Amazing.

I really hope you are ready for good long read.  It's time for a big ole blog post with scads of photos and lots of info on what happened in our last two weeks in Togo.  

Ready, set, go!

 I already told you about the long trip there with our church team and what a sweet  reunion I had with Nate and the boys.  It was awesome. 

So let's pick it up after that.

The Stoney Creek team was great -- they worked so hard and got a lot done.  But they did come to understand a little traditional saying we have here in Mango:

WAWA.

West Africa Wins Again.

Despite their best efforts, their dedicated work ethic, their hopes, prayers and moments of frustration, sometimes you just can't win in West Africa.

People's Exhibit A:  Ralph (a mechanic from our church team) and the Packer

On Day One of work Ralph set out to fix the Wacker-Neuson tamper/packer thing.  (This machine is critical to the construction project and has been broken down for some time now.) Every day that I entered the shop for the next few days I would see poor Ralph working on this same machine.  Until the fourth day....when Ralph won.  Or so he thought.  He had it running nicely in the shop for about 15 or 20 minutes and then decided to take the machine outside to give her a whirl.  We all watched as the packer was hoisted outside by the back-hoe and we watched as Ralph started the machine, and we watched as the machine worked amazingly for about 20 seconds and then we all heard this weird grinding popping noise and the packer ground to a halt. 

Poor Ralph.  

He worked on that machine again for the next few days until finally he realized that he needed a part that he couldn't get in Togo.  

The ultimate in frustration.  But Ralph was able to rise above the disappointment and continue on!

We also had Derek (another mechanic from our team) bring some parts from Canada to fix the tractor.  When he got to Togo it turned out that the parts he brought were not the parts that were actually broken on the tractor, but he was able to fix it anyhow.  Awesome!  But on the LAST day of our time there, the tractor broke again...right at 4 pm.  And the part that broke this time was EXACTLY the part that he had brought out.  So he and some of the guys started to replace the entire clutch on the tractor at about 4:30 pm, only took a break for dinner and then finished about 10:30 pm!  A victory!! Hooray!

Another way in which our team suffered in Togo was with Togo Tummy.  Not a good time.

Poor Andrew was one of the first ones to come down with Togo Tummy!

 Even I had a nice little episode of Togo Tummy but thankfully we were all well enough to travel on the way home.  It's so not fun being sick on the nine hour drive south!

The team worked like troopers and got a lot of work done -- here are some on-site photos of them:

This is Nate and Nanier.  Nanier is Teddy's favourite worker on site.

Michelle was busy painting steel perlins that will one day be trusses for Phase 3!

The trusses go up on Phase 2 -- so amazing!  Nate's the guy at the top, John is standing
below him and Andrew is to the left.

This is Mark.  Turns out that Mark is a truss-expert -- isn't it amazing how God
put this team together??

On our work team were two electricians, Mike and Ian.  These guys were totally able to use their gifts to work on site and to also bless one of our fave missionaries, Cindy!  Cindy has had a generator for her home for about a year now, but no one could hook it up for her...until now.  Mike and Ian spent an afternoon there and hooked it up so it's all ready to rock and roll the next time the power goes out in Mango (which is a regular thing there).  Cindy was so thankful that these guys could use their gifts to help her out!

One of my jobs before I left for home was to help on Fridays with payroll.  So John let me help one last time!  Here I am with one of my favourite workers, Dana.  

And here is John and me.  Why are we so happy, you ask?  Because this was the FIRST time we balanced the payroll....ever.  (Actually, when I was away John was able to balance the payroll just fine, so I'm guessing the problem is me.)

On Saturday we took the team north to the village of Dapaong to hike to some caves.  On the way there, we drove on some pretty brutal roads and saw a tonne of little villages.  I kinda have a "thing" for mud huts, so here's some of my best shots:

And when I say the roads are brutal, they are BRUTAL.  Look at this pothole on one of the bridges:

The caves are near the top of this cliff, so we drove up to the top and climbed down to the caves.  

Pretty cool.

On the way home we saw these women working hard in the field, and when we waved....

...they all waved back!!

We took the team to market to buy fabric and then to the sewing school to get some stuff made.  Here's Nate and Mark in their "twinsy" outfits:

THE LAST DAY....

Our last day in Mango was Wednesday and it was a hard day but a great day, in fact, it was an incredible day.

Every morning the Togolese workers meet under 'the tree.'  Nate, the kids and I and the team from our church met there on Wednesday morning so that we could say goodbye. Nate spoke to the workers but he only got a few sentences in before he started to choke up so I finished up for us, saying good bye, letting them know that we love them, love working with them and hope that they come to know the truth of Jesus Christ.  Dale Davis translated for us and by the time it was over he, Nate and I (and a few others that I won't mention) were pretty teary.

  

Here's a pic of all the workers and the rest of us there that morning:

After that I went around to visit some friends and say goodbye.

Here's Odile, me, and Baby Ixosir:

And here's me and Baby Grace.  Her mom is also named Odile.

Then I went to say goodbye to Awa.  That's her baby boy, Mikilu.  Awa is so adorable.  She refers to me as "Madame Cinq Enfant" or Madame Cinq for short.

I also visited Madame Angel, our french tutor.  In the two months I had been away, Madame Angel had lost her mother and her husband to illness.  It was a tough visit.

I got back around 11 am to discover that we were having an Impromptu Baptism Service!!  

It was incredible!!

A couple of weeks prior, our Peace Corp friend, Matt, had decided that he wanted to get baptized.  He had kinda put it off but then at the last minute, he wanted to get it done before we left to come home.  Nolan had also expressed a desire to be baptized and once things got rolling, Ethan also decided that he wanted to be baptized before we left Togo.  Adam led the service and all our missionary co-workers were there.

It was an awesome service and so fantastic to see Nate baptize the boys.

(Baptism is a public declaration of your faith in Jesus Christ, so this is a big step in the lives of our boys as they choose to follow Jesus with their lives -- we are super grateful that they wanted to do this!)

Here goes Ethan:

One grateful daddy:

Nolan's turn!!

Here's Johnny and Jimbo baptizing Matt:

The emotions of Wednesday morning were overwhelming.  I had to carry a Kleenex box with me wherever I went.

Here's Adam and Nate after the service:

For most of the afternoon, we were finishing up packing and then after work hours, some of our Togolese workers came to say good bye.  It was so kind of them. Please pray for these guys:

This is Fousseni.  He is a great carpenter and Nate really enjoyed working
with him.  Please pray for him and his family.

This is Ibrahim.  Ibrahim is a super hard worker and the missionaries would
love to hire him on to work in the hospital once it's up and running.  Sadly,
Ibrahim cannot read and write, so we're trying to find him a tutor.  He's
got such a great work ethic that he'd be an asset to the hospital.  Pray for this guy!

This is Kouami and his wife and girls.  Pray for Kouami.  He's the only Christian
worker on site and he gets a lot of flack for it from the other workers.

This is Kouami's daughter, Esther.  Isn't she adorable??

After all the goodbyes, we went to the guest house for dinner and our entire team of missionaries came too.  They had a little party planned for us including some singing, some praying, an awesome video to say goodbye and a gift of a quilt made by the students at the sewing school.  

It was overwhelming and sad and hard and awesome and brutal.

So that was the last day. 

The big question is -- what now??

We don't know for sure what's going to happen or how it will all go, but this one thing we know:

we want to go back.