Am writing this from a hotel room in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, SE Nigeria, where I am staying whilst delivering 360Life training to Good News Global - Nigeria team members. Rozzie has travelled with me, so we are exploring this 'new to us' country together which is a lovely thing to be able to do.
We arrived last night, and today was the first day of training - but I'll save that for later. Today, I just want to testify to how wonderfully God had our backs covered during what turned out to be a pretty stressful 24 hours or so of travel, and how He answered so many prayers, both those said, and those unsaid. In fact the whole preparation for the trip has been one long litany of answered prayers in so many ways, and I want to give God the glory for that.
On Saturday evening, as I was on the coach to Heathrow, Rozzie messaged to say that the train she was on to London (plan A) had terminated early due to a fatality on the line - and what should she do. There was an option to get on a different train going to London on a different route, so I suggested she get that which she duly did - plan B. But then that train also stopped early, and the only option after that for getting to London was a replacement bus. With a plane to catch at the end of the day, this was a risk we couldn't take, and so Rozzie had to catch a cab from Cambridge to Heathrow to enable her to catch our plane - plan C. Thankfully plan C worked out, albeit at a hefty price, and we were able to fly to Abuja.
The overnight flight was certainly not the best night flight I've had, in part due to the lady sitting between us who was rather wriggling and overflowing in her presence. But we arrived safe and sound, ahead of a 10 hour wait for our flight from Abuja to Uyo. Our plan had been to get a cab into Abuja and then hang out at the Hilton hotel - this as suggested by a friend who hails from Abuja in the past. But whilst in the visa queue, we were chatting to a UK couple who work in the British embassy in Abuja, and they advised against that plan as they are dubious about the cabs re safety.
So we decided to stay in the airport, and rough it out. But then a Nigerian friend who has been wonderful at sorting all sorts of bits of logistics for us got wind of the fact that we were hanging out in the arrivals hall of an airport for several hours and, knowing that the airport is somewhat lacking in facilities, organised a driver for us to take us to a hotel that he had links with so we could get out, have a shower and a rest, see life beyond the airport, and then come back.
Unfortunately, the traffic had other plans and the driver was unable to make it – thank goodness it turns out! Having failed to reach us, we went to do an early check in on the domestic flight, to find that it had been postponed until Tuesday, and no-one had told us (for whatever reason, cos the rescheduling happened on 1st Feb!). So there we are, at the airport, with training to deliver today in a different bit of Nigeria, being told that our flights were cancelled.
Not the best feeling, but I thank God for the airline supervisor who was on duty at the time, as she just happened to have a friend who happened to be supervisor for another airline which happened to have a flight going to Uyo from Abuja yesterday, and which happened to have 2 spare seats, if I could pay for them.
Obviously there was quite a bit of elapsed time between those ‘just happeneds’, but I thank God that it was all sorted, and we got on the flight. Thank you God for the traffic jams that stopped the driver reaching us. Thank you God for the supervisor who was so wonderfully calm and reassuring throughout. Thank you God for the friend who had lent me his Nigerian debit card even before I left the UK so that I was able to pay for the flights, as it turns out that particular airline doesn’t like international payment cards.
So, we are now in Uyo, having had a wonderful welcome on arrival from Bishop Nsibiet who is the head of GNG Nigeria, and hosting us for the training here. Those first 24hours were a bit wearing, but God’s hand of protection and guidance was all over it. As it was in the lead up to coming, with the hassles of the visa application – so many prayers answered by the miracle-making God.
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