Sunday March 9, Sunday Service at Cathedral and at LCCN Deaf Centre

Sunday March 9, 2014

It is Sunday Noon as I start this postings. I went to the English Service at 8 this morning. They ring the big church bell at 6 AM to remind everyone that it is Sunday and service is in 2 hours. Then again at 8 at the start of the service. I and about half of the people wandered in after the start.

After the English Service ends they ring the bell for the Hausa Service. Last week was a combined service with an attendance of 3600 including the Sunday School. Today they had a Pastor who is a teacher at Bronnum Lutheran Seminary presiding and providing the sermon at both services. The picture I took from the balcony is deceptive. You can only see part of the center section and the edge the two side sections. The church is wedge shaped. This picture probably shows less than a third of the seating. The balcony probably hold more than 500. The upper balcony is the choir. During combined services people are seated outside listening.

Pastor Ruth sermon on Temptation.

I skipped out after the sermon and during the offering to go the Deaf Centre where they were holding their service. The Deaf Centre is on the adjacent compound and directly behind the Cathedral. They do not have a church yet. They meet on the porch of the Deaf Centre. During the week this is where the young children are taught. One of my tasks here is to work with the architect on the Deaf Church design to incorporate a solar power system.

 I arrived for the end of their service. After the Deaf service ended Pastor Ruth got out her laptop and showed the video I made of the Bread of Life Deaf Church Service in February. We had about a dozen people mostly young adults, crowded into the small class room trying to read the sign on the laptop screen. There was a lot of laughter and discussions about the signs used in the US. ASL was introduced into Nigeria in the 1960's by Andrew Jackson Foster. I won't get into the linguistic differences between the ASL they use here and the ASL used in the United States. I am not qualified to do that. ASL like any language has regional variations. The ASL in Boston is as different from the ASL in San Antonio as the English in Boston is different than the English in San Antonio. One of the biggest differences is the use of the Exact English version of ASL. They use the same construction as used with English. ASL in the US does not follow English. It is not English done with signs. The way a sentence is formed is different. For example, in the US ASL there is one sign that in English would be "I" or "Me" and "am" or "the" are not used. Here they have a sign for "I" and a different sign for "Me" and signs for "am" and "the".  There are also a few British Sign and some regional Nigerian sign. Also the evolution of the language here has been isolated from the evolution of the the language in the US for 50 years. This is similar to what has happened to the English spoken in the US and England. I use paper and pen to do anything more than a greeting. After 10 months away from signing I have forgotten the few signs I learned last year.

Tonight, I will make sure we have the right tools and materials to do the work at Garaha Larh. Right now I am waiting for Yakubu to bring me the keys to truck we will be using tomorrow and cash to buy fuel. We will have the new truck with the air conditioning.

Dinner tonight will be left overs from with a little boiled rice added for bulk.