Look who's king of the mountain!

We bought some more fertile soil (not just sand) to try and get some grass growing in our yard once again.  It was delivered last Friday and Eyram the gardener put in a pile in a corner until he can spread it around.  Mickey-the-dirt-lovin'-dog, who happened to be in the garage until all soil was put in the pile, came out and was instantly in love with her new playground.  Sydney wanted to play on it as well and Mickey chased her away.  I had to retrieve a piece of tubing from it the other day and she thought I had come to play and we ended up in a game of tug-of-war before she finally gave up.

Then, this Friday, we got these big sacks of manure delivered so we can hopefully have GOOD grass, gotta do something for it!  They arrived too late to be spread around so they are now stacked just behind the pile.  Mickey isn't sure of them.  At first she just stood in front of them and barked, letting them know she's in charge.  Silly little dog.

Great Big God

Since Elena is in high school, she has to collect community service points.  She and some others do this by going to an orphanage once a week.  The other day, she taught a lesson to the kids there.  This is particularly impressive for two main reasons.  The first is that if you know Elena, you’ll know she’s not really a little kid person.  I guess they just aren’t her “thing”.  (However, we’ve been impressed by the photos we see posted by her sponsor on facebook.)

The second reason it’s so remarkable is that it’s the fulfillment of a vision that God had given us before we even came to Togo.  In 2006, we were praying with our colleagues at Radio Worldwide and one of them, Chris Singh, was given a picture/vision from the Lord.  He saw Elena under a large tree, teaching African children.  Get a load of the picture we saw on facebook last week!  We had never told Elena of this so that she couldn’t “make it happen” on her own.  It’s just totally a God thing!!

Choosing to send them to boarding school was about the hardest thing we’ve had to do as parents.  Seeing this “fulfillment of a vision” has confirmed to us that they are exactly where they belong as part of God’s plan.  We truly serve a GREAT BIG GOD!!

Solar Eclipse

Sunday, we got to experience a solar eclipse.  Apparently, it was visible in many places, even the US, but was most visible in Africa.  Togo wasn't in the area of total eclipse but what we saw was pretty cool.

We didn't even know about it until we called a friend just after lunch about something and he said they were on their flat roof looking at the eclipse.  We then rushed around looking for ways to observe it.  I made a box with a hole in it and Roger got his camera and the ladder so we could go on our flat roof.

When we went outside, we saw the shadows from our trees.  To me, that was the coolest part.  Enjoy the photos.  (By the way, we don't have a photo, but after about an hour, the shadows coming thru the trees were back to normal.) Isn't God creative!!