Dear friends,

Today, we flew from the city of Enugu to the city of Abuja, capital of Nigeria. During the military regime, the capital was moved from Lagos to Abuja, that is around the sixties, I think.

The flight went well and we landed safely. I slept the whole time. It is not very far. I could see when we took off and landed that the Northern region seems poorer than the Southeast where we were. In the Southeast, many houses are very large. Impressively large. In the North, they seem smaller.

When we landed, I learnt that we were up for a five hours drive. I thought we would go to the NO religious house right away. Father does not have time to explain everything, or maybe I am a bit lost with all the explanations. We were met by one of the Faithful, Stephen, who drove us to the city of Jos. Stephen is a very good man who supports Father’s apostolate as much as he can. We had very good discussions all along the road. Before leaving, we went to his house to meet briefly his wife and two sons. The wife was so much touched that she had a Bishop in her house. I blessed the house and the family and we departed.

The drive was again quite a ride. The roads are much better than in the Southeast where we were before. At least the one road we were on. It was paved all along. The vegetation was considerably more scarce and the population lesser. But still : Nigeria is booming with life. Children everywhere. One of the reflexions I had today is that the social life in Nigeria is much better than what it has become in the West. People are in the street, they talk to each other, they laugh all the time, they exchange their products. Sometimes, they are just there and look at what is going on, as if they had their entire life to do so. They still have time to do that. We barely know our neighbours and we run like headless chickens to meet the next appointment.

All along the road, people present grilled corn, peanuts in narrow necked bottles, cabbages and fruits of all sort, to the cars passing. There is not many laws in Nigeria. You can create a shop in front of your house. Everyone seems to do so. The main street of many villages is just an open market where people sell and buy and mostly discuss the prices. You don’t just accept the price in Nigeria. You have to bargain. It is part of their habits. Father would sometimes ask the driver to stop. He would roll down the window and buy bananas, peanuts or fruits. «It is too expensive and they are not ripe. I’ll give you 1k for them.» - «No, they are ripe. They are always like that. 1,5k.» In the meantime, young muslim girls with their veil would stick their nose to my window on the back seat and say: «Bature! Bature!», that is «white man, white man». Once in a while one would say : «Hello, Lord Bishop.» These were probably Catholics. There are more Muslims as we go North. We barely see them in the South. Stephen, the driver, explained to me that what actually happens with the killings in the North of Nigeria that we hear in the news is that people are fighting for the best lands. Muslims kill Christians once in a while and it is very sad, but the main thing is that they want their good lands. A form of djihad, but motivated mostly by greed. They usually don’t just kill someone on the streets because of his Faith.

We arrived in Jos. It is the highest point of Nigeria, about 1300 meters above sea level. The climate is very good. The air much more agreeable to breath. Around 25 degrees. We had a nice gentle wind. No complain. We arrived at the Novus Ordo religious house. Each of us have a decent bedroom. The first thing I found in the bedroom is a Gedeon bible, marked with the number of the room. These protestant bibles are in every room. We are supposed to be in a Catholic religious house… The Novus Ordo is such a mess.

Father and I celebrated our Masses in the hotel room. A very poor setting on a simple table. We forgot the cruets. Father cut the bottom of two water bottles and we had our cruets. Isn’t Mass in such poor circumstances the same as Mass in the most magnificent Cathedral? It is. It only requires a little more Faith… We are now resting before tomorrow’s ceremony of Confirmations in Jos. Father visits this Mission every six week.

I will leave you with this for today. Please pray for the Faithful who will receive Confirmation tomorrow in the city of Jos. The plan is, if I understood well, to sleep here tomorrow again. We will drive back on Wednesday to Abuja. I will then take the plane to Lagos while Father will go back to his parents and his car in Enugu. Father’s brother in law will take me at the local airport and drive me to the international one. From there, I will fly to Johannesburg, South Africa, where I will be met by Father Kemna for a few more days of apostolate in Africa. From Johannesburg, I have a flight on Monday the 18th to Zurich (Switzerland), from Zurich to Montréal and from Montréal to Moncton, arriving at 9:30pm.

May God bless you!

Mgr Roy