The changing world (20) May- June 1971

Cholera vaccination attempted for the local community but abandoned due to general crowd disorder. We regularly has medical students form UK on electives. One was surprised the team prayed with patients before operating dying back home it would be interpreted as lack of confidence. He was told that here, not invoking God's help was presumptuous.
   Newspapers sent by surface mail from home concealed packets of soup. The termites flew and were eaten by the locals. Our allowance delayed by a strike - but I do not recall what kind of a strike. Heard Pam Spendlove willing to come to Christian Central Pharmacy. Negotiated with Seventh Day Adventists to buy a piano.
Holiday at Gindiri in a new Cortina. Meals with Farrens, John Dean and Lawes. John is a good expositor and travels in student work all over Africa. A romance was rumoured and later led to marriage. At first he believed he was better able to serve the Lord as a single man. The lady concerned was thought not wish to restrict his work. That could continue with him married. Half a loaf being better than no bread.
On to Mangu, the leprosarium and lunch with the Thomases. They were the only SUM family to exceed the four children family limit. The mission increased your allowance with every child up to four. Beyond four you would have to pay fares, schooling, and presumably medical bills. So when the Thomases family grew they left the mission having rejected family planning advice AFAIK.
Next to SIM Mango. As well as the rest home there there was Kent Academy, school for SIM missionary children up to high school grades. SIM highschoolers went to Hillcrest in Jos. Our children would gather from age six. IIRC the child had to be six by the start of the academic year but there was some leeway for the British who would have started at five in UK. IIRC Jonathan started aged five and nine months.
Enjoyed table tennis and volleyball. Brought Brian Boddy from Vom. We had hoped he would make a go of it with Anna Mueler our Swiss nurse but it was not to be. She on returning home made an unhappy match and died young. Brian died soon after his retirement having spent over 0 years in Nigeria.
SIM dentist in Jos gave me a filling. Bought the Ballamy's piano. He was a great evangelist and saw many conversions with New Life for All. Sadly, after becoming a pastor in USA he ran off with his organist and divorced his wife. Missionaries seemed more tempted by the flash than mammon. Visited Jos zoo. Our friend Yakubu Yako used to tell folk in England who asked about wildlife that he heard the lions roar every day. He lived next to the zoo. It boasted a leopard born in Dublin. Leopards were hunted to extinction by 1970. When a skin fetched more than a year's wages this was not surprising. Lions were extinct before that. There were still elephants in the north east and jackals and hyenas when we were there too. Te late would dig up bodies buried in the dry season.They also too our neighbours dogs off our veranda at nigh. Between them and us sleeping was only mosquito screening. We heard nothing. We never saw the elephants nut did see where they had passed through the bush. It looked like a herd of elephants has been through. This was 1974 when we covered the Bulmers' leave from Limankara.
 The Hausa proverb says that if the elephants visit your farm you do not worry about the monkeys. The herd numbered over a hundred. They were protected and a government hunter had to be called to scare them off.Our friend Daniel Gula has bothered his corn in a heap when the cry went up that the elephants were coming. Everyone else ran but Daniel stayed on top of his pile of corn and prayed. The prayer of this man of faith was answered. The elephants left Daniel and his corn alone.
   At Mango enjoyed fellowship with Rob and Esther Koops of CRC. He was a Bible translator, she a musician. Not impressed by SIM preaching. Not expository.
   Visitors from South Africa, England, Nigeria and Northern Ireland.