One Month Today

We’ve been in Togo for exactly one month today.  And you know what’s even crazier than that?  It’s exactly 4 years ago tomorrow that Kylie hurt her foot – and to think of all that happened after December 16, 2012 and now, here we are, by God’s grace, back in Togo and Kylie is healed. 

How incredible to look back along the path and see how God worked on our behalf!  We weren’t sure we’d ever be able to come back here and look – here we are.

So it’s been a quite a month.  Man, if you could just pop over for a cup of coffee I could tell you story after story, some funny, some not-so-much.  Since you likely aren’t popping over and I don’t drink coffee anyhow, let me tell you a couple…

Furniture Shopping in the Middle of the Night

Our house here in Togo is great.  It has three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living/dining area and a kitchen.  I’ll show you photos some day so you get an idea of what it’s like. The one thing we don’t have much of is actual furniture.  It’s not like you can pop over to Leon’s and pick out a sofa or a dining table.

Turns out though, there is a Facebook buy and sell page for missionaries in Togo -  a Kijiji of Togo!  And lo, and behold, there was a wooden cabinet for sale which would be PERFECT for storing things….any thing….school supplies, computers, paper, scotch tape, you get the idea.  So I contacted Jim, the seller, who happens to be a missionary we know in Kara, a city about 2 hours south of us.

Jim was more than happy to sell me the cabinet. We just weren’t sure how we were going to get it north to Mango. Nate suggested that Jim put it on a taxi and have it driven here where we could meet up with the taxi driver and bring the cabinet home.

A beautiful plan.  We don’t have to drive four hours for a cabinet. Jim doesn’t have to offer free delivery.  Win-win.  What could go wrong?

On Monday night we get a call from Jim. He has been able to secure a taxi ride for the cabinet and it will be leaving Kara around 7:30 pm which means arriving in Mango at the gas station for around 9:30 or 10 pm. Perfect.

At 10:30 pm, I contact Jim. I haven’t heard a word from the taxi driver and just want to make sure that the cabinet is on the way.  Jim calls the taxi driver. In true Togo fashion, the taxi driver thought he might be able to find a few more people eager to head north, so he’s just about ready to leave Kara at this point.  Meaning that he’ll arrive in Mango at the gas station around 12:30 or 1 a.m. 

Poor Jim.  He was super apologetic. I just laughed and laughed (because honestly, I’ve done enough crying since we got here but that’s another blog post).  Why would we ever think that things would go right here in Togo?

At this point I had a dilemma: wait up for the taxi driver’s phone call as not to miss it or go to sleep and hope I hear my phone.  I decided to risk it and sleep.

And it’s a good thing I did.  My phone did ring but it was exactly 3:47 am. The taxi driver simply says (in French):  I’m here. At the gas station.  My response: we’ll be there in 10 minutes.  So I wake up Nate, who wakes up our guard (yes, he’s asleep on duty – that’s par for the course here).  The guard puts his clothes on and let’s us out of our gate.  We drive to the gas station where we see our VERY big cabinet sitting in the parking lot with about 7 men standing around it.  Nate has one comment:  “It will never fit in this vehicle.”

Oh dear.

The seven Togolese  men and Nate gave a Herculean effort of trying to get it in the vehicle but alas, it was not to be.  As they hoisted it on to the roof, they busted a hinge on the cabinet door and scratched the front of it, then tied it up there with some cord.  I mean, that should do it, right?

By 4:15 am we’re back on the road headed home. Nate makes his second comment of the night:  “I wouldn’t be upset at all if it fell off and shattered into a million pieces.”

You can tell he was super thrilled with my purchase.

We got home. We parked the vehicle. We went back to bed.

The End.

(P.S. We did get it off the roof of the car, the hinge was repaired and it now sits in our living room holding all sort of things and even Nate admits it wasn’t a bad idea…just making memories)

 

The Cabinet.

Little G, Big GOD

This is our little buddy, “G”.  He’s in the hospital right now because he was climbing a tree, fell out, broke his back and is now paralyzed from the waist down. We met him a couple of weeks ago when we were volunteering with Kids Club on Saturday afternoons here on the hospital grounds.

Our little friend.

Let me back up a bit.  Every Saturday afternoon, from 3 to 5 pm there is a group of crazy missionaries who invite kids from the community to come, play games, sing songs, have a snack and hear a story.  They’re often short on helpers so Nolan and Kylie have been recruited to help while Jack and Teddy have become participants. The whole thing is done in French so it’s great for our kids to be interacting with French speaking children and learning songs and stories all in French.

Jack took a photo of me and G.

If there are any kids (and there often are) in the hospital who can come out onto the field and watch the games (or participate), then we bring them on out to enjoy some fun.  This is when G entered our lives. 

I think he might be about 10 years old. And he lives in a village that is not exactly what you’d call “accessible.” But he is always so happy to see Kylie and I when we pop in to visit him in the hospital.  He greets us with a big smile.  For the past two weeks of Kids Club Jack has sat on the side lines with G and taught him to take photos on my cell phone or thrown a ball back and forth with him.

Jack playing catch and throw on the sideline with G and another boy, R.

But here’s the kicker.  G is from a village that practices voodoo.  He has one family member in particular that stays with him at the hospital and this family member is deeply entrenched in some seriously evil stuff.  It is known that she has plans for G when they get back to her village. These are plans that you and I could not fathom.

When I heard this, I could hardly grasp it. So we started to pray.  G is in danger and we’ve been asking God to save him, both now and in eternity.  We’re praying for the family member.  We’re praying for an alternative place for him to live.

And God is providing.  Another close family member of G has been contacted and was supposed to arrive today from another country to come and get him.  I left the hospital at 3:30 pm and this family member had not yet arrived but thankfully G is not quite done his treatment here so we have a little bit of time on our side.

A little bit of time and a great big God.

I have to reassure myself and my kids as we pray daily for him that God knows him, He loves him and He cares about what happens to him. We pray and pray and pray for this little friend.  As I pushed him in his wheel chair today, I prayed.  He asked me to make SURE I remember to come and get him when it’s time for Kids Club on Saturday afternoon.  You can be certain I won’t forget to go get him.

Would you PLEASE join us in praying for this boy?  He desperately needs Jesus.  His family and his village desperately need Jesus. They need to be brought out of the darkness into the Light.

This is the kind of stuff our hospital staff and chaplains face daily at the Hospital of Hope. It’s hard, faith-stretching, heart-wrenching, on-your-knees daily stuff.

We have claimed Micah 7:7 over this boy:  “I watch in hope. I wait for God my Saviour. My God will hear me.” Amen.

Merry Christmas!