sickness

Something that's inevitable, but dreaded is sickness. In Africa, whenever a fever is involved in a sickness, malaria is always suspected. Last weekend, Elena came down with fever and severe headache. These were the exact symptoms she had last time when her blood was tested for malaria. Since it was late and getting a test was not going to be easy, we decided to go and treat her as if it were malaria. She began to get better and by Sunday, was doing well. However, by Monday evening she had her headache again and by Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning (early) she was running fever again. She and I spent the entire morning waiting to see the Dr. yesterday. She was really miserable. He looked her over, cleaned some really gross stuff out of her ears (she can finally hear really well!) and said her throat was slightly infected. They also did a blood test to check for malaria. (By the way, the poor thing had to have her thumb pricked 4 times because the guy couldn't find blood!) She is now on antibiotics for her throat and another malaria med for that. These malaria meds really work fast. She slept well last night and, apart from a slight headache today, feels much better.

Please pray for us to remain healthy especially as right now is the malaria season with lots of standing water for mosquitoes to breed in. Thanks for all of you who knew about Elena yesterday and prayed for her. I just didn't get the chance to write to everyone asking for prayer. Praise God, she is now on the mend!!

Another thing is that we are going for holiday to Benin, leaving tomorrow. We'll stop in Kara, quite a way north of here, to visit friends and then on to Benin to speak German for a week. We're all excited to get away! Please pray for safety on these roads and a good time with friends. Thanks.

The Beach

Even though we live on the coast, we don't often visit the beach. The public one is not exactly the place for people like us who stand out in every crowd and the "safe" ones are a good drive away. Besides, they seem to think they can make all their profits on those of us wanting to spend an afternoon in the safety of their sand. However, we decided to go today to a "new" (as in, new to us) beach hotel. It is literally right on the edge of the great port of Lomé. There are no natural reefs (the Atlantic is too cold, I understand) and therefore, nothing to keep one from being carried out to sea by the strong tides so swimming is out of the question, but that doesn't stop the sand castle builders and shell seekers among us. Today was one of those days. You can see the giant castle Roger and the girls and a couple of friends made.

Building wasn't the only thing we did today at the beach. Being next to the harbor, we got to watch a big container ship drop anchor and turn 180 degrees then "back into" it's place at the dock. It was really cool (no photos of that). Something else that was interesting, was the contrast in the "modern and huge" and the "ancient and tiny" coming into the harbor. Notice the tiny local boat coming in near the huge container ship sitting at dock. (It's not as striking a contrast in the photo as it was in real life, unfortunately.)

It was nice to sit out there with the lovely wind blowing and all. I, Kathy, am not really into the beach, especially big waves and cold water, but today was really nice.

Our girls

Just a quick note. Our girls now have their own blog. You can read their thoughts by clicking here.

stepping back - seeing the bigger picture

Last night we said goodbye to Allain Normand, a visitor from Switzerland. He was here to get to know our school, mediafrique, and visit some media projects in Togo. For 10 days I had the pleasure of picking the brains of this seasoned media practitioner.

It was in fact very refreshing to look at Christian media in West Africa through somebody else’s eyes. I believe he saw and heard things that I no longer notice. It made me think:

• Is media training all that mediafrique can offer?
• Why are we not offering assistance in finding solutions to local problems?
• Why can’t we help radio stations with technical matters?
• Why are we not encouraging others to do “what can’t be done”?
• Why are we not more innovative ourselves?

I came to Togo to make radio work for the church in francophone Africa, so that the gospel might be communicated more effectively. But most of the time I find myself stuck in details. I am pre-occupied with the running of the media school, worrying about balance sheets, timetables and deadlines. Well, somebody’s got to do that…I know. However, it keeps me from seeing the bigger picture and pursuing all my ministry goals. But that's not how I want it be. Therefore, Allain, keep asking questions, even if I don't have any answers.

Finally, a Few Photos

Well, I'll try again to put a few photos of our house on here. So far the internet hasn't been good enough. We'll see.


This is a view from outside our gate. Notice the pretty Traveler's Palm.






This is a view of our garden. Taken before the rains started in earnest. Now it looks much greener.

4th of July (in June)

Yesterday, the US Embassy here in Lomé held a 4th of July celebration. Now I--Kathy--have lived in countries where there are American embassies (as opposed to the US where they aren't needed) for a long time, but have never gone to any 4th of July celebrations. It was really fun. God gave us lovely weather. It had rained up until shortly before we went there and even sprinkled a tiny bit while there. The clouds kept the temperature down and there was just enough of a breeze that it was pleasant. (It may actually be one of the most pleasant days we've had here in Togo--weather -wise.) There was lots of great fun for the kids and they ran around until they nearly dropped. The major highlights were the weather, the games and drinking real Root Beer! We missed out on the hamburgers as they were all gone by the time we got there. We ate Togolese type food instead--which is all that was left!

It was a lovely afternoon and we'll remember it for a long time to come. God keeps providing these little excitements to help us along here and we're very grateful.

As you may have guessed, we have no photos of this outing as it's forbidden to take them at the Embassy, or even around it. Oh well, we have our own "photos" in our minds.

According to Sydney

We have a little bit of potting soil at our house and we have used some of it to start some seeds (they didn’t work because of our over-eager waterers). I needed the rest of our soil so we could mix it all together again and start over.

Now, at our house, if we can’t find something, we ask Elena. This is because she has taken on the duty of knowing what’s in every box, cupboard, drawer, bag or empty milk tin we own. This has its good points and bad points. She often knows about things we’d rather she didn’t know about—like Christmas presents! However, she often knows where things are when the rest of us are totally clueless. I was just sitting on the floor surrounded by linens, trying to put them away when Sydney came in wanting to plant some seeds. Since I had told them earlier that we would do that today, I said we’d get started. Her job was to go and ask Elena where the potting soil was. She went off, only to come back about 2 minutes later to ask me again what “that stuff” was she was to ask Elena for. I said, “Potting soil.” (pronouncing the “t’s” nicely). She went off to ask Elena saying over and over to herself, “pott-ing soil, pott-ing soil, pott-ing soil”.

She just came running back to tell me that Elena didn’t have any idea where the “pot-in-soil” was and that we’d have to look for it ourselves.

I’m really not surprised Elena didn’t know where the “pot-in-soil” was, neither do I.