Fireworks and a swim to celebrate Christmas?

Well, Merry Christmas to all of you, even if it is a bit late. So how was yours? Ours was…interesting. Ok, we had all the trimmings: Christmas tree, Christmas music, Christmas presents you know. However, we had more (and a bit less, too). We had—and still have—fireworks going off all round, hot weather, marshmallow roasts in the garden… It was nice, but I must say, we really missed family. Although we’ve lived “overseas” for quite a long time, we’ve rarely spent the Christmas holidays without some bits of our family around us. So, this year the holidays weren’t always easy, but it has been relaxing and different, which helps.

It all began on Christmas Eve with a pageant put on by all the Sunday School children at our church. Our girls were involved as well as Kathy and the other teacher, Marlene. It was, well, …different. The production was to start at 7pm, but didn’t get underway until 8:15. Mary (aka Marlene’s 4 year old daughter, Elizabeth) nearly fell asleep before it began and was only kept awake by her father whispering exciting things about Santa and gifts in her ear for half an hour. Despite all the late start and all (I could actually go into much more detail, but will spare you that) it went off well. The children all did a great job and all looked very cute in their “Christmas Uniform” (specially designed for the occasion).

We woke up late-ish Christmas morning to the girls chatting excitedly outside our door. They were ready to open gifts. It was great fun watching them “dig in” with excitement.

One thing we’ve found interesting is that here, Christmas seems to be celebrated with fireworks, much to the terror of our dogs and Fiona. The entire neighborhood seems to have some. As a matter of fact, the 27th was the quietest evening for nearly 2 weeks. I wonder what the New Year will be like.

A Safari and a Birthday

This year we gave ourselves an adventure for Christmas. The week before the holidays we went to a game park in the neighbouring country of Benin. It took us 2 days to get there. The first night we stopped in Kara, in the North of Togo, staying with other missionaries. Kathy got to go to a ladies Christmas party, while Roger stayed with the kids and did the dishes. At least he got to go to bed early.

The transport situation on our trip was an adventure in itself. Just and hour outside Lomé the a/c went out on our pick-up. Needless to say, we were sweating and complaining for hours, while wondering exactly what it was God wanted us to learn from the experience. The next day, however, we were riding in style, when Brett Emerson offered us a ride to the game park in his comfortable Land Cruiser. God didn’t even WANT us to ride in our clunker. And here we were worried about how to manage it all. He had it all under control.

We saw many animals and enjoyed the scenery of Pendjari National Park. As we were on the way back to the hotel after a not-very-fruitful last game-drive, we came upon 5 lions on the road. We watched them for a while and even got to witness a fight between a young male and a lone male who just came upon the pride. It was great to see the girls enjoying Africa, at last.

On our way we drove through an area populated by the Tamberma people. They are known for building fortresses out of waddle and mud, in which the used to seek shelter from slave raiders years ago. Now their area is an UNESCO World Herigate site.

On the way home, we again stayed a night in Kara. Four missionary families live there with a total of 12 kids, all 10 and under! Our girls LOVED it. Fiona in particular, found a new friend. She and Michal, were so happy to find the other. They are “the only 8 year-old girls in Togo”—or so they think.

It was on this day that we also celebrated Sydney’s 5th birthday (2 days early). She had quite a crowd that helped here celebrate and eat pink Barbie cake, which April Emerson had made.

All in all, we had a great time away from Lomé. It was the coming back to the heat and humidity that proved to be most difficult.

Brownouts, Blackouts & God's Provision

Togo is one of those countries where electricity is like rain: it comes and goes, and when it is here it can be an downpour or a trickle. People have learned to live with the situation. Most everybody (who has the means) uses regulators to protect their electronics from voltage fluctuation. However, when nothing is there to regulate, people sit sweating in the dark, while the food goes bad in the fridge. “If you want electricity, you’ll need to generate your own”, is what we were told on arrival. So, I started my quest for a generator that has sufficient power to keep the house light and cool (we’re talking between 8 and 10 kVA, for those who talk that kind of language). I found several, on my first survey trip. But I didn’t find the price acceptable. I don’t generally mind when people get rich, but please, not all at once and not all from me! Needless to say, we continued to use flashlights and battery-powered fans while in the meantime, I explored other avenues. I looked into buying a generator in neighbouring Ghana or even shipping one from Germany or the USA. I simply couldn’t justify spending the equivalent of a small family car on just an engine with alternator. It soon became a regular prayer request, and I know that many people have prayed and asked God to provide for us. For months it seemed that neither I, nor God, was doing anything. I felt bad, having to tell people that I still didn’t have a “powerful” solution. Until yesterday, when a missionary (who is leaving the country) offered me their generator for a good price! It is used, of course, but it has an auto-start (so I don’t have to get out of bed when the electricity goes). And although I haven’t seen it yet, I believe that this is God’s answer to our lack of power. I’ve agreed to take the machine, trusting that I will get the money before he leaves Togo. I hope, this won’t take God as long as it took him to locate the machine for us!

Tribute to a slow God
One thing that I must say, as a word of caution, if you want to trust Him shamelessly: God takes his time! Yes, he is always at work, but he really is slow (at least according to my sense of time). It seems, that it is always 5 minutes to midnight in God’s time management. He took care of the generator, after 6 months! He provided our house for us, in the same way. He takes his time, but he is never late.
God seems to come out of the shadows after we’ve had a go at things ourselves. It’s like when our children have to clean up their room or do the dishes. The parents could do it themselves much quicker and probably better, but we let our children struggle through the experience, because we want them to learn. Learning a skill and knowledge, but most of all, an attitude of trust. In the end, it’s anyway Mama who’ll have to mop the floor and dust the shelves. I wonder what would happen next time, if I didn’t even try to solve a situation myself, but left it all to God? Would he wait until moss grows under the beds or would he move in (like I do) and clean up the whole mess himself? Well, I’m not sure that I have the patience to find out. Why don’t YOU try it out and tell me what happened. I dare you!

The right way to turn left

Today, I experienced another first. I was involved in an automobile accident. Don’t get upset though, we’re all okay. However, let me give a bit of background before I tell you what happened.

Our ministry leaders, Danny and AnnMarie Isenring have been here for about 10 days of their 2 week visit. We’ve had a great time with them and been very encouraged and uplifted. AnnMarie was treating the females of the family to a “girls afternoon” and we were all excited. I had made an appointment with the—as far as I know only—hairdresser who does white peoples’ hair and we were on our way there. When I drive here in Lomé, I like to find ways to get places making only right turns so I don’t have to cross the crazy traffic. I know most of my routes and had mine all planned out. However, I accidentally turned down the wrong road at one point and decided to turn left onto the next street to correct my mistake and get back on track. I put on my blinker, stopped, waited for the oncoming motorcycle then began to turn. As I began, a car came from nowhere on my left and I hit them on their passenger side, door. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been because I saw him just in time and he was going very fast. It was, nonetheless, an accident. (By the way, our car wasn’t damaged at all. It hit the iron grill cover thingy on the front doing damage to the other car without hurting ours. Poetic justice as we have a bit of a “junker” and theirs was a very new-looking BMW SUV.) I became an instant nervous wreck, Meme, our house-helper who was with us, got angry with the other driver and AnnMarie did the only sensible thing and began to pray!

Fortunately, a soldier had apparently seen the whole thing and came up to us both. I think had he not come, I would’ve kept driving as I didn’t want to face the other driver even though it was entirely his fault. I had given my papers to the soldier and was getting out of the car when the driver and all the other men traveling with him—there were at least 3 of them—came up and started yelling at me and everyone who didn’t believe he was innocent. Now, you must remember, the girls were also in the car. They saw all this and were getting increasingly scared. The soldier, who was by this time joined by a few others was telling the men to be nice and calm down. Then we all “went to our corners” and waited for the Commandant to arrive. When he came, they all had to test my turn signal, which worked beautifully, and then the other driver tried to argue with him for a while. Eventually, the commandant turned to me and asked, “What do you say?” I finally replied, in my elementary French, that it was forbidden to pass on the left of someone who was turning in that direction, and that I had indicated and was even stopped, waiting to turn. We were then sent to some office but never got there as we were called back. The soldiers had left and the other men wanted to try and bully me to get some money. As our car wasn’t harmed (even if it had been we wouldn’t have ever gotten any money out of these guys) and I wasn’t about to pay him for the damage he caused, I told him it was his problem and we all got in the car and drove off. Besides, we were late for our hair appointment!

God took care of us the whole way. It was a miracle that we were safe and that the soldiers were there to help us. When they realized the girls were in the car and that they were scared, they made sure the other men were kept away from it and made to keep their voices down.
It was also a miracle that Meme and AnnMarie were there. When I had to go to this other office, Meme went with me and AnnMarie stayed with the girls. She comforted them and prayed with them and for me the whole time. Mobile phones are wonderful gadgets, but only when they are with you. I had, for the first time, forgotten mine and couldn’t even call Roger!!! (Where are men when you need them?!)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Did you have a nice celebration? We sure did. We even ate turkey and cranberry sauce! Those are real treats, as we don’t normally get either here. It was great to spend the afternoon with friends and meet new ones. Our girls especially enjoyed making new friends. It’s only a pity that they live in another town, about a 6 hours drive from Lomé. Never mind, just knowing they are there is a blessing!

My quote of the day is from Sydney. She came bouncing into the kitchen at 6:30am—there should be a law against being so happy at that hour—telling me that she had been singing a song since she woke up. It goes like this: “And we offer up to You, the sacrifices on Thanksgiving…” I guess they are only offered ON Thanksgiving, not on other days.

Her other quote was just now as I was praying and chatting with her before saying good night. I said that we will have a great day tomorrow as the new girls we met will come and play. She said, “But today, we had a FEAST.” It was truly a feast, for our stomachs and for our “Friend Meters”. Thanks God!

The African children DO have names

Well, as of tomorrow, Sydney will have gone to the local maternelle 2 weeks. Roger drops her off on his way to work and I pick her up at 11:30. Some mornings she doesn't want to go. She says they speak French and she doesn't understand. It must be a bit difficult at times.

I believe she doesn't get to talk much at school, because the whole walk home is one long monologue. She talks non-stop about all she did at school or all she learned that day, or about how badly she needs to go to the toilet--I think she's afraid of the "squat pot" at school.

Learning French was one reason we were glad for her to go to the maternelle. Another was for her to make friends, of which she has a few. She talks about them often. At first they had no names, it was just, "the girl with the hair leelees" (most of the girls have their hair in braids) or "the boy with the brown sandals". One girl is called "the thumper girl" because Sydney taught her how to thump things--and, unfortunately, people. However, she came home Monday with a name, Israel. He seems to be the boy she plays with the most. The 2 of them find and collect bottle caps, which Sydney calls "wine bottle lids", and do various other things.

Today she had some big news. She had found out the name of another girl. Ida (pronounced Eeda for all the anglophones). This was particularly noteworthy because one of Fiona's favorite shows is one she saw in Germany about a sort of Dennis-the-Menace character with a longsuffering sister named Ida. Sydney somehow identifies herself with this little sister and was particularly excited to get home and tell Fiona. Now we have 2 names. Oh, and there is another Marie as well, but we don't hear much about her.

One thing is really annoying. It actually seems that WE don't have names here. We thought we'd gotten used to the fact that people call us "Yovo" whenever we show up. But now it has taken on another dimension. There have been days, when I pick Sydney up at lunch time, where half the school has followed us, chanting "Yovo, Yovo..." Imagine the Pied Piper being followed, and you would have a pretty good picture. It's a bit sad as the school has tried to tell the other students that we are their "friends" and not just "white people". I guess it's just another "learning" opportunity.

We knew it was going to happen one day...

We have just finished a weekend of passing two major milestones here in Togo. The first one was Fiona's 8th birthday on Saturday. She had a wonderful day which started with breakfast in bed. After which she opened presents from Germany, America and Togo.


In the afternoon, she had a party with all 5 kids we know here in Lome. They played 8 games--since she turned 8--and ate birthday cake (which she decorated herself) and ice cream. The day ended with pizza at a local pizzeria with 'the Fam'. The next day we even had surprise visitors who live in another village about 3 hours drive away. We had a great time swimming and eating with them.


Our second milestone (or was it more a stumbling block?) was Elena's first malaria. On Thursday she had a terrible headache that wouldn't go away and that night she went from sweating profusely to freezing. Roger took her to the laboratory on Friday morning where they tested her and found weak signs of malaria. She took her medicine, which she said tasted terrible, and is now back to normal. This medicine worked really well and she was already feeling better by Friday evening.

Elena says, she doesn't want to remember feeling sick. We're hoping that her memory won't be refreshed for a long time.