Saturday, May 07, 2011

This is how we roll

First of all I would like to wish an early Happy Mother's Day to all the Mother's out there especially those who have been very instrumental in my life and especially to my mother Martina Nwagwu and mother-in-law Mary Sterrett. I also want to wish a Happy Mother's Day to Andrea Nwagwu, the mother of my newest niece. On that note, please be in prayer for my friend and former classmate Jide who just lost his mother this week suddenly. I can't imagine what he is going through but she loved God and if there is any solace, it's that she's with Jesus and that's where I want to be when I pass on.  

So a few things have happened since the last time I was here. Most of it has to do with adjusting to life here which is basically a full time job. So let's see some of the things we've acquired to ease the transition...
Mobile WiFi
Internet Access by Mobitel- This little sucker has made communication with the outside world so much easier. It’s the fastest ISP I have used in this town but I have a hard time recommending them to others because I don’t want them to rob me of bandwidth. That sounds bad, don’t it? Another great feature is that is has no data caps! How fast is it? Well, I can play Halo with Ben, my brother online and Amy can Skype (no w a verb in the English lexicon) at the same time. Pretty good, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought.


A vehicle, better yet, an SUV- For good measure, we also have a driver now but I will get to that late. We are now mobile! Hence the title of the blog…so now we have been to church a couple of times by ourselves…well, really once because the first time we woke up late and missed a turn and showed up at the end of service. The second time, we tried a church in our neighborhood for the first time but more on that later as well.  We know where many major grocery stores are and can track down some of the kinds of foods, snacks or guilty pleasures we like.
A Driver – Now, in most western countries, this is a luxury. Here, it is a necessity. I don’t drive on weekdays, no sir. It is a mad city. Really, I am just a weekend warrior when it comes to driving here and it is bunkers. I’ve turned into one of them. I started out all courteous but not anymore. It has to be witnessed to be believed how crazy it is. I think prayer is very important here probably because of the driving condition. It's not very hard to "lose" your right standing by being on the road either as a passenger or worse, a driver. Kenneth is our new driver and he was born and raised here. He was the only one I interviewed and so far, he is working out just fine. Amy and I keep praying that we would be a blessing to him while he works for us.

Phones- We each now have phones. Well, I am down two that I carry but Amy keeps one around here but now we can communicate with each other at work since we are in different building.  
Now, back to the conversation about a house of worship…for the sake of privacy and not getting jumped, I won’t release the names of the churches that we visit as we try to find where God is calling us to serve in this season that we are here. As I mentioned, we tried one in our neighbourhood and it was good. Worship was excellent. There’s nothing truly like being in the presence of God and I loved that! I had hoped it would be someone from that local house who would preach but it was a guest preacher. I think I would like to visit at least one more time but tomorrow, I will be trying a different church at the recommendation of my dad. I did run into two old classmates from high school which was really interesting. So please be in prayer for us as we continue this search.

Work seems to be moving right along. Many of you who know me know that I don’t much care about talking about work. I find it tedious and boring to talk about accounting so that’s about all I will say about work. As far as the people I work with, I think they treat me very well but they prefer Amy. Not that hard to see why because I myself prefer Amy as well. And because there is another “Ugo” that works there, I am now being called “Ugo Beke” which means Foreign Ugo. Amy also has a Nigerian name now. The folks in IT have named her Amaka which means beautiful. Again, not a tough one to figure out.
Well, we are continually working to make our apartment into a home. We got Amy a tread mill…I might have already mentioned that. We also got a pull up bar. If you notice, I try to skip the details on how we’ve gotten around to many things and that’s because the details occasionally invoke memories we try to suppress and the phrase of the day is often “lesson learned”. That said, here are a few updated images of our home.



Coconut Tree...I wonder if I can claim it

Great view from the Deck

Our lone flower

Our ever growing Pantry

More stuff in our Fridge here than in Pitt


More great views

We’ve done more work as renters here than we did as home owners in Pittsburg and some of the work has paid off. Others we leave for the pros around here and they can fixed almost anything here. Things I would think should be pitched get thrown out here. Anyway, I gotta go…Amy just made some banana bread and I have to em…investigate J.

7 comments:

Lori F said...

I love your discussion on driving. I would love a driver only there is no call for it in K-ville. Reading about your adventures is so much fun. It is also good to here that people have the good sense to love Amy! We promise to never call you Foreign Ugo by the way.

We are preparing for our own adventure. We'll be moving to Fresno, CA next year to help with Bread of Life church (pastored by Tom's parents). So I will be returning to my homeland after 23 years. I expect my adventures to be a bit tamer than yours though. :)

We continue to pray that you all fine a wonderful church perfectly suited to you. Be blessed, my friends!

Ugo said...

Whoa! That's news! I will definitely have to try to make it to Fresno then. You guys will make an excellent addition to their local house. I am jealous of them actually ;-). I believe God will use you guys to bless them and he will reciprocate those blessing on you!

Thanks for reading...I am glad all my experiences can be enjoyed by you guys over there. My regards to Harold!

Sarah B. said...

Ugo! Thanks for keeping us up to date. I just have one question for you - now that you have more food in your fridge, who does the cooking and what have you been eating? You know me, my stomach is always on my mind:)

Ugo said...

Hi Sarah! Food is also important to me. Ah...well I still do most of the cooking but Amy made the most delicious banana bread today. I've had to be creative with cooking since I don't know how to cook local stuff and finding American stuff can be expensive. So, I've made BBQ chicken, chili with gross meat. During work days we get food from the canteen at work. We have a system working pretty good for us.

Em said...

Hey Brother!
I'm sorry I haven't commented before now, but I usually read it when I'm on the fly...
So, I love the updates! I love the pictures too! Though, the one of Amy (where she's more in the background) made me cry. :( I miss you both and would love to see more pics of your faces, whether it makes me cry or not. :) I love and miss you both more than is able to be expressed... Keep us posted! Love you lots.
Em

Anonymous said...

I love reading you updates. Thanks for taking the time. I love and miss you both.

Mom Sterrett said...

Hi Ugo,
Just read most of your blogs, very entertaining and enlightening. I miss you very much. I miss Amy very much. I love to Skype with you on Saturdays. It helps to "see" your faces if only for a bit. It was interesting to "see" your apartment, especially the view. Wow. I hope to see it for myself at some point. Give my love to your wife and your parents. Big hugs!

Love,
Pittsburg Mom, Mary