Quotes 1 May 17

"Cranmer was constantly aware that the purpose of studying the Bible was not for men to gain a reputation for learning and become masters of theology, but for God to master them." -- Horton Davies, WORSHIP AND THEOLOGY IN ENGLAND

You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. …And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish command over himself will have no command over others. --attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

We are more sure to arise out of our graves than out of our beds. Thomas Watson

 The resurrection of Jesus doesn't just change how we look at the world around us - it changes the reality of the world around us. - Justin Welby

To see him as he is, and to be like him! This is worth dying for, and worth living for. –John Newton

Quotes 29 Apr 17

The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. - United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001 Assessment Report
https://pjmedia.com/blog/senate-dems-get-irrational-during-web-of-denial-climate-change-event/

When is your life more fragrant than when the kiss of forgiveness is most fresh upon your cheek? - Al Martin

 "Marriage is like a school-house, where you shall have occasion of patience, and occasion of love. Now except Christ be in this school-house of marriage, you cannot be patient in trouble; neither can you truly love; neither can you do any thing acceptable unto him.”- Hugh Latimer:

 All theology, when separated from Christ, is not only vain and confused, but is also mad, deceitful, and spurious.- John Calvin‏ @JohnCalvinDaily

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.--Thomas Jefferson, Notes On The State of Virginia

Quotes for 28 Apr 17

“The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them. The only constitutional tax is the tax which ministers to public necessity. The property of the country belongs to the people of the country. Their title is absolute. They do not support any privileged class; they do not need to maintain great military forces; they ought not to be burdened with a great array of public employees.” -Calvin Coolidge, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925, The Mind of the President p. 108-109; Messages and Papers of the Presidents p. 9486 https://coolidgefoundation.org/quote/quotations-t/ 

“A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude. One of the first signs of the breaking down of a free government is a disregard by the taxing power of the right of the people to their own property. It makes little difference whether such a condition is brought about through will of a dictator, through the power of a military force, or through the pressure of an organized minority. The result is the same. Unless thepeople can enjoy that reasonable security in the possession of their property, which is guaranteed in the Constitution, against unreasonable taxation, freedom is at an end. The common man is restrained and hampered in his ability to secure food and clothing and shelter. His wages are decreased, his hours are lengthened. Against the recurring tendency in this direction there must be interposed the constant effort of an informed electorate and of patriotic public servants. The importance of a constant reiteration of these principles cannot be overestimated.” -Calvin Coolidge, At Memorial Continental Hall, June 30, 1924; The Mind of the President p. 113, Foundations of the Republic p. 40-41 

https://coolidgefoundation.org/quote/quotations-t/

Quotes for 27 Apr 17

In all creatures, indeed, both high and low, the glory of God shines, but nowhere has it shone more brightly than in the cross. -John Calvin‏ @JohnCalvinDaily

Cricket has many of the right ingredients for a religion. It has men
wearing hats, arcane rules, and bizarre names, which only a select few
are able to understand. It has someone called a twelfth man, a council
that decides doctrine, and a shrine at a place called Lords. It even
has its own sacred text: Wisden. Unofficially described as 'The Bible
of Cricket,' it weighs a much as a Bible and contains just as many
unpronounceable names. And can it be mere coincidence that the great
plinth at Stonehenge is exactly 22 yards away from the dolmen whose
shape is reminiscent of a set of stumps and bails? Like religion,
cricket can also be hard to appreciate, tedious and require only our
nominal attention. It was Lord Mancroft who wrote that it was a game
which The English, not being spiritual people, had invented in order
to give themselves some conception of eternity.
==>Rhidian Brook, BBC, Thought for the Day, 8 September 2005
correction - Cricket has no rules. It has laws.- GJW

"We had one UK scientist, Philip Stott, who has said there are quite literally hundreds of factors governing global climate. For the UN to pick one politically-selected factor -- CO2 -- and then try to tweak it at the margins and then come up with some temperature goal 50-100 years in the future, is akin to scientific nonsense. You could call it modern day witchcraft." -Marc Morano, quoted
http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/12/01/watch-morano-on-fox-news-w-cavuto-climate-huslte-is-going-to-turn-the-tables-on-the-entire-global-warming-movement/

Quotes 26 Apr 17

Our religion will be unprofitable if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners, and transform us into new creatures.- John Calvin‏ @JohnCalvinDaily

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. –Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Socialism does not rid a society of greed, it gives the government and its officials a monopoly on greed. And since all power has been concentrated into the hands of the government, it is omnipotent greed. -a New Yorker
http://philosophicalconservatism.com/post/159466452941/socialism-does-not-rid-a-society-of-greed-it

Men become susceptible to ideas not by discussion and argument, but by seeing them personified and loving the person who so embodies them. -Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) U.S. historian, The Conduct of Life, 4.3 (1951)

“It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will—and it was his love for sinners like me.”― D.A. Carson

Quotes 25 Apr 17

The world hates the family. The state is the family’s enemy. The state grows by the family’s failure and the state has an interest in persuading people that the family can do nothing on its own. It hates fatherhood, and makes little pretense otherwise. It hates motherhood, though it makes a show of championing the unwed mother as well as the mother, who, as the ugly phrase puts it, “has it all,” though a moment’s reflection should suffice to show that no one can give his or her career to a career and a family and the local community. - Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes, 2017

“ We in the modern West are living under barbarism, though we do not recognise it. Our scientists, our judges, or princes, our scholars, and our scribes – they are at work demolishing the faith, the family, gender, even what it means to be human. Our barbarians have exchanged the animal pelts and spears of the past for designer suits and smart phones.”- Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option. p.17.

“Freud’s answer was to replace religion with psychology. In his therapeutic vision, we should stop the fruitless searching for a non-existent source of meaning and instead seek self-fulfillment. The pursuit of happiness was not a quest for unity with God, or sacrificial dedication to a cause greater than oneself rather a search to satisfy the Self” - Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option.p.41

“ For a Christian, there is only one right way to use the gift of sex: within marriage between one man and one woman. This is heresy to the modern world, and a hard saying upon which hearts, friendships, families, and even churches have been broken. There is no core teaching of the Christian faith that is less popular today, and perhaps none more important to obey.”- Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option P.196

We need digitally fast as an ascetic practice, take smartphones away from kids, keep social media out of worship, do things with our hands and question ‘Progress’. David Robertson reviewing -od Dreher, The Benedict Option in The Wee Flea

Quotes 24 Apr

Throughout most of our nation's history, immigrants
adopted the language, laws, and common customs of the
host country.  The term "melting pot" was a descriptive
metaphor, indicating that the potentially divisive attitudes
and customs of the old country would be left behind as
the newcomers blended into a new commonality of purpose.
But today it seems that the pot is no longer melting.
Some incoming groups defy cultural assimilation.  They
cluster into enclaves and demand special concessions
for their ethnic customs, beliefs, languages, and, in
some cases, even their laws.
According to former House Intelligence Committee
chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra, assimilation is an
essential component to immigration:
 "What we need to do is make sure everyone coming
     into the United States understands who we are
     and that we are founded on Judeo-Christian
     values, that there is one rule of law and that's
     what's on the books and it's not Sharia and we
     need to make sure we don't engage in the same
     kind of mistakes in Europe where they did not
     engage in assimilation." -David Jeremiah (1941-    )
      _Is This The End?_ [2016], "The Bleeding Of Our Borders"

Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
-George Washington, Farewell Address 1796

Quotes 22 Apr 17

“To understand the doctrine of the cross, you got to be willing to embrace, accept, and feel the offense of the cross. —@TimKellerNYC

This worry is not just philosophical, it is also spiritual. The meaning of the world is enshrined in conceptions that science does not endorse: conceptions like beauty, goodness and the soul which grow in the thin top-soil of human discourse. This top-soil is quickly eroded when the flora are cleared from it, and nothing ever grows thereafter. You can see the process at work in the matter of sex. Human sexuality has usually been understood through ideas of love and belonging. An enchanted grove of literary ideas and images protected those conceptions, and lived within it happily -- or at any rate,with an unhappiness that they could manage and control. The sexologist clears all this tangled undergrowth away, to reveal the scientific truth of things: the animal organs, the unmoralized impulses, and the tingling sensations that figure in those grim reports on the behavior of American humanoids. The meaning of the experience plays no part in the scientific description. -Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey (2012)

Historically, as Hadrian knew, walls are needed only when neighboring societies are opposites—and when large numbers of migrants cross borders  without necessarily wishing to become part of what they are fleeing to.These are harsh and ancient lessons about human nature, but they are largely true and timeless. -Victor Davis Hanson, "Writing on the Walls", Hoover Institution, Oct. 21, 2016
http://www.hoover.org/research/writing-walls

Quotes 21 Apr 17

 To see him as he is, and to be like him! This is worth dying for, and worth living for.John Newton‏ @john__newton

Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. - Mao Zedong, speech at the sixth Plenary session of  the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China during August 1927 — Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. II, pp. 224-225
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_power_grows_out_of_the_barrel_of_a_gun

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.  That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence;  perhaps the piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.  It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just.  It certainly does condemn anarchism,and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived.-G.K. Chesterton, _What I Saw in America_

Quotes 20 Apr 17

“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.”  N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species. --E.O Wilson (1929-) American biologist, _The Ants_, 1990.

Leftist movements begin with rebellion and end with conformity. No Utopian movement can tolerate rebels for long because there is no room for dissent in paradise. An ideal society, the goal of leftist political movements, not only has no room for war, racism, greed and all the other evils the conformist paradises of the left hope to eliminate, it also has no room for disagreement. - Daniel Greenfield, The Traditionalist Rebel
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-traditionalist-rebel.html

The President of the United States announced that refugees fleeing persecution by a totalitarian regime would be deported. It did not matter that they had risked their lives to come here. They would be sent back. No leftist lawyers crammed airports. No protesters chanted at terminals. No celebrities offered sanctimonious lectures about “who we are”. No one dared to call the lying thug behind it un-American. Because his last name was Obama and the refugees were Cubans fleeing socialism. - Daniel Greenfield, The Left's Persecution of Real Refugees from Islam and Communism
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-lefts-persecution-of-real-refugees.html

Quotes 19 Apr 17

A false gospel always makes man bigger and God smaller.-D M Lloyd-Jones

"Manifestly Europe has entered a post-Christian era. But its Christianity was not killed by outsiders coming in. This was death by suicide. If Europe's Islamic population threatens anything, it is the cramped and arid secularism that long ago replaced Christianity as the Continent's reigning creed and is so plainly ill-equipped to meet today's challenges" (William McGurn in WSJ).

Among the eminent mercies of your life, reader, how many of them have been mere surprises to you! -  John Flavel (@FlavelJohn)

"A Christianity that avoids argument is not the Christianity of the New Testament."
--J. Gresham Machen

Dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies. -Nicolas Gomez Davila
meme poster https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8SVUi1XoAAfhGf.jpg

Quotes 18 Apr17

As long as we live there is never enough singing.- Martin Luther

Joy is but begun in this life; it is perfected in glory. Here is but the tuning of the instrument; the sweet concert is reserved for heaven.- Thomas Watson (@Puritan_Piety):

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. Saint Augustine

A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals. -Vice President Spiro Agnew, denouncing Moratorium Day protest against Vietnam War; in NY "Times," 20 Oct 69 

In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. -Vice President Spiro Agnew, Speech in San Diego (11 September 1970). 

Quotes 17 Apr 17

Feelings are not evidence of God, it is our reaction to God.- Derick Dickens

In the Roman slave market, decisions regarding the slaves future rested solely in the hands of the purchaser, not the one being sold. Similarly, the Bible teaches that God has chosen His slaves by His own sovereign, independent, electing choice. In fact, He elected them to be His slaves before they were born, and even before the world was created.
~ Dr. John MacArthur "Slave"

Even in the most profound depths of adversity faith may hold us up, and, what is more, may elevate us to God.-John Calvin‏ @JohnCalvinDaily

'The masses of the working-people of Scotland have read history, and are no revolutionary levelers. They rejoice in the memories of "Wallace and Bruce and a' the lave," who are still much revered as the former champions of freedom. And while foreigners imagine that we want the spirit only to overturn capitalists and aristocracy, we are content to respect our laws till we can change them, and hate those stupid revolutions which might sweep away time-honoured institutions, dear alike to rich and poor.’- David Livingstone's "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa."

Quotes 15 Apr 17

Plagues and death around me fly;
Till He bids, I cannot die!
Not a single shaft can hit,
Till the God of love sees fit!
(John Ryland)

‘I once talked to a Unitarian Universalist at the University of Toronto who stressed that the way to achieve harmony between different religions and belief systems was to avoid talking about things like fact, truth, and certainty. “If I ever find myself more than 60 per cent certain about anything,” he confessed, “I get very nervous.” I was too polite to ask: “Are you more than 60 per cent certain of that statement?”’ Andy Bannister

If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies ~ Spurgeon

 The cross is the place where we find the freedom to accept ourselves without being proud, and to challenge ourselves without being crushed.- Tim Keller Wisdom‏ @DailyKeller

Quotes 14 Apr 17

God never bestows the grace of justification without the grace of sanctification.John Calvin‏

'Whenever mortal men try to live without God, they  infallibly succumb to megalomania or erotomania or both: the raised fist or the raised phthallus, Nietzsche or D H Lawrence.'= Malcolm Muggeridge in Vintage Muggeridge
 
I’d rather be wrong with Dante, and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H G Wells and Bernard Shaw. = Malcolm Muggeridge in Vintage Muggeridge

In youth, in middle age, and now after many battles, I find nothing in me but corruption. - John Knox

Those who look to him are radiant.  - Psalm 34:5
Real beauty does not come ultimately from *how* you look, but *where* you look.- Sam Allberry‏ @SamAllberry

Quotes 13 Apr 17

If we ever forget that we're one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under. -Ronald Reagan

"I plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything." - William Carey

Authority comes in three forms: expert authority, moral authority, and legal authority. Legal authority is just the brute legal power to do something. Expert authority is the authority over the how. Expert authority tells you whether your house is built on a proper foundation, or whether your not feeling well is a case of the flu or something more serious. Moral authority is the authority of the should. An engineer has expert authority on how to build a bridge, but does not necessarily have
any moral authority over whether the bridge can be built. - John Kluge,  The Alleged Death of “Experts” https://ricochet.com/418915/the-alleged-death-of-experts/ß

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments." - Senator William Edgar Borah, The Reader's Digest, Vol. 8, Issue 2 (1929)

Quotes 12 Apr 17

"Bear with me if I say things which at first sight look harsh. Believe me, he is your best friend who tells you the most truth." ~J.C. Ryle

+ Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
+ If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
+ Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
+ For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
+ No one is listening until you make a mistake.
+ Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
+ A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
+ Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
+ Half the people you know are below average.
+ 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name. - Steve Wright, performance. 1983 (?)    

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.-  Dr. Thomas Sowell ~

Quotes 11 Apr 17

Corruption is not the exceptional condition of politics, it is the normal one.
--Mancur Olson, in his book The Logic Of Collective Action, quoted by Eric Raymond, Some Iron Laws of Political Economics http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984

Death: against this arrest there is no bail.- GEORGE SWINNOCK

"as God is good to those who trust Him, so He is terrible to those who do not" Ji Packer

There is one thing which is even worse than controversy & that is false doctrine tolerated, allowed & permitted without protest. ~J.C. Ryle

"Pride is the devil's dragnet in which he takes more fish than in any other, except procrastination" ~Spurgeon

Quotes 10 Apr 17

 "Everywhere in the New Testament, Jesus is represented not as a mere example for faith but as the object of faith." —J. Gresham Machen

Not only is the "LGBT" acronym self-contradictory, because the first two claim psychology is fixed, and the last one claims biology is fluid, but the other one, the B, effectively admits this is all rubbish. --poster  http://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.liberallogic101.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/17434678_752180334942205_4565466127687643889_o-500x422.jpg

Political demand for income transfers, entitlements and subsidies always rises faster than the economy can generate increased wealth to supply them from. --Mancur Olson, in his book The Logic Of Collective Action, quoted by Eric Raymond, Some Iron Laws of Political Economics http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984

Although some taxes genuinely begin by being levied for the benefit of the taxed, all taxes end up being levied for the benefit of the political class.
--Mancur Olson, in his book The Logic Of Collective Action, quoted by Eric Raymond, Some Iron Laws of Political Economics http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984

The only important class distinction in any advanced democracy is between those who are net producers of tax revenues and those who are net consumers of them. --Mancur Olson, in his book The Logic Of Collective Action, quoted by Eric Raymond, Some Iron Laws of Political Economics http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984

Quotes 8 Apr 17

Jesus Christ did not say, "Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right."C. S. Lewis‏ @CSLewisDaily

 Our religion will be unprofitable if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners, and transform us into new creatures.John Calvin‏ @JohnCalvinDaily

"Those who say that all cultures are equal never explain why the results of those cultures are so grossly unequal."~ Dr. Thomas Sowell ~
·
Salvation frees us from the "fear of death" and from "fear of rulers" but the One with Whom we have to do must always be feared with reverential awe!- Liam Goligher

We pray best when we are fallen on our faces in painful helplessness ~ Spurgeon

Quotes 7 Apr

"If it be the duty of all men, when the Gospel comes, to believe unto salvation, then it is the duty of those who are entrusted with the Gospel to endeavour to make it known among all nations for the obedience of faith." ~ William Carey

"The love of the Father as the source of the atonement is the love from which the whole plan of salvation takes its origin." —John Murray

One of the penalties of being religious is to be mocked and ridiculed.  If our Lord submitted himself to the ribald humor of a degenerate Tetrarch, we may
be sure that we, his followers, will not escape. The more divine a religion is, the more the world will ridicule you, for the spirit of the world is the enemy of Christ. -Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979 _Characters Of The Passion_ [1946]

To make my point, substitute “slavery” over “abortion” in any pro-abortion sentiment. For example: Although I’m personally opposed to having an abortion, I don’t want to stop you from having one. Although I’m personally opposed to owning a slave, I don’t want to stop you from owning one. When I hear our young friend caterwaul about “my body,” I’m reminded about slave owners declaring their sovereignty over “their property.” Notice how “body” and “property” miss the essential entity that is central to the
debate? The individual at risk? --Fred Houstan, comment on
https://ricochet.com/418035/there-is-right-and-there-is-wron

Quotes 6 Apr 17

People who refuse to accept unpleasant truths have no right to complain about politicians who lie to them. What other kind of candidates would such people elect? Thomas Sowell (1931-), Random Thoughts, Jewish World Review, June 25, 2013
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell062513.php3

Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself. -Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), in James Boswell _Life of Johnson Vol_02_
http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/scottish-authors/james-boswell/life-of-johnson-vol_02/ebook-page-09.asp

 There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.John Calvin‏ @JohnCalvinDaily

There is nothing inherently fair about equalizing incomes. If the government penalizes you for working harder than somebody else, that is unfair. If you save your money but retire with the same pension as a free-spending neighbor, that is also unfair.
--Arthur C Brooks (1964-), _Wall Street Journal_ 14 Apr 2010
http://www.aei.org/publication/spreading-the-wealth-isnt-fair/

Quotes 5 Apr 17

“One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.” -Gretchen Rubin,  The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean
My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More F

Indulgence kills idealism because happiness is not in things it is in accomplishment.  You cannot GIVE your children happiness, you must point out the path. -a New Yorker

Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time are either psychopaths or mountebanks. -Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 – 1832 ), Maxims and Reflections, no. 953

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact. - Honore de Balzac

First Memories of Nigeria

I first went to Nigeria as a 23-year-old missionary in September 1970. My wife was expecting our first child, born at Vom Christian Hospital, our new home, two months later. Stepping off the Sabena plane at Kano, our first ever flight, we were hit by a heat we had only experienced before in the tropical house at Kew Gardens, near our first home in Ealing, West London. The next day Nigerian Airways flew us to Jos, our Sudan United Mission headquarters. From Jos we went to Vom on a road surfaced only as far as Bukuru.

Vom was a beautiful place to live. Dr Barnden had started the hospital, the first in the old Northern Nigeria, in 1922. In 1970 it was the largest mission hospital in the northern states. There were 300 beds. Expatriate staff, mainly British like us, numbered about 30. All Nigerian staff and students were Christians. The hospital trained nurses, midwives and laboratory assistants for national qualifications. New students, like the Tiv ones who did not speak Hausa had to agree to learn it; Hausa speakers had to agree to learn Berom, the local language. There was a good constant electricity supply from NESCO, the company that generated electricity for the nearby tin mines but no television. We relied on BBC World Service and snail mail for news from home. Our luggage, coming my sea, took four months to reach us.

My work was hospital pharmacist. One area where fee charging mission hospitals like Vom scored over supposedly free government hospitals like the one in Jos was that we had a trustworthy regular supply of medicines thanks to the Christian Central Pharmacy in Jos. CCP, established by my predecessor at Vom, supplied drugs to mission hospitals all over the north. The pharmacy had Nigerian staff. Malams Zwambun and Dabwang had been trained as nurses and missionaries too. Zwambun was Yergam from Langtang, as old as my father, and the most senior of all the hospital’s Nigerians. He was an elder in the hospital church. Dabwang, a local man, had trained in our mission’s Borno hospital at Gwoza. My third worker, Bashi, was from Vwang, the town by the hospital.

In September 1970, nine moths after the end of the Biafran war, the first Ibos were returning north. One of them, Mark, had just resumed work in the hospital office. The effects of the war were still felt in the scarcity of imported goods like food from Europe. We preferred local produce. I remember eggs were one kobo each. Milk was from local Fulani women who came to the house each day with creamy milk in the wet season when we arrived, soon to be watered down in the dry season. Katy had the help of Joseph, our cook. She did not find life in Nigeria easy at first. The strange noises at night bothered her. She is a music teacher but her first work at Vom was catering in the Private Ward. This was where expatriates and wealthy Nigerians were treated, the only ward with food provided by the hospital. Other inpatients brought a relative to cook for them. The very high fees paid by private ward patients, usually on company expenses, subsidised the ordinary wards where patients were charged according to their social standing. Poor people and local Beroms paid less than the standard charges. Fulani herders and salaried Nigerians paid more. The rich helped pay for the poor.

We were to be Turawa with no Hausa, staying at Vom for nine months until we were sent to Kano for five months full time Hausa study. That will be my next part of the story.

Quotes for 4 Apr 17

As the bird with a broken wing is free to fly but not able, so the natural man is free to come to God but not able. - Loraine Boettner

Certainly I believe that God gave us life for happiness, not misery. Humanity, I am sure, will never be made lazy or indifferent by an excess of happiness. The order of nature will always necessitate pain, failure, separation, death; and these will probably become more menacing as the complexities and dangerous experiments of a vast world civilization increase. The delicate task will remain ours to ensure God’s gift—joy—to His children. Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Happiness should be a means of accomplishment, like health, not an end in itself. -Helen Keller  (1880-1968), Her journal, entry dated December 10, 1936

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is a generally the product of other activities. -Alduous Huxley, Essay "Distractions I" in _Vedanta for the Western World_ (1945) edited by Christopher Isherwood

Quotes 3 Apr 17

The spiritual thing formerly signified and sealed by circumcision, is now signified and sealed by baptism ~ Herman Witsius

“Intercession is ... a daily service we owe to God and our brother. He who denies his neighbour the service of praying for him denies him the service of a Christian. It is clear, furthermore; that intercession is not general and vague but concrete: a matter of definite persons and definite difficulties and therefore of definite petitions. The more definite my intercession becomes, the more promising it is.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'Life Together', (London: SCM Press, 1954), p.66.

The Puritans of the first generation were by no means scandalised, when their people felt so strongly that they could not conceal their emotions. Of Thomas Shepard, the holy minister of Cambridge, it was said, “that he scarce ever preached a sermon, but some or other of his congregation were struck with great distress, and cried out in agony, What shall I do to be saved?” This was so much expected, that those who had been detained from worship used to ask, “Who hath been wrought upon today?” In the time of Edwards, audible expressions of feeling by the hearers in public worship had begun to be considered indecorous; for hearers were not expected to be overcome by strong emotions; but the demand of public sentiment for silence was much less imperative then than now. - Joseph Tracy 1841 The Great Awakening