2 Months On

Well, it is now exactly 2 months since I last wrote.  So much has happened since then.  We got enough boxes and found storage space.  Our dog found a home and we got everything taken care of.  We even enjoyed staying in an "American" house the last 2 or 3 nights in Togo.  It had central air and was extremely pleasant!

We are now in Germany and have been for a month.  It's lovely to be here.  Coming to Germany is for us like a holiday.  No more work.  No more telephone.  No more sweating constantly.  No more getting up early to get going each day, etc.  We just enjoy being here and visiting and doing things we don't usually get to do.

We've gotten to do a number of the things on our list of things we couldn't wait to do, like wear jeans and closed shoes--it's kinda cold and rainy here in Germany this summer--and eat.  The jeans are nice but I must admit that closed shoes are not as comfortable as I thought they would be.  Actually, because of the second thing, the jeans aren't fitting as well as they did when we first arrived.  Gotta make sure we do a bit more walking and less eating, but it all tastes so good!!

Only a month until we head to the US.  Then we get to have summer a bit before experiencing fall and winter.  The girls get to go to school and Roger and I are looking into courses we can take.  For Roger this is more urgent but he isn't finding what he is looking for.  We'll see.

Nearly time!!!

Well, we now have exactly 24 days until we leave. It's hard to believe it's finally nearly time to head home for a year-ish. We fly on the 27th to Germany and then again on the 8th August to the US. It's exciting. However, it's hard just now. We have to pack everything but still need to use a lot of it. We don't have enough boxes to pack in and we don't yet have the pressure of time pushing us to get on with it. Therefore, we sort of go thru a few things and make messes in every room, but don't really get a lot done.

There are lots of things we are looking forward to seeing, doing or eating. Here are a few:

 1. seasons, not just hot and rainy or even hotter and no rain, but real seasons, where you have to wear different clothes

 2. family and friends...not a lot of explanation needed there

 3. broetchen (in Germany) and bagles (in America)...Yummmm

4. Rob's steak

 5. fresh milk 

 6. experiencing long evenings

7. grilling and just sitting outside and actually enjoying it 

 8. stockbrot (roasting bread over a fire and eating it with a filling)

9. wearing jeans and closed shoes

10. fast internet 

 11. kids going to school—no homeschool!

12. time away from kids and vice versa, time away from parents—we're ALWAYS together here. Sounds like a good thing but when always together means always in the same house and rarely having anything else to do or anywhere else to go, without parents, is tiring.

This list could go on and on. Mostly with food. We're all looking forward to being home. We really should get started packing...

A wedding gift

After 16 years and 3 weeks of marriage, I got a wedding gift. What a surprise! This gift is that old as well. It's spent more time in Africa than I have in those years and has seen lots more trauma and destruction than I have. It is a big Kitchen Aid mixer that we received as a wedding gift in 1996.



We got married in Kansas and then went to Germany. By the middle of 1996, we were on our way back to Zaire. All our wedding gifts were packed in a container along with other people's things and left Europe not long after we did.

We arrived in Zaire in June or July 1996 and by November, the civil war had begun and we had to evacuate. Our gifts were in a container, in Uganda, waiting to be taken to Zaire. Eventually, we went to England to Bible school and our things, along with a few missionaries, went on to Zaire. Unfortunately, the civil war got worse again and the missionaries had to leave a 2nd time after only a few months. This time our things were there and most were looted. Through the years, we've heard of a few things that people have found with our names on them and once we even received an IGLOO water cooler and a study Bible, among a few other things. However, we had figured it was all lost and we were just glad we weren't lost with them.

For the past 3 ½ weeks, Roger was in Congo (as Zaire is now called...again) to do some training. He got to stay in a room in our house, the one we lived in for 6 days before evacuating. He returned last Saturday, with a red ActionPacker (very rare these days, so I knew it was something of ours) and told me he had a wedding gift in it. I opened it to find the mixer. It still had its packing foam around it and the plastic bowl guard was even unbroken. How it survived is beyond me. It is truly a gift since we never dreamed we'd see any of our things again! How exciting to actually be able to use one of our wedding gifts, 16 years later.

Streams in the Desert

In early December Elena, Fiona and I drove to Niamey, the capitol of Niger, to visit “Sahel Academy”. While the girls checked out the boarding school as a possible option for their future schooling, I drove with my colleagues about 20 minutes away from the fertile banks of the Niger River, right into the desert. We visited a plot of land, a gift from the government of Niger. Although this place seemed dry and barren to me, I was about to discover showers of blessings and stories of faith.

Almost ten years ago a native missionary from the DRCongo had been sent to Niger to start a media ministry, which produces Christian radio programs in the languages of several unreached people groups of the Sahel. Today, these programs in the Hausa, Serma and Fulfulde languages, are heard on commercial FM stations, on MW and SW transmitters and even on the Internet. There is a stream flowing from the desert.

To advance this ministry, the church is turning the wilderness into a house of blessing. With the help of our friends from IBRA-Media, a new recording studio is going to be built. What excites me most about this project is the local support it receives. Christians from many different churches and denominations are participating generously. Brick by brick they are giving to build “their studio”.


Mr. Mo is one of the national radio producers.
He was trained by mediAfrique in 2010.

On the plot of land, where one day the studio will stand, I encountered another miracle: a family of new believers. Mr. Ali was trained by Iranians to convert Christians to Islam! In his zeal he studied the Bible to refute Christianity. But the Word of God touched him and when he heard Christian radio programs explaining the message, he believed. He and his wife became followers of Christ. When Mr. Ali’s relatives rejected and disowned him, the radio people who had produced the programs took care of him and gave him the job of guarding over their property in the desert. Here he has built a temporary home, for his wife and children. But he also built a small house of prayer, as he calls it. It is here that he prays and meets with other people. In his church.


Note: Names and faces have been changed for security reasons.

Merry Christmas from Togo

For us, here in Togo, we celebrated semi-German-style. That means we went to the church service on Christmas Eve and then opened presents in the evening. I wanted to celebrate on Christmas Day so that there would be a day between Sydney's birthday and Christmas, but Roger wanted a German Christmas. Oh well...

Anyway, we went to the Seaman's Mission for a joint German/French service. We didn't pay attention to the starting time so assumed it was at 6pm. We got there and no one else was there. On the door, as we walked in, we found out the reason, we were an hour early! (Honestly, who starts their Christmas Eve service at 7pm?) We decided to hang out at the "Chinese Wal-Mart" (you think Wal-Mart has cheap-Chinese-junk, you should see this) and at the only posh hotel in town. We bought a $4 bottle of water and hung out until just before 7. As Roger went to pay, he found out that there was a Christmas bazaar of sorts just outside so we went for a look. Of course, that meant we were late to the service (much more our style)--the last ones seated, and NOT under a fan. After sweating thru the service (it just isn't right to sweat thru the Christmas Eve service), we chatted to a few people and headed home. On the way, Roger complained about the car driving funny (it always drives funny, just sometimes it's funnier than others). About half way home, we heard a funny noise and Elena looked out to see a very flat tire. There was no place to stop so we had to keep going until we got to a filling station where it was safe to stop and change it. Of course there were dozens of onlookers and a few even offered to help. The tire was completely ruined by this point. Roger got it changed (glad I wasn't alone!) and at 9:30pm, we finally ate a rather overcooked Christmas dinner, which had been in the crockpot waaaaay too long. It still tasted ok and we had fun opening presents as well afterward.

Today, we have friends coming to eat dinner with us and play games, or watch a movie, or swim in the little pool, or just hang out.

Merry Christmas Y'all!!

Trash Talk, the Saga Continues

Well, we finally talked to the head man at the trash company. He says that the mayor won't allow them to dump trash in the same place they were dumping it so apparently that affects why they come only once a week--most of the time. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to us. He said we must just buy bigger trash barrels to put outside so we have lots of space to hold trash while it sits out there waiting to be collected. It might not be a bad idea, but 2 things keep me from wanting to do this. 1.) The new barrels may very well sprout legs and go away, and 2.) is that the guys who pick up trash are REALLY rough and will destroy the barrels pretty quickly, I've no doubt. We'll see. We've talked to another man about collecting our trash starting in the new year. Maybe he'll be better.

Anyway, I wish you all a Merry Christmas. Can't wait until next year when we also get to celebrate in the US!!

Trash Talk

About 2 years ago, the officials who do that kind of thing, decided that there would be various new groups in charge of collecting trash and disposing of it. The big man of Etablissment Ame came to our house and told us that we, as “preferred customers”, would pay 4,000cfa per month (that's about $8) for them to come around twice a week to collect our trash. We realized right away that 4,000 was way more than others pay (“preferred” is just another way to say, “pay more”) so Roger negotiated and we got them down to 3,000cfa per month. No problem, right? They were to come by with their little mini tractor and high-sided trailer on Mondays and Thursdays. Apart from taking 2 months longer to get started than they said, it all went well for the first bit.

For the last year, at least, they wouldn't come at all for 2 weeks. Our trash sat outside the gate on the road all the time. It smelled, collected various trash from anyone else who wanted to add to it and was scrounged thru by anyone or anything who went by. The money collector was very prompt to come by on the first of the month and I finally got to where I would tell him what I thought of his ability to collect money each month, but not trash. One time I even told him I'd pay as soon as the trash was collected, since it had been there for 2 ½ weeks. The tractor came by within the same morning.

Then, I began calling them when the trash sat for longer than the allotted time. The man on the other end was always very patronizing and sometimes even this didn't get results very quickly. (If you want to REALLY get on my nerves, be patronizing to me!) Anyway, I got tired of spending my money to call them 4-5 times a month and decided to just let the trash sit.

Then our war entered a new phase (or whatever wars enter). At the end of October, our trash sat there nearly 2 weeks. The first of November came and the guy hadn't come by to collect his money—very irregular. I realized he was only coming when the trash had been collected. Sure enough, they picked the trash late on the 3rd and, like clockwork, there he was at 8am the next morning. I told him I knew he'd finally come that morning because the trash had finally been collected. He denied it until I said that I knew I was right. He just shrugged and gave a goofy smile. I said that since the trash was to be collected 2 times a week for 3000cfa, but was only collected, on average, once a week—half the service—I'd only pay half the money. You pay for the service you get, right? We argued a while and he said his boss would come that night. He never came—wasn't in town, apparently. Finally, just before then end of the month, we agreed to give him 2000cfa since they had collected trash just more than half the time. I called the boss and he hasn't come round, except once, late and we couldn't talk to him by then. I still haven't paid this month and don't plan to until the boss comes round and talks about it. If it's that big of a deal to him, surely he'll show up some day.

I realize this is a pitiful battle to fight. Afterall, what is $6 a month? However, I get tired of being taken advantage of. When we arrive at the market, prices usually go up. That's just the way it is. Fine, I argue prices just like the rest of them, but these people wouldn't argue properly. They didn't “play by the rules” and used the fact that they are the only business doing this in our area to get more money out of us. I seriously doubt I'll win the battle. Only if the contract actually says they come 2 times a week—which I think it does—will I have any grounds. Oh well, I just chose to fight this time and we'll see how it turns out. I'll let you know.