couple came to us after an internet search for Presbyterian so I am vindicated in my insistence she years ago that our name should be IPC not West Ealing Community Church or some such. The English may not know what the P means but other nations do.
   In the evening my Bulgarian friend Hristo was my driver to Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre. This is my seventh year of regular preaching there but due to health problems I had not been for nine months. Lively as ever. I preached Mark's account of the triumphal entry. My captive audience were from Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania,South Africa, Jamaica, India, Brazil, Colombia and Poland. How someone from an EU country is detained I know not. One never asks. I love preaching with audience participation. Rhetorical questions do not go unanswered. I was pleasantly surprised to find no-one there had heard me preach before so all the men had been detained there less than nine months.

Mon 26 Mar

3Km walk today, my first with a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Lovely quiet dog .. but then we met no canines. I am told that Max (Named after the Roman emperor) hates dogs but like people. Quite the converse of so many people who love dogs but hate people. I like both. But not cats.282 and E5 there, 105 back. Interesting conversation with my first ever erudite and thinking Sikh. Met a lady from Dominican Republic speaking broken French. Never heard of it. Like pidgin English?
Sold our ladies wardrobe and dressing table to a Tamil man who will pick them up when my ladies have assembled the IKEA replacements.
Last two weeks 19 and 24 Km walked.

Tue 27 Mar

Chris Roberts on Thomas and the resurrection at Ealing lunchtime talks. Pastoral visit then an hour to drive to here for a cardiology nurse appointment. All well.
40 minutes wait at 6:30 for an E7 and 30 for an E10 returning from Ealing Tweetup. Not a happy evening.

Wed 28 Mar

2Km round Marnham Fields, the nearest open space. A dump for London's rubbish until 1932 when purchased by the council and later given a lot of deciduous planting.

Thu 29 Mar

Full house of eleven elders at early prayer.
4Km Sutherland Road to Blakesley Avenue to Drayton Green then E11 and E10 home. Then lunch in Ruislip.

Good Friday 30 Mar

Good Friday service - five Presbyterian churches together at out Ilford church. About 200 of us packed the hall. Very wet and slow driving back. A very wet walk in Marnham Fields. Surprised there is no gate on the south side at all.

Sat 31 Mar 

I could spend nearly £40 to see Leeds at Craven Cottage on Tuesday but why risk my brass to get miserable?
Easter Saturday lunch Cooking my signature tandoori chicken for 11/15 of the family - three generations ages 7 to 71.




Saturday, March 24, 2018

Diary w/e 24 Mar 18

Sun 18 Mar 18

To Liss IPC in the snow. Late arriving as A40 blocked with no notice or diversion marked. But M25, A3 very quiet and often the fast lane was not clear of slush.
   James Buchanan led and preached an excellent sermon on Col 3, relationships are all to be seen in the light of our relationship to the Lord.
   I was surprised to find Liss has always had juice in thimbles for communion whereas Ealing has had shared cup(s) of wine. But no big matter. Noted the absence of some members who have removed themselves to Hope church it seems. Once there was IPC there. Now IPC, Trinity and Hope x 2. I am reminded of Paul, Phi 1:18  Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
   Lunch with the Raines who have been in Liss 25 years this week. We reminisced over IPC and L'Abri history as my contact with IPC goes back to 1969 and L'Abri to meeting Ranald Macaulay in 1965.
   Home 4:30 with M25 and M4 flowing well. IPC at Dean Hall. Levy good on Num 9 but in his children's talk on snow he referenced my grey beard not the white hair of his mother sitting in front o me or my fellow elder Chuck who also has a snowy hoary head.

Mon 19 Mar


Through snowy Ravenor park to the dentist for a top incisor filling, bank and bakers.

TUES 20 Mar


For the first time in several months I made it to early morning prayer. Walk E7 walk. Seven of us at prayer. Then I was given a lift to Brentford and walked over 4Km to Toplocks Southall. Several boats were showing occupancy but not one on the move. Chris Roberts did the lunchtime talk on resurrection, John 20. Then a good report from the consultant cardiologist.

Wed 21 Mar


My youngest grandchild is seven today. Going to see him and ask him if he knows what happened the month after I was seven.


Had an excellent U3A history group on the history of India that led to partition.We concluded matters might have been better if independence had been offered in 1919 not 1947. Our next meeting is on Stalin.


Led house group on 1 Sam 13 - we need to wait for and attend on God's word.


Thur 22 Mar

Walked through the park for some shopping at Lidl. Their stuff is cheaper but they have gaps in one's wants, like no ordinary tubs of cream today and their ginger beer is for ever short supply. meanwhile mt home made ginger beer has been poured away after I used salt not sugar.

Chris Roberts on God's omniscience at Greenford lunchtime talks. Numbers continue to be few.

Fri 23 Mar
I went to South Harrow to walk a guide dog, a new experience for both of us. E10 disrupted by traffic lights at a burst water main near Gurnell. One missing going then the first one stopped half way to Northolt. 170 and a walk to find the dog. Lost where streets are not named and go round junctions with no signs. had an hour's walk to a park that turned out to be a locked sports field. H12, 170, E10 back, the latter over half an hour's wait, two missed then two together.
My first Borrow My Doggy - Lilly the guide dog.
My next dog walk is booked for Monday, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier in Southall who likes people not dogs. That seems to me the opposite of the usual where people like dogs not people.

Sat 24 Mar

2Km to Greenford Broadway and back for a little shopping. One great Indian supermarket, but veggie only so am trying the halal butcher's chicken drumsticks. Would have bussed back but over five minutes late so walked.
The ladies have been to IKEA and bought us new wardrobes. Now the chief assembler is to go to work at her convenience. Old items to give away or sell. One on eBay.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Transphobia

I am writing this in support  of David Robertson, the Wee Flea.
   'The trouble is that the way that the question is so often framed is wrong.  It is always set up as if you are against Queer theory (the view that gender is a social construct and can be changed at will) then you must hate trans people.  I don’t.  And I would plead with anyone who reads this – not to hate anyone – and especially trans people.  They too are people made in the image of God who need to see, know and experience the love of God.  But it’s precisely because of that love that we need to speak out.  We must refuse to be bullied and intimidated by those who hate in the name of love.  And we must never stoop to hatred, or give into fear.' - says Robertson.
   I have previously blogged exactly the same dilemma when one speaks out against homosexuality or Islam. In both cases you are assumed to be against people who are same sex attracted or Muslims and this assumption is not true to the reality of my objections. People are made in the image of God and to be respected whatever their views, we all have diverse views, or their sins, and we are all sinners.
   But in both cases one touches on something that is at the heart of the people concerned and of the gender dysphoric too. What they fight for is at the centre of their lives and so they fight for their viewpoint with passion.
   In the case of these sexual matters though I will argue that those who're genuinely gender dysphoric or those exclusively same sex attracted are a small minority among the voices opposed to Robertson, me and those of us taking the traditional Biblical Christian stance. Far in the majority are those who want the freedom for themselves or others to engage in homosexual acts or cross dressing. Many years ago Francis Schaeffer pointed out that much advocacy of homosexuality was theological and political. It was deliberately in revolt against God's word and his institution of marriage and family. People engaged in the sex acts of their choice because they could. Similarly with gender dysphoria. Those one has met with are few and unhappy. I met some as a pharmacist and a couple pastorally. Those who want to designate their own gender, the modern fad, I have not met personally and frankly, I marvel at the idiocy. Biology is destiny. Sex is determined and in the vast majority of cases clear. I have never come across a hermaphrodite and only know of one case second hand. No.If you have the chromosomes, that is what you are. End of debate. God has determined your sex. Do not mess with your gender.
  So I am pleased to stand with The Wee Flea, sanity and Biblical Christianity.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Diary w/e 17 Mar 18

Sun 11 Mar

Good adult Sunday School, Chris Roberts on Justification in Christ, morning Paul Levy on Thou shalt not kill. I had questions to him about his identification of anger with murder as it does not apply to all anger and some anger is righteous. In the evening his 35 minutes on Num 9, Passover, seemed longer than usual. Only once before in 15 tears have I thought him prolix.
   We enjoyed Mother's Day lunch courtesy of Rachel. Adrian's parents there too. After lunch Rachel, Ethan and and I walked to the park. Some years ago I received an electronic pedometer. Now i am using it for the first time. 4.2Km yesterday, 3.1 Km today.
   Thanks to two of my fellow elders I have received Grappa via our Synod meeting.

Mon 12 Mar

Walked the canal Kensington Road to Hayes Bridge, 2.7 Km in rain. Cooked chicken and leek bake for dinner. Attempting to brew ginger beer.

Tue 13 Mar 18

As well as reading less fiction I am also watching less visual fiction on TV. Documentaries are my favourites now - until the returns of Have I got news for You and Doc Martin.
In the Central Library local history section I asked for books on the history of Greenford. I perused three including Greenford, Northolt and Perivale Past, 1999, by Frances Hounsell A good one to buy second hand I thought until I looked on Amazon. £54.07 (5 used & new offers). I am astonished and keeping my money.
ELT Levy excellent on calming the storm and victory over Legion. Pastoral visit to aged member whose legal power of attorney I am to have.

Wed 14 Mar

A 2Km walk to Northolt Sorting Office to collect a parcel too big for our letterbox. First day of Spring? Warm enough to sit out and to put washing out to dry. Sickened by uncritical eulogies on Hawking. Too sleepy in ! Sam 12  house group.

Thur 15 Mar

Walked through Ravenor park and on to the cemetery where I nibbled some lunch before a CT scan of my kidneys at Ealing Hospital.

Fri 16 Mar

Flying back from Los Angeles I had constant pain in my left big toe. Gout? Do not say, too much port. Au contraire. Not enough. But last night, though the pain had not really been a bother since nay return, the gout pain was very bad. So phone consultation with GP today and within a coupe of hours medication and a blood test and pain abated.
   E5 to Top Locks. 3.7Km walk to Bulls Bridge. E6 home.

Sat 17 mar

A little snow did not put us off a visit to our friends of 47 years, the Braitwaites, near Bedford. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

IM Stephen Hawking

Amid all the eulogies I long for some balance and honesty. When Castro died there was much praise for his achievements but voices like those my friend whose family fled Castro's Cuba were not heard. I recall eulogies for the mass murderer Mao too.
   Much of the praise for Hawking the scientist is about his views on cosmology which IMO are not science but faith based philosophy. The faith is based on the presupposition of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system.  But that is accepted orthodox dogma - not science.
   Then there is the character of the man.  This is from my review of his first wife's biography.
   'Jane Hawking gave up any hope of a career for the love of a man she knew to be suffering from an incurable disease. Stephen Hawking is a genius scientist but he is not an attractive man as portrayed here. He is shown to be self-centred and demanding, coming from a family that could be insensitive in the extreme. What sort of a mother in law asks if a child is her son's or someone els's? Jane is a woman who devotes 25 years of marriage to care for her eccentric, demanding husband. For many years he insists only his wife nurse him. When eventually nurses become necessary, one of them manages to seduce him away from his wife, estranging them and breaking up the marriage.' - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Move-Stars-Life-Stephen/product-reviews/0330392476/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews
   On the positive side - "The victim should have the right to end his life, if he wants. But I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope"- Stephen Hawking,on euthanasia: , Quoted in People's Daily Online, June 2006
   But the philosopher?
"If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God" -Stephen Hawking, On the reason why the universe exists: A Brief History Of Time, published 1988

Monday, March 12, 2018

Diary w/e 10 Mar 2018

Sun 4 Mar

Morning at Dean Hall as the school closed to us due, I presume, to the now thawed snow. Levy his usulal good self on Mat 5, Christ fulfilling the law. For the first time ever I observed a preacher halting his sermon to rebuke his child in the congregation. He tells me he did it once before.
   Lunch four guests, one Austrian but you would not know from her perfect English. This couple are leaving IPC due to a new job elsewhere. I told them they do not need to take their standing order for church finance away when they go. They have invited us to a seaside break
   Evening service Levy Num 8 then the Table led well by a new young elder.

Mon 5 Mar

Well done my son David. He has rooted out a line via my paternal grandmother taking me back to John Collyborn 1539 -the year Anne of Cleves came to marry HenryVIII. He is my 12th great-grandfather. We know no more about him but he was a man who was around for the Reformation n England. He has also found a line of Weeks emigrants to USA 200 years ago.
Good elders meeting - 8/9 of us there with our usual visitors from our churches in Ilford and Liss.

Tues 6 Mar

U3A World Religions on 'Your religion. Have you changed?' Three RC women spoke. Only one was from a thoroughly RC family and she was the one still well committed. Then a pastoral visit.
I have a problem of not sleeping long at present. Today I thought I got up ar 2:45. Two hours later I found it had been 12:45. I may feel tired and return to sleep before Katy has her 7am tea from me. So I was up and England were doing pretty well in NZ with two Yorkshire centuries. But dopey me knocked over a mug of tea and so smashed the Charles and Di wedding mug. It lasted longer than their marriage and her life.I still have my 1953 coronation mug as given to all children at the time. Rarer is the mug for the coronation of Edward VIII which of course never happened. The unworthy prince preferred the woman he loved to the duty to which he was born. God saved us from a fascist sympathising king - God and Churchill. Hitler would have put Edward on the throne. Instead we had the God fearers, George and Elizabeth to lead.

Wed 7 mar
Nine years ago I was in my second term of two years as IPC presbytery moderator. I was ordained 40 years ago in Nigeria and installed in Ealing 35 years ago. I am now IPC's longest continuous serving elder AFAIK.
U3A here, Current Affairs on Artificial Intelligence. I shall argue it is a secular myth.
Good U3A on Artificial Intelligence which I still call a misnomer. One new attendee whose particular interest is Tudor church history so kindred interest. Next time we will tackle customs union, single market and the Irish border. Expect no solutions.
Walk to post office with American sweets for a friend.
Cooking baked chicken, potato wedges and broccoli in cheese sauce. Chicken coating from Bass Pro USA.

Thur 8 Mar

A countryside walk discovering the rural close to home. Marnham Fields and along the canal.
Paul Levy excellent on John 10 at Greenford Lunchtime Talk. I had never heard this 'I am" expounded as a kingly title before. Cooked chicken casserole with celery.

Fri 9 Mar

My final and fourth injection into my left eye this morning. Went well in under three hours. Doctor says to check with DVLA on driving. The site is not user friendly at all and the phone engaged.

Sat 10 Mar
Morning walk, 3Km along the canal to The Black Horse. Our old friends the Wells to lunch. Friends for nearly fifty years. Trevor was the accountant at Vom. I always said he only had red ink pens. Jean was one of the doctors who helped deliver our eldest three. Trevor pointed out we met first June 1969. Out came my diary. 23rd June, All nations Missionary College sports day. Trevor remembered I was head student. So next year we plan a grand Wells and Weeks reunion to celebrate a golden friendship anniversary. There should be 209 of us to deter. Our children and theirs grew up together but the next generation have not met.




Friday, March 09, 2018

More testimony concerning Garba Adamu

Garba became a Christian in around 1978. From 1979 I was his colleague teaching the Hausa language in Jos, Plateau State , Nigeria. I taught the grammar which is beautifully simple. He did the drills; essential when there are three consonants not in English, and vowel lengths and tones are not in the written script but have to be learned through drills. grab whose only education was koranic schooling is a natural teacher. he taught himself to read Biko, that is hausa in Roman script, a colonial invention. He read originally in Ajemi the Hausa Arabic type orthography.
  He is not baptised. Two wives mean no baptism in Nigeria. It he sent one away what would she become? The wife of a Muslim or a whore. No real alternative.
   When I discussed this with a senior pastor he told me that my missionary fathers had told his fathers to send away wives two and more and now they were not changing for these Muslims. They were the people who before the British came had spread Islam by the sword, enslaved and killed his father.
   So when Garbs visitors England around 1984 I offered baptism. he refused saying he would wait until there were others like him to form a congregation.  So far no such movement.
   I discussed with garbs a contextualised approach to worship after the writing of par shall et al. I said how will you confess your belief. he said the church uses the Apostles Creed. I said yes but it is not Hausa. Holy catholic church is iklisiya mai tsarki katolika. Only holy is Hausa. She gave us a shade for the Almasihiyya - followers of Messiah. It was, I believe there is no God but God and Jesus Christ is the Word of God, Spirit of God, Son of God.This parallels the Islamic, No god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. The first three titles of Christ here are in the Koran. I asked if son of God was not provocative. Garba said that without it it was not A Christian creed.
   He had an acute theological understanding. he always taught students to respect Muslim beef and their book. So I asked if when he read the Bible it was the same as when he read the Koran. he said that the Koran spoke about God. In the Bible God speaks.
   I said that told be two things. First the Bible is God's word from the Holy Spirit. Secondly, He, Garba has the Holy Spirit.
   We discussed more on contextualised worship. Man and women sis apart and on mats. Facilities for washing at the door. Clean]n premises, no animals, birds or bats. Sing Psalms antiphonally with a precentor singing the line. No instruments.
   There has never been a Hausa Muslim convert church since the first one in Zaria over 100 years Tat was from Isawa, Muslims who had learnt to honour Jesus from the Koran before any missionaries came. http://www.nairaland.com/3420665/isawas-zaria
   Garba's home was Mango, a village near Jos. His family had moved there from Katsina. So he was part of an ethnic hausa minority in a predominantly Christian village of a different people. For a century there was peaceful coexistence, Pax Britannia the independence. After 9/11 everything changed. Hausas had to leave Mango and migrate to their community in the city of Jos. So Garbs the Christian has to live among his Muslim fellow Hausas. He is now in his eighties.  The Plateau is no longer a peaceful place. Hausa/Filanis in Jos North want politics control. The nomadic Fulani cattle herders have killed many local Christian farmers complain they rustle their cattle. The local Christians say Fulani cattle ruin their crops and the Fulani have attacked them with the aid of Muslim mercenaries. This is not the Boko Haram conflict which is in the North east but people fleeing BH are in displaced persons camps in the area.

Quotes 9 Mar 18

He who perished by a tree is saved by a tree. He who died by an apple is restored by eating the flesh of his Saviour. - Robert Farrar Capon, Bed and Board, p 69-70 (not an apple - ' the tree of theknowledge of good and evil 'GJW)

This theology of an immoral Arab—is a dead thing. Possibly it might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no good for modern, progressive state- Kemal Ataturkhttps://theweeflea.com/author/theweeflea/ 2 mar 2018

A tiger doesn't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.- unknown

Revenge is sweet and not fattening. - Alfred Hitchcock

"The average American who was asked to back same-sex marriage on the principle of justice and tolerance is seeing that those who requested their support are not living by their own rules. They are finding that “marriage equality” is not enough. They are finding the deal has been unilaterally renegotiated: “You will not only support our right to marry, but you will also support our marriages in every way that we ask. If you do not, we will take you to court, ruin your business, take your money, slime your good name, and even threaten your life.” The remarkable examples of these injustices are surprising and alarming many good citizens." Glenn T. Stanton, with Focus on the Family

Thursday, March 08, 2018

Quotes on International Women's Day

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.--Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818)_Letter to John Adams_ [March 31, 1776]

We are obliged to go fair and softly and, in practice, you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight.-John Adams , replying to Abigail's March 1776 letter.

I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world- except a woman-governed world. -- Nancy Astor

A man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality ~ Jill Briscoe

This is a feminist bookstore. There is no humour section. --John Callahan

A liberated woman is one who rises up and says to her menfolk, 'I will not be dictated to,' and proceeds to become a stenographer. - Chesterton

Women are early taught that to appear to yield is the only way to govern. - Sarah Moore Grimke (1792 -1873)

We're tired of having radical feminist ideology passed off as the lock-step view of all women. As heirs of a tradition of strong, capable Christian women, we emphatically affirm that we are beneficiaries, not victims of our strong Christian faith.-Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Her organization criticized the National Organization for Women's (NOW) attack on the PromiseKeepers. Washington Times for Setpember 17, 1997. Front page.

Women's Rights are men's duties. -- Karl Kraus

Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. Golda Meir, Israeli prime minister Newsweek, October 23, 1972

I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.-Robin Morgan, editor of _Ms_ magazine

I resolved to claim for my sex all that an impartial Creator had bestowed, which, by custom and a perverted application of the Scriptures, had been wrested from woman.- Lucretia Mott (1793-1880)

Anyone familiar with academia knows that it breeds ideological cults that are prone to dogma and resistant to criticism. Many women believe that this has now happened to feminism. In her book _Who Stole Feminism?_ the philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers draws a useful distinction between two schools of thought. _Equity feminism_ opposes sexual discrimination and other forms of unfairness to women. It is part of the classical liberal and humanistic tradition that grew out of the Enlightenment, and it guided the first wave of feminism and launched the second wave. _Gender feminism_ holds that women continue to be enslaved by a pervasive system of male dominance, the gender system, in which "bi-sexual infants are transformed into male and female gender personalities, the one destined to command, the other to obey." It is opposed to the classical liberal tradition and allied instead with Marxism, postmodernism, social constructionism, and radical science. It has become the credo of some women's studies programs, feminist organizations, and spokespeople for the women's movement.
Equity feminism is a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology. Gender feminism is an empirical doctrine committed to three claims about human nature. The first is that differences between men and women have nothing to do with biology but are socially constructed in their entirety. The second is that humans possess a single social motive -- power -- and that social life can be understood only in terms of how it is exercised. The third is that human interactions arise not from the motives of people dealing with each other as individuals but from the motives of _groups_ dealing with other groups -- in this case, the male gender dominating the female gender.--Steven Pinker, _The Blank Slate The Modern Denial of Human Nature_

By its very nature... the women's liberation movement precipitates a series of conflict situations--in the legislatures, in the courts, in the schools, in industry--with man targeted as the enemy. Confrontation replaces co-operation as the watchword of all relationships. Women and men become adversaries instead of partners.-Phyliss Schlafly, "The Power of The Positive Woman", 1977

Something odd began to happen -- mainly to the country, and incidentally to people like me. As feminism and multiculturalism more and more sought to remake society, attacking much that had served humanity well as narrow or even antique, we concluded we could no longer in good conscience remain on that side. There was both too little respect for the accumulated wisdom of the ages and too much playing havoc with truth and common sense.--Harry Stein, _How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace)_, 2000

What the radical feminists have in fact accomplished is projecting a vision and an agenda of sexual 'liberation' that have had the net effect of making it easier for husbands to dump their wives and children. They have also made it harder for new families to form, by creating a contentious atmosphere between the sexes. Women and men have both lost out, in different ways, in all this. Children have of course lost out worst of all from the decline of families. Yet the feminazis have made 'childhood poverty' one of their political cries. They are shameless. Dr. Thomas Sowell

I owe nothing to Women's Lib. Margaret Thatcher The Observer December 1, 1974

Women who complain that [she] was not a feminist because she didn't help other women or openly acknowledge her debt to feminism have a point, but they are also missing something vital. She normalised female success... No one can ever question whether women are capable of single-minded vigour, of efficient leadership, after Margaret Thatcher. She is the great unsung heroine of British feminism.~Natasha Walter, The New Feminism

The Testimony of Garba Adamu

Assalamu alaikum. All thanks be to the Lord of the heavens, the earth and all creation. My name is Garba Adamu. My parents came for Katsina in northern Nigeria. I was born at Miango, near Jos in Plateau State. Writing this in 1982 I am fifty years old, but I cannot be certain for we reckoned by important events, not the calendar.
When I was three years old, before I could talk very well, I entered Koranic school my only formal education. Little by little I learned to read and write the Arabic like script of Hausa, my mother tongue. After thirteen years I finished learning to read the whole Koran and went to look for work at the large missionary compound nearby. I asked the man in charge if he would have a job for me, but he burst out laughing because I was a very small teenager. Thank God, I was given a job sweeping floors and washing dishes. My employer saw that worked well and after a while I learned how to cook European food. I was able to bake bread, cookies and cakes, in fact anything they wanted.
While I was still unmarried , one night I had a dream which was very special yet frightening. I saw the heavens open and an angel from God coming down with a message held tight in both hands. He came before me and said, " God says to you,'Take this message.'" With thanks, I took it in both hands. Right away, the angel ascended into heaven. I watched and saw a beautiful shining light. I was amazed. All this happened very quickly, in about one minute. In the morning, before I started work, I went to the office of my supervisor to tell her what had happened. Instead of telling me what the dream might mean, she did not take me seriously at all. At first I was very unhappy about this, but as time went by I began to forget about the dream.
I was very much involved in my Muslim way of life. I married and after some years I married a second wife from among my own Hausa people. The missionaries did not like to employ a man with two wives and I was dismissed from my job. I began to earn my living as a market trader selling cloth. In my spare time I taught myself to read and write Hausa in the Roman script, which had been introduced by the Europeans who found our own Arabic script too difficult. At that time no-one else among the Hausa of my town could read and write the Roman script. I learnt with the help of the Hausa newspaper.
Some Muslim preachers visited our town with the aim of establishing a branch of their Muslim Mission in our town. Being able to read and write I was made secretary of the Mission in our town. I was a zealous Muslim, so after a while I was made secretary for the Muslim Mission for the whole of our local government area. The state headquarters provided me with a motorbike. I was appointed to assist the local Imam then appointed to the state executive committee of the Muslim Mission. As my responsibilities had grown I was to be provided with a car for my work.
Then one day the local Christian Pastor came and asked if I would help at their mission. They wanted someone to help teach Hausa to Europeans. It was only for six weeks. He asked me in such a way that I could not refuse, though I told the missionary lady in charge of the course that I wanted nothing to do with the Bible. In fact. if I so much as touched a Bible I would wash with soap and water.
But this lady, Miss Oliver was not bothered at all. In fact she even helped me with my religion. On Fridays she would arrange transport for me to go to the mosque. She never criticised my faith or my way of life, except when I failed in my Muslim responsibilities. If I was engrossed in my work she would remind me it was time for prayer. When I said I was too busy she asked if I feared God. That was the strongest possible rebuke to me.
We taught Hausa using the Roman script but one day Miss Oliver showed me a booklet in the Arabic script. It was about Jesus Christ, Isa Almasihu. I read it and kept on reading it again and again.I heard a voice in my heart asking why do I not want to read the Bible? So I went to work the next day and asked Miss Oliver if I could read the Bible for the students at their morning prayers. Language School started with daily prayers. I had refused to take part. Now this lady and all the students were really pleased to have me take part with them. I had never come across a European woman with such a character, so easy to get on with, so kind and calm. Before long I remembered my dream of many years before. I told her and asked what it could meant. She was not angry with me but told me that it seemed that God had an important message for me. This explanation pleased me a great deal.
Miss Oliver was writing a book "Jesus, Son of Mary." She was using the Bible and the Koran, writing in Hausa for Muslims and Christians. She asked me to read and comment on what she had written. I was to check the language. She wanted to know if the book really got her message across. When I read her chapter on the Trinity, she was especially interested to know if I understood what she had written. I said that I understood far more than she thought. I asked to pray, and prayed that God would remove the darkness from my understanding and show me his truth. I told Miss Oliver that I repented from my sin and trusted in Jesus Christ. Straight away I had a joy that I had never before experienced. I stopped my Muslim activities.
When the leaders of the Muslim Mission realised that I was no longer active in their work they sent a letter calling me to attend. I neither went nor replied. My answer was according to our proverb," Keeping silent gives a message." They wanted to know why I had stopped my Muslim work and was helping Christians instead. Using occult ways, they tried to stop me teaching . I would feel as if something was falling on top of me. I would break into a sweat and feel dizzy. The students would hold me, help me lie down, then fan me while they prayed for me.
I would be taken home to rest while the students kept on praying. After a while the evil that was being used against me was stopped. Later I heard that someone gave the Muslim Mission a tape of what I was teaching. Like Miss Oliver I had nothing derogatory to say about Islam, nor any fault to find with the customs my own Hausa people. I believe that most have never heard the Gospel in a way that they can really understand. All too often the life of the messenger has spoilt the reception of the message.
Miss Oliver left Nigeria not long after I became a follower of Jesus Christ. I have continued in the faith, employed by a Nigerian church teaching Hausa to newcomers to the country.

Translated 8 May 1996 from his testimony in the Hausa language by Graham Weeks, who knows Garba well and will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

More Testimonies
Answering Islam Home Page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Garba became a Christian in around 1978. From 1979 I was his colleague teaching the Hausa language in Jos, Plateau State , Nigeria. I taught the grammar which is beautifully simple. He did the drills; essential when there are three consonants not in English, and vowel lengths and tones are not in the written script but have to be learned through drills. grab whose only education was koranic schooling is a natural teacher. he taught himself to read Biko, that is hausa in Roman script, a colonial invention. He read originally in Ajemi the Hausa Arabic type orthography.
  He is not baptised. Two wives mean no baptism in Nigeria. It he sent one away what would she become? The wife of a Muslim or a whore. No real alternative.
   When I discussed this with a senior pastor he told me that my missionary fathers had told his fathers to send away wives two and more and now they were not changing for these Muslims. They were the people who before the British came had spread Islam by the sword, enslaved and killed his father.
   So when Garbs visitors England around 1984 I offered baptism. he refused saying he would wait until there were others like him to form a congregation.  So far no such movement.
   I discussed with garbs a contextualised approach to worship after the writing of par shall et al. I said how will you confess your belief. he said the church uses the Apostles Creed. I said yes but it is not Hausa. Holy catholic church is iklisiya mai tsarki katolika. Only holy is Hausa. She gave us a shade for the Almasihiyya - followers of Messiah. It was, I believe there is no God but God and Jesus Christ is the Word of God, Spirit of God, Son of God.This parallels the Islamic, No god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. The first three titles of Christ here are in the Koran. I asked if son of God was not provocative. Garba said that without it it was not A Christian creed.
   He had an acute theological understanding. he always taught students to respect Muslim beef and their book. So I asked if when he read the Bible it was the same as when he read the Koran. he said that the Koran spoke about God. In the Bible God speaks.
   I said that told be two things. First the Bible is God's word from the Holy Spirit. Secondly, He, Garba has the Holy Spirit.
   We discussed more on contextualised worship. Man and women sis apart and on mats. Facilities for washing at the door. Clean]n premises, no animals, birds or bats. Sing Psalms antiphonally with a precentor singing the line. No instruments.
   There has never been a Hausa Muslim convert church since the first one in Zaria over 100 years Tat was from Isawa, Muslims who had learnt to honour Jesus from the Koran before any missionaries came. http://www.nairaland.com/3420665/isawas-zaria
   Garba's home was Mango, a village near Jos. His family had moved there from Katsina. So he was part of an ethnic hausa minority in a predominantly Christian village of a different people. For a century there was peaceful coexistence, Pax Britannia the independence. After 9/11 everything changed. Hausas had to leave Mango and migrate to their community in the city of Jos. So Garbs the Christian has to live among his Muslim fellow Hausas. He is now in his eighties.  The Plateau is no longer a peaceful place. Hausa/Filanis in Jos North want politics control. The nomadic Fulani cattle herders have killed many local Christian farmers complain they rustle their cattle. The local Christians say Fulani cattle ruin their crops and the Fulani have attacked them with the aid of Muslim mercenaries. This is not the Boko Haram conflict which is in the North east but people fleeing BH are in displaced persons camps in the area.

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

I have done my bit against the local strip club.


Dear Mr Weeks,

Thank you for you for lodging a representation to this application. Please see attached the letter acknowledging this representation for the LA Confidential application.

Please also note that if matters are not resolved, a hearing date has been set for this application for which further details will be sent in due course.

Kind Regards
Sarah Heer
0208 825 6655


From: GRAHAM WEEKS [mailto:gweeks@btinternet.com] 
Sent: 06 March 2018 10:49
To: Licensing ealing
.gov.uk>
Subject: Re: LA confidential application 18LIC10581SEXEV

I want no leafleting of this.

67 Ferrymead Avenue, Greenford, UB6 9TL, 

Graham J Weeks 


http://www.christiansquoting.org.uk 10201 quotes 654 topics 2452 authors 
christiansquotingsubscribe@yahoogroups.com- daily quotes

In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity- =================================================


From: Licensing ealing.gov.uk>
To: 'GRAHAM WEEKS' <gweeks@btinternet.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, 6 March 2018, 10:32
Subject: RE: LA confidential application 18LIC10581SEXEV


Dear Mr Weeks

Thank you for your email- the contents of which we have noted.

Please, could you clarify the following points that you have raised in your  objection to the renewal of SEV licence:
-          Regarding your point about the leafleting do you have a radius in mind for the leafleting or are you requesting no leafleting at all
-          Please provide more details about any other concerns you have regarding the premises.
-          You will need to provide your full postal address in order for the objection to be accepted, this will not be revealed to the applicant or their agent.

Please also find attached the licensing policy for your reference.

Regards


Rita Pankhania
Licensing Team
Regulatory Services
Perceval House
14-16 Uxbridge Road
Ealing W5 2HL

Tel: 020 8825 6655


From: GRAHAM WEEKS [mailto:gweeks@btinternet.com] 
Sent: 03 March 2018 12:58
To: Licensing
Subject: LA confidential application 18LIC10581SEXEV


18LIC10581SEXEV 
Objection for Prevention of crime and disorder,
Public safety, Prevention of public nuisance, 
 It is reported that this club was closed for a few days last year because the 'door men' i.e security guards who are supposed to protect, badly attacked and beat up a young man in the street. The Police insisted on a review of their alcohol licence because they (the police) said,  in their view the Club was connected with serious crime. The Police gave a long list of violent and other incidents connected with the club during the previous year. None of these  had been disclosed to the licensing Committee at the previous Sexual Entertainment Venue Licence renewal. None of these incidents were actually followed up by the police because no-one wants to officially report them and have their name connected to this venue. Consequently there are without  doubt many other incidents connected to the club that do not come to the notice of the police.

Objection for Prevention of children from harm
Leaflets advertising a sex club will no doubt be picked up by all and sundry including inquisitive children.

Graham J Weeks 


http://www.christiansquoting.org.uk 10201 quotes 654 topics 2452 authors 

In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity- =================================================


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