Memories from Kaduna, Kagoro, Makurdi and Lafiya

KADUNA GIDAN BEGE

• Crazy but cool kids who really know their bible! – Uncle John, the leader in charge of this centre got them to recite Psalm 1-6 and they did it so well!
• We met a really cool guy called Uncle Friday who has such a heart for the ministry and he is now at Bible College, training to be an EMS missionary.
• One day in Kaduna, I saw a man walking a monkey down the road, past the centre!
• My team went to a nearby field to do some sports coaching/outreach. Quite a few people turned up, so it was all a bit crazy and hard to control. Word had spread that strange white people were in town!
• If I close my eyes and take myself back to Kaduna, I can still smell the drop pit!
• Our matching team traditional outfits that we were given as a gift to thank us!

KADARKO/KAGORO GIDAN BEGE

• The houseparents’ - Uncle Sunday and Aunty Jummai and their children - Ozi, Ruth, Achai and baby Chris – a beautiful little family that I have got to know quite well over the last few months .

Kids that do absolutely anything for you – carry your chair to devotions, wash your plates and offer to wash your clothes, fetch water for you and even accompany you to where we had to sleep when we were to afraid to walk on our own in the dark. They wouldn't let us do anything on our own! They are the most well behaved kids I know!
• Friday – The 18 year old with the most beautiful, soulful voice! If he was in the UK, I would make him enter X-factor! He is so talented. He doesn’t just sing, as he sings, he beats 2 sticks off a bench, as a drum and it sounds class!
• Meeting the Chief of Kadarko
• Speaking and singing in Hausa to the whole congregation on the Sunday morning and getting quite a few laughs! It wasn't meant to be comedy.

MAKURDI GIDAN BEGE

• “How many people wanna let me in..say how many people wanna let me in...are you ready? Are you ready?...Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now not tomorrow! ....Are you ready to let Jesus in, are you ready to let Jesus in?” – possibly the best song ever! Cheesetastic it may be but lots a of fun! When I hear this song I just think of 3 precious girls that stay at this centre and love to dance to this – Grace, Mary and Priscilla. They really need your prayers.
• Continuous scratching noises – yep we saw lots of rats, mice and cockroaches!
• Sweating buckets! – Makurdi is in a very warm part of Nigeria.
• A proper football pitch, 5 mins walk from the centre.
• Our team being special guests at a football match.
• Diddy boy – Uncle David’s 3 year old son, who gave most of us bruises.

LAFIYA GIDAN BEGE

• Uncle Bulus: Lynsey I’ve invlted all the children from the community to your programme
Me: Goes slightly pale – Erm Uncle Bulus we only have enough resources for the 17 kids at your centre
Uncle Bulus: Lynsey, trust in God, just watch what he will do. God will provide.
Me: To be totally honest, I was still panicking.
• Instead of 17 kids, we had around 70! And...somehow, the money for the food was enough to feed all 70 kids each day of the programme!..The feeding of the 5000 comes to mind! God is amazing!
• This was definitely the best programme , not just in terms of the organisation, but in terms of the outcome - about 16 kids accepted Christ, many of whom do not come from Christian families. Praise God for Uncle Bulus. If it had not been for his vision to invite the kids from outside the centre, these kids would still not know Christ.
. Shadrach, Meshach and Abendigo! – Uncle Bulus’s 3 little boys! How well did that work out!

. Emma (Emmanuel) You can read his story on my Facebook page.

God blessed us so much and he continued to surprise and amaze us, teach us and challenge us. With God, ALL things are possible!

One last memory overall...

Michael :“One Egusi soup and one Groundnut soooup!”
Mark: “We have no Groundnut soooup!”
Michael: “What! Why did you not tell meeee?” (Slap!)

You would have to be part of our team to understand this really :) ... (Its our team drama)

A busy but fantastic summer

I’ve had a busy, but fantastic summer with the teams. A team arrived on the 4th July and spent 2 weeks working at Kagoro Gidan Bege Centre, which is just 1 hours drive from Jos, so I was able to drive back and forward to visit them. Christine Craig was leading that team. They did a lot while they were here. They made a great impact in the lives of the kids at Kagoro, where they did tutoring, bible teaching, puppet ministry and generally came alongside the boys, encouraging them and getting to know them. They spend the 2nd half of their time in Jos, doing a mixture of things, including leading devotions at a Widows ministry quite a few mornings, hanging out with the girls at Gyero Care Centre in Jos and completely revamping the devotions room at Open Doors school, by joining Uncle Jim (the art teacher) and a few of our short-term staff to paint cool pictures on the walls. It looks amazing!! Just to add: I joined in too :)

This team flew home on the 29th July and my team arrived on the 30th July, which was a little crazy but also quite handy at the same time. It meant I could just go to Abuja with them, spend a nice little day in Abuja and collect my team the next morning....so what did my team do?

We went from Abuja to Kaduna, Kaduna to Kagoro, Kagoro to Makurdi, Makurdi to Lafiya, Lafiya to Jos! ....a lot of travelling in the space of 4 weeks!

All of these places are cities, but they are also where City Ministries have Gidan Bege Centres. Gidan Bege, which means “House of Hope”, is a Care Centre. This is where street children are brought to when they are ready to come off the streets and some orphans are brought to these centres by neighbours or relations. Quite a lot of the children will have been brought to these centres after being rescued from dangerous situations. They are a place of safety, a place where they will be fed, have a roof over their head, and ultimately experience God’s love.

Our team spent around 6 days at each centre. Within those 6 days, we ran a full 3 day kids/youth programme. Day 1 - we taught them about Esther, day 2 – David, and day 3 – Jesus, so always ending with the perfect example. Our programme was full of worship and teaching new songs, prayer, memory verses, bible talks, puppets, small groups (to recap on the story and give the kids a chance to ask questions), craft, games, sports coaching and each evening of the programme we either showed the film Madagascar or Africa united, had a talent night (I think we may have found some star talent out here! It also gave our team the chance to make everyone laugh!) Ok, our team attempted River dance and performed a classy drama . On the last night, we always did a film outreach for the whole community, using either “The Jesus film” or “The passion of Christ”.

We met really cool kids along the way, and some really great Uncles (leaders of the centres). God taught us so much throughout the 4 weeks and we were greatly challenged! I’m going to share my memories from each centre in another post as this is getting a little bit long.