Sannu!!! Ina Kwana. Ya ya aiki? Lafya, na gode!! ;0) (hello, good morning, how's work? Fine, thank you!) **email me at: cbtruxton@hisen.org and only reply YOUR message (without mine or the list of email messages becos it costs the missionaries money for every kb they send and receive. **reach me at: country code (234)- city code (73)-hospital (453950)-extension (168) but no guarantees that it'll get to me without first getting thru a grumpy hospital operator who may or may not be there. I am 8 hrs ahead. I'm usually home evenings. "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?" Ps 139:7 HA!!! Greetings!! (that's mostly what we do here when we see someone. This is a HUGE part of culture and relationships here. I love it! You know how I walk across campus...well anywhere in Canada, really, and stop to greet or interupt people's conversations to greet? Well, it's totally EXPECTED here, so I'm having a hay-day doing it in my limited Hausa!) Yes, just when you thought you'd gotten rid of little shermeen here in crazy Nigeria....well, I"m alive and kicking (and so is the big fat cockroach crawling/flying around me at the moment) and being stretched in all imaginable aspects of living!! YAWAH!! (Hausa for 'it's agreeable). I love to speak and practice Hausa because it's like speaking Cantonese (Hausa has alot of tones too) but it's so crazy because I"m in Africa and it ain't China, baby!! Pardon this email. I haven't yet gotten to write a proper email nor had the chance to check email. (no internet access here guys, so you'd have to reply via a different address see above). I am dying for some email. PLEASE WRITE! Yes, so pardon this email cos I"m in a real funny mood right now. What to share? So much to say. I'll never be able to convey even a fraction of what I"ve experienced here in words. It feels like I"ve been here for ages already because we've experienced so much...Perhaps I'll go with 'impressions' and 'funny stuff'. How about a scattering of things that stick out? Sometimes I wake up and just laugh in disbelief that I"m actually in Africa. Oh, in some aspects I feel like I"m at home, but then in some others, I feel like a 'baturi' (white man) living in a strange land. I waver between the two. Then I have to hit myself and remind myself that I'm no white man, I'm a Chinese woman...which by the way you hmmm....don't see many Asians here...hee hee Okay: I feel like I'm in olden days Singapore (especially the hospital setting is like Alexander Hospital in Singapore where I was born.), memories of British commonwealth...fanta...milo...persil..., I'm talking with a Eastern American/New Zealander/Nigerian/Canadian accent at the moment and I hate it!...gunshots at night after curfew (just usually isolated single shots though-no big deal)...boiling and filtering water...Africa is permanent camping in a house...being eaten alive by malaria-carrying mosquitos (you know, out of the three of us, I seem to have the sweetest blood), getting sick from something we ate (we're all okay now though), passing through 8 army roadchecks, having soldiers patrol our compound (yes, we do feel safe) especially after curfew, giving balloons and Jesus stickers to kids at Peds, riding the most hilarious traffic, there are NO, I mean NO traffic rules here, it's like playing a computer game but with real people and cars and motorbikes, playing with the missionary families kids (I'm 'cool cumcumber' to them!), bleaching everything raw that you eat (ie. fruit),power failures many times thru the day, blocks of cement used as traction weights for fractures, loving the chapel, especially the NIGERIAN singing!!! the list goes on and on.... I am already starting to lose the 'observation' phase, and accepting and taking for granted the riches and fullness of Nigerian life. As in: I"m starting to blur 'strangeness of this culture' with 'I'm home'...okay, before anyone freaks out and thinks I"ll spend the rest of my days here in Jos full-time missionary doctor-wise....save your emotions....cos I don't know myself. You can pray (either way: yeh or nay), I'm just saying that i'ts amazing how fast you forget the things that iniatially shocked me when I first came. I am just in awe by God. I am just gripped by His love and provision, His power admist tough, challenging times. His firm call for me to be here for the 2.5 months. His promise of doing immeasurably more than I can imagine. I love the medical work here. It's incredible. I love the ministry here even more. I am challenged and inspired and deeply moved by the dedication and testimony of the missionaries here. WOW WOW WOW. But I honestly don't yet feel the call to full-time ministry, in some ways, I feel the opposite. But I don't know, and I don't need to know. It's not my life anyway, I just go when I'm called. AT the moment, it's here. Early indications God has given me: I am strongly drawn to kids. However much I try to convince myself otherwise (don't ask me why), I still LOVE them. Darn it, those cuties just get me. My biggest dose of medicine when I'm sick is to spend time with the missionary families' kids. I'm also totally excited about medicine and WOW what a way to minister wholistically. But I dont' know. IT's still early on and I do have these extreme emotions that I go thru from day to day about where God is calling me. I finally came to the conclusion again that I don't need to figure anything out. God will show me in His perfect timing. I'm here experiencing the awesome priveledge of being able to finally be 'free and unhindered to work with people'.YIPPEE!! So folks. What can you pray about? by the way, I know many of you are praying. THANK YOU. I honestly feel it and am UPLIFTED by it. Please pray for health. Without sounding scary, there's lots to make you sick here, but there are also alot of healthy missionaries here too, so there... Pray for opportunities to learn and to build relationships with the nationals here. (THEY ARE GREAT!) Pray for God to use us to be effective ministers of the gospel-wholistically. I just want to learn and serve. Pray for continued peace in Jos and in the rest of Nigeria. Soon we will have the opportunity to travel Nigeria with community health staff. Pray that each day God will minister to me individually, that i will dwell in Him. God has specifically answered my prayer...Dr. Kirschner lent me his guitar!!!!!!!!! Soon, after our shift in hospital (btw, I can't wait when i get to do night shift and be on call-I told you I have this morbid love of hospitals), I'll be helping out/doing music/teaching ministry with the MKs (missionary kids), and inner city ministry too. Can't wait. Music is turning out to be a big ministry area for me here which is just AWESOME. Kids/medicine/music/ministering what else could I ask for? This is the life... Write me! I need you guys. I've found out just how much of a sappy wimp I can be. Africa is awesome but it's also inconvient and well...camping-conditions, yes, I"m more of a girlie girl than I've ever thought I was...sorry Dad, all those years of camping and you thought I was so tough...what else can I say? So there are times when I long for the comforts of home and I long for you all. I love you!!! I'm having 'the time of my life'....and God's having fun with me, I think. Hey, can you imagine me wearing skirts all the time? Sometimes God does things that make me laugh...maybe His whole purpose of bringing me here is to make me more girlie (?!) HA HA HA Shermeen!!!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out this web article/profile: www.iamnext.com/premed Peek at my personal webpage: www.geocities.com/shermeenchan/