ABA, NIGERIA Monday, November 24
By Marti Schneider, On location

Early this morning (Thursday, 4:00 am) I woke up and wrote Monday's
story. I turned out the light around 6:00 a.m. for a little more sleep.
Before I headed out for breakfast I read it to Don, and just as I was
shutting down the computer, I made the mistake of clicking the X
instead of Send Later. A box opened asking if I wanted to save it. I
quickly clicked cancel to stop the action that had been initiated . . .
and I lost the whole piece. I am weeping . . . and Don is wailing. So
here goes . . . I will try to reconstruct it. I hate thinking twice!

And after the Sunday night storm, the internet connection does not work
in our room. I'm not sure when I will get these mailed.

Don begins work on his sermon by reading the hard copy of his sermon
before he goes to sleep at night plus other sermons on the topic by Don
Gray, Mark Finley, and Russell Burrill. He wakes up and thinks it
through in the morning, trying to choose the phrases he wants the people
to remember. After breakfast and the 9 o'clock meeting, he works with
the translators for an hour. Following lunch he returns to the room
where he spends the afternoon studying with his computer and adjusting
slides with Dave Johns. We leave for the stadium around 6:15 to 6:30
p.m. Did I tell you what Don said? "After I finish preaching and the
King's Heralds begin to sing, it is such a relief! It is wonderful!
But when I reach the first step down from the platform, I realize I am
already behind for the next night's sermon. I hate those steps."

Don has been able to see very little of Aba . . . only what is between
here and the stadium, the little he was able to see upon our arrival,
and the couple of kilometers to the baptism site on Sabbath. In
contrast, I have been able to see so much as I travel about the city and
the countryside. We ride in this beautiful deep red Toyota 4x4, which
Isaac the driver keeps just so! More than once I have found him, cloth
in hand, polishing any dust off a fender.

Today, Monday, we tried to leave early enough to see several of Dr.
Frank Adaeluwa's ministry projects. He is a business man who does so
much for God. Let me give you a short description of his ministry. He
works with prisons, with destitute people, and for the widows of the
church. He called a meeting of all the Adventist widows in the East
Nigeria Conference and had an attendance of 5,000! It was overwhelming
to him. He, with the women's ministries, provides picture
identification badges for them, so that they can show this when seeking
help.

We drove along the bumpy main street, a boulevard, that was made even
worse because of the torrential rains of the night before. The two
lanes going the opposite direction were full of traffic that was trying
to get through the water that had collected in some rather deep
"potholes." Other cars had abandoned their lanes and moved over
into the median and our roadway so that we were facing oncoming traffic.
But it was not too dangerous since most cars were at a near standstill.
There was much communicating by way of horns!

We finally turned right onto the road that I recognized as the one
where we had been stopped by the police and our driver had been hit. I
was in the car with Dr. Frank and his pastor-worker. The camera team
and Sister Daniel were riding in the Toyota 4x4. Very shortly we came
to the place where the policemen were stopping cars. We were waved on
because they recognized Dr. Frank and his car; however, the Toyota was
stopped. Our driver parked and Dr. Frank went back. I learned later
that he had said, "Hi" to the policeman who was muttering about it when
the red car drove up. Dr. Frank must have realized his mistake, because
he apologized to the policeman for saying the American greeting,
"Hi," instead of asking how his day was, his family was, and
carrying on a small conversation. With the apology and an explanation
of our trip, the policeman waved the red car on too.

After some kilometers on this road we made a right turn onto another
road that was completely dirt. Our destination was the river where Dr.
Frank's dredging business is located. Immediately we came to a small
lake that covered the road and came right up to the porches of the
little mud-colored shops along the road. Dr. Frank and both drivers
conferred; I could see that Isaac was reluctant to go into the water.
And I was truly amazed that we nosed down into the water. I just knew
that we would get stuck in the mud (in actuality the soil is very sandy)
or that the motor would die in the middle. I could feel the water
churning against the floorboard under my feet. I realized that this was
not life threatening and I was prepared to take off my shoes and wade
out. But the driver held steady and by hugging to the shop porches we
made it to the other side without a complete baptism by immersion. That
was only the beginning. We faced a total of six major bodies of water.
The sixth proved too much. The car stopped in the middle. As I was
planning my route, the driver put the car in reverse and we rose to
higher ground. But there the car died. Dr. Frank and I got into the
Toyota . . . one person more than it was meant to carry, so two had to
sit in the bucket seat in the front.

We scrapped the first destination, and with a phone call, it was
determined that we would go to the prison in Aba. There we met the
controller, who welcomed each of us warmly with a three-hug hug, left,
right, left. I could see Sister Daniel grin and roll her eyes a little
over his right shoulder. He gave us a long monologue of his
appreciation of Dr. Frank. We finally escaped into the prison. There
we went into both the men's and women's sections. Dr. Frank has a very
nice rapport with the prisoners, teasing, playful. We met a man who had
recently converted from Muslim to Adventist. Dr. Frank stopped to
encourage him briefly. I will tell you more about his ministry in a
special feature.

Our next destination was one of the glass factories that buys the
special sand produced by Dr. Frank's dredging business. Really
interesting! We had a full tour of this year-old plant by the
Canadian-Nigerian operating manager from sand to finished bottles on
pallets. It is highly mechanized, with very little work done by people
. . . some work at the beginning, some observation of the furnaces, some
quality control, some clean up, and a very little with packaging. We
met the general manager, a Lebanese man, and an Italian worker.

We learned that Isaac is not an Adventist, even though he works for an
Adventist employer. He may have been when he was younger. So on the
way home, Don said, to the camera men and all of us. "Do you know who
has been the most help to me here in Aba? There are two people." Folks
guessed. Don said, "It's the doctor who came to see me when I had the
kidney stone attack, and the other one is Isaac." He continued, "The
doctor was baptized last Sabbath. Do you know what is going to happen
next Sabbath?" Everyone could hear it coming. "My driver needs to
be baptized next Sabbath! Isaac, don't you think it is time? Do you
want me to talk to you tonight or shall I talk to you tomorrow night?"
Isaac said, "Maybe tomorrow night." So Don told him that he would pray
for him all day the next day . . . and that I would pray too.

We've already started praying!

Marti