Drums, Dancing and Death

The month of February is funeral month here in Kabiyeland (give or take a few days in January or March). Every Kabiye person who has died over the last year will be officially celebrated and honored with a funeral. Don't worry, they bury them shortly after they die and save the big celebration for February. There will be many times during the next month or so when we will see this exact scene repeated over and over as we visit villages or just travel around town. We know that we have a lot to learn about what this month really means to the Kabiye people, and we look forward to this month as a chance to deepen our understanding of Kabiye culture and (spiritually speaking) why they do what they do.

Kabiye Funeral
Uploaded by emersonstogo

This video was taken today as a Brett returned from a hike in the mountains with Daniel, one of our team's current school teachers...

What Is Skype?

Skype
Uploaded by emersonstogo

You, too, can call us on our Skype number. It will only cost you what a normal long distance phone call costs (unless you are in Montgomery, AL, then it is free!). Another great thing about Skype is that it is only connected to our computer and will not wake us up in the middle of the night...so go ahead, pick up your phone and call...no matter what time it is, we'd love to hear your voice. 334.239.3109

My Adopted Son

I've been working with Akla alot lately. We're building a new rabbit enclosure together, and I have enjoyed spending time with him. It's weird because I'm way to young to have a 17 year old son, but for some reason the relationship just works.

Last week Akla came to me with a form for school that needed signing, asking me to give my John Hancock where it said "Parent or Guardian". With his dad passed away and his mother illiterate, I guess that title falls next to me! It is an honor to have this father/son relationship with Akla, to study the Bible with him, to discuss Togo and America, to teach him things and to discipline him when he acts like a 17 year old. I thank God for my adopted son and the blessing of being in deep relationships with the Kabiye people that God called us to give our lives for...

One of the Many Reasons

One of the many reasons I love our job of living in Togo...These yummy veggies (tomatoes and green beans) came from someone we have helped financially in the past. But it's not just a one time thing, we have had special deliveries from many of our friends. It is such a blessing to be thanked with the things that they have. Every time it reminds me of a different story from the Bible when someone gave what they could or what was precious to them. We chose to help these people without the expectation of ever receiving anything, so you can imagine the feeling to open the door one day to this enormous gift. I love this job.

Update

If you read our previous post, we have some exciting updates for you. (If you haven't read it, click here). First, we have a correction to make. Our friend's name is Veronique (vair-own-eek). Secondly, we found out the history behind why she has been in a wheelchair when she came by this morning. She was climbing a tree nearly 15 years ago, helping her family with food, when she fell. Thirdly, during the holidays she was able to raise some of the money herself to be fitted for the braces which will able her to walk. We were so thrilled that she had continued to look for help rather than just waiting for us that we willingly helped with the rest of the costs for the procedure. And lastly, when we asked her when the procedure would take place, she let us know that the doctor said he would do it as soon as she had the money.

Please pray for this doctor, Veronique's family (she is married with three children), and especially Veronique as she learns to walk again. We look forward to sharing pictures with you in the future of Veronique with her "new" legs.

The Lame Walk?

Our faith is being tested. One of our friends, Evangelique, went to the doctor recently, and the doctor told her that she may be able to walk again. Doubt immediately filled our hearts and minds; why is that? Is God not greater than the ailment that has kept Evangelique bound to a hand-powered wheelchair for all of these years? Please pray with us as God's plan for Evangelique and the role that we will play in her life is revealed...

My Parents Visit

There are few things that could be more emotional for me as a missionary than having my mom and dad come to visit us here in Togo. For two wonderful weeks, we got to share our lives here with them in every possible way. They got to see the good, the bad, the really bad, the beautiful and the profound way that God is working over here. The best thing about their visit is that now they "get it". Having them play with our boys and enjoying their presence in our home was wonderful, but knowing that we no longer have to try and explain our lives to two of the people we love most is priceless. Thanks Mom and Dad for making the trip over. We'll never forget it!

Immaculee

Being a mom of two very young boys, I have found my involvement in our ministry here in Kara to be quite different than what I thought almost two years ago before we arrived. I am more involved with the people that come to our home rather than who I meet out in the villages. I am perfectly content to be experiencing ministry this way as it allows me to be involved 100% in the ministry I am first called to...my family. There are a few Togolese women that I have developed relationships with. Most of them only stop by asking for help occasionally, making it difficult to build a strong relationship. Then there is Immaculee (ee-mah-que-lay).
Her story is an interesting one. More than 10 years ago, she was Immaculee Ward, living in Boston with her husband and baby girl. Now, she lives alone in Kara. She speaks English well but desires to improve it so she can have good conversations with her daughter, who is still in the States. She is eager to help me with my French while I help her with her English. While in America, she was trained as a hair dresser and desires to use this talent here in Togo too. Unfortunately for her, Brett likes my hair long. ;) She does what she can to have money to eat and buy soap. As a mother myself, I understand her longing to see her daughter again. It is that emotional connection that keeps me doing what I can to help her make contact with her friends and family in America. I explained to her last week that I do want to help her...but I want to help her in a way that insures that she can take care of herself in the future. Please pray for Immaculee as she struggles through daily life in Togo while desiring to be somewhere else. I also ask that you pray for me to have wisdom in knowing the best way to handle her situations...to help her, not to hinder her or her relationships.

An Erasable Message Board of Truth

On a recent trip to Accra, Ghana, I snapped this pic by the side of the road. While this is a truly powerful message that rightly deserves it's place, the message itself is not what profoundly struck me. Here's what did...

First of all, this is NOT a church sign as you might suspect. This is a sign out in front of a lumberyard! In my home culture, this sign would only find it's place outside of a place of worship, put there for passersby to read and soak up in conjunction with the insanity of everyday life. I am a huge fan of truth in the midst of chaos, but what do these church signs that read, "No Jesus, No Peace, Know Jesus, Know Peace" really accomplish for the kingdom? Not much, at least not in my humble opinion. They are more for the church goer than the pagan neighbor type. The fact that a regular business venture would put this out in front of it's cedar and mahogany planks is foreign to my cultural norms...

The 2nd and most profound thing that I noticed did not come to me immediately, but only after driving past the exact same sign 3 days later. You see, this message is written on an erasable chalkboard, and when I passed by again after my time in Accra, it displayed an entirely different message of truth about God. This next time it said, "God is Eternal".

I hope that my life is like an erasable message board of truth. I hope that everyday, the people I encounter in my life and ministry in Africa can see a new truth about God just by observing the way I live my life. May it be so for all of us; may our lives simply and distinctly reflect truths about our God, our Savior and His Spirit that dwells in us...

Prayers for the Millers and Reeves

Our teammates the Millers and the Reeves left last week for a 2 week survey trip to Rwanda. Both families plan on making the move to Rwanda sometime in the next 3 years or so, and this trip will help to pave the way for that eventual transition. They are a part of the Musanze Team, which also includes the Crowsons and the Koonces, our colleagues in southern Togo, and the Robinsons, who are currently in the States preparing for the big move. The Musanze Team, minus the Robinson family

Please pray not only for their comings and goings, but also that God would bless them with great experiences. Especially for their children, that God would use this trip to begin helping them deal with the coming uncertainty. Thanks and God bless!

How Did You Find My Blog?

Following are the top 5 Google keywords from the last week that were typed in and eventually led to this blog:

1) "Flooding in Togo" (glad I could help make people aware of this problem)
2) "Akpema" (this is the female initiation ceremony for Kabiye girls)
3) "Three village football schedule" (I have no idea on this one...)
4) "Emerson's Mission" (we'd like to clarify that it's God's mission; we're just along for the ride!)
...and finally, maybe the greatest keyword that has ever led to this blog...
5) "Madness, it's all madness!" (this was said by our good friend Faires Jones while he was visiting us here in Togo; his words will forever be famous!)

These are just the top 5...somehow, people continue to find us in weird ways!

500 and Counting!

508 to be exact. That is how many CFA we can currently get for 1 of our American dollars. The CFA (SEE-fah) is our local currency here in Togo. We get paid in American dollars just like everybody else, but we must then withdraw money from the ATM here in town to pay for anything and everything. Living in a 100% cash society has it's challenges, and the fluctuation of currencies is just one of them.

For several months the exchange rate was about 420 CFA for each dollar, which meant that we had a lot less money. Let me give you a simple math example. If I take $1,000 worth of CFA out of the ATM at 420 CFA for each dollar, I get 420,000 CFA. If I take out $1,000 worth of CFA at 508 CFA for each dollar, I get 508,000 CFA. The difference in these two transactions is 88,000 CFA, or about $175!!! As you can see, a lower exchange rate greatly reduces our buying power here. Considering that we take thousands upon thousands of dollars out of the ATM each year becaause we live in a cash based society, having the CFA back up around 500 is a huge blessing to our personal lives here, and it also lets us help people more in our benevolence ministry.

It's interesting to me that the quick rise of the exchange rate has come hand in hand with the economic crisis is America. I'm not an economist, and I don't claim to know why these two events are linked, but they are. We have been praying for everyone in America as the financial crisis continues, but it may help you to know that your missionaries are a little better off now than they were a few weeks ago :)

Reflections on the GracePointe Group

I want to share some of my thoughts on the first group of visitors from GracePointe, our sponsoring church in Montgomery, AL. No disrespect to Charles Campbell, who was truly our first visitor (singular) :)
This group brought an amazing set of gifts to the table. It was well balanced, and the 5 of them meshed together incredibly well despite many differences, like life stage, age, personality, and on and on. One of the best things about living in community as Christ-followers is that none of that really matters! Even taking that last sentence into consideration, describing this group in many ways involves putting them into groups but please note that this group was in no way divided!
First Let me talk about Scotty and Faires. These two guys provided the spiritual guidance and thoughtfulness that the group needed. Scotty is a great preacher, and like all great preachers, he always has a word from God ready and appropriate to any given situation. The man lives and breathes the Word of God! He was also very gung ho and ready for just about anything at anytime. He provided us with some comic relief as well, sometimes in the moment and sometimes upon further reflection. Scotty loved the beauty of the area of Togo where we live, espcially the coconut trees :)
Faires is a man that is very intimate with God; he knows His heart and is known fully by Him. It's great to be around someone who is so in tune with spiritual matters. He also knows his place in relationship to God; I heard him call himslef a sinner living only because of God's grace on more than one occassion. Faires is very tough as well. There are very few 67 year old people who could endure the physical hardships of a trip to Togo with it's 10 hours car rides, awful roads and hot weather, but Faires is not your typical 67 year old man. I'm only 31, and I hope that in 36 more years I will be half as tough as Faires! The man is also genuinely funny. He kept us all rolling with his often random comments coming from the backseat of the car or with a playful jab at one of us. "Madness, it's all madness!" will forever echo in my mind :)
When I picture Scotty and Faires, I see them sitting together in our rocking chairs out on the front porch. Those two spent HOURS out there!The conversations about God that streamed in through the windows at all hours of the day or night were a blessing to me, even if they didn't know I was listening...
Betsy and Sheal Lea...what a tandem! These two are obviously good friends, but they are friends in a way that doesn't exclude others, but draws them in instead. Betsy is my sister-in-law, but you can just scratch the in-law part. She is my sister, and I love her very much. She holds the distiction of being the first member of the Emerson side of the family to make a visit over here, narrowly beating out my parents by a month or so. Betsy experienced life here to the full. She has the ability to realize the meaningfulness of a moment while she is still in the moment. She is also a very thoughtful person. We felt loved and cared about by her in a major way. She is an emotional person, sometimes more so than she lets on, and she allows God to use that emotion to bless others. Betsy is also a true seeker; she loves God and wants to know Him more. She is mostly quiet about her spiritual side, but that is not because it is small or not important to her. Her love for God runs just below the surface, and it guides her actions daily. She played alot with the boys too, which is not a stretch for her since she has 3 of her own, and Caden will definitely remember her being here and spending time with him :)Shea Lea is awesome. She is fun, outgoing, energetic, organized and mindful of others. She brought something extra to the group, that "go get 'em" type attitude that can be very infectious (although Faires never quite caught it!). The rest of the group claims that they would have been lost without her organizational skills, and we could see that in her as well during her brief time here. One of the greatest things about Shea coming here was how passionate she became to be an advocate for us and to even join the GracePointe Missions Committee. We love knowing that we have another strong person fighting for us back home :) On a personal level, I realized that Shea and I have tons in common. We grew up during the same era, and we have lots of common experiences in our pasts. I enjoyed getting to know her as a friend during this trip! To top it all off, she makes awesome balloon animals, and she was a big hit with all of the Kabiye kids she interacted with :)Finally we come to Susan. Let me say first thing that Susan was one of the best visitors we have ever had over here, and a personal favorite of mine. She is the kind of person who loves people and refuses to let language be a barrier, using instead an endless supply of smiles, hugs, hand gestures and silliness to connect with them and communicate God's love. It pains me that an accident where she hurt her foot and neck cut down on her time out and among the people. Seriously, it pains me! I loved watching her out in the village those first couple of days, and the picture of Susan smiling and laughing as some village children touched her hair will be the one that I always carry with me. Susan is also a wonderful mother figure to April and I. She has that loving quality and compassion that only mothers who have raised grown children truly have, and she embraced April and I with that love. I know that God smiles when he watches Susan live her life, and she is a joy to everyone around her as well :)In summary, we were incredibly blessed by these 5 as individuals and as a group. The only thing we would have changed would have been more time with them, as they only had about a week to experience a month's worth of our lives and work. They just scratched the surface, but they did it with joy, great attitudes and a desire to learn. To Scotty, Faires, Besty, Shea Lea and Susan: We love you deeply, and we thank you for making the effort and sacrifice to come so far and visit us. We now have 5 people who better understand our lives and care immensely for us, and that will live on for a long time to come. God bless you!

Africa Moment #9 - Ghana 4 Obama

I guess this is more of a series of Africa moments. I have been informally interviewing alot of Africans lately, and they have so far been 100% for Senator Obama. It would be completely normal to see dozens upon dozens of Obama '08 bumper stickers, shirts, hats and even large banners on the streets and malls of just about any town in America. But to see this in Togo and even more so in Ghana just seems strange.
It shows me that the world is watching; it also shows me that many of these residents of small West African nations care more about who is president in my homeland than I do! I readily admit my apathy towards politics, but this election has something special about it, and its not Senator McCain :) Not since I was living in Italy in the fall of 2000 and saw the craziness of the Bush/Gore debacle unfold from afar have I been at all interested in who is running things. This year I may just drive the 6 hours down to the American Embassy and cast my vote. It would be incredible to think back and realize that it was a group of Ghanaians I met at the Accra airport while waiting for visitors to arrive that inspired me to jump back into the politial process!

Childhood Memories of Church

I have some vivid memories of what church was like when I was little. I remember how my friends and I would wait completely impatiently for the mandatory Wednesday night pre-Bible class worship time to be over so we could race upstairs to our room... Who finished first on a weekly basis was of the utmost importance in our lives. I remember every Bible class teacher I ever had, from Miss Ruth, to Miss Cindy, to Mr...oh wait, men aren't allowed to teach Bible class to kids until they are in high school :) Before that, it's a woman's role (please acknowledge the bleeding sarcasm in that sentence!).
What will my kids remember about church? I ask myself that most Sundays. Will they have any recollection that they were the only kid with the same color skin as them? Or will they be color blind, as we all should be? Will they remember chasing chickens and goats? Or will they remember being chased by African kids who would give anything just to touch their curly blond hair? Will they remember being passed around from woman to woman, each one taking their once in a very long while turn with the Yovo baby? Or will they remember passing person after person on the road, wondering if they have yet come to know Jesus? Will they remember playing on the wooden logs being used to prop up the falling mud wall of the church building? Or will they remember playing on the jungle gym at our traditional Sunday afternoon lunch spot?Whatever it is that my boys remember, I desperately hope that they remember it well. Our time in Africa will always be a part of who they are, and I want that to only be for the better. I pray for my boys each and every day, that they will be better people for what they have experienced here. Their memories will be different than just about everyone else's, and I trust that God will use their unique upbringing to bring glory to His name...

Light And Momentary Troubles

We have become somewhat accustomed to the trials of living in Togo, often expecting bad things to happen for no good reason. What we have not learned is how to predict the crazy things that happen to our family. What kind of things you ask? Well, let us give you a small glimpse into the "light and momentary troubles" we have experienced these past few weeks. We don't write this to gather sympathy but to remind ourselves to see God's blessings amidst the trials.

First this...
Can you figure it out? That's the dryer on the right of the picture. Here's what happened...We had called our friend Adam (who is an amazing electrician!) to come fix a few small things for us. When he arrived it was raining; when he left it was raining. Not 3 minutes after he left we noticed the microwave was not on. Through some investigating of our own we discovered there were several sockets in the kitchen not working. We attempted to figure out which breakers ran those sockets. As Brett was flipping switches, we heard an odd buzzing sound. Within seconds we were smelling smoke. As we searched for the source, we discovered the smoke in our small laundry room. Thankfully the fire had stopped when we turned the breaker off. The wall around the socket was black and the dryer plug was completely melted into the socket. We quickly called Adam to return! He worked all afternoon to repair our problems (including the non-working sockets in the kitchen), even cleaning the black soot off our wall. Now this is NOT a common practice in Togo. Most workers do their work and leave their mess for someone else to clean up. But Adam, he took the time to not only clean up his mess but also the damage that had occurred before he even arrived. Aside from the cost of a few parts for the job, his labor only cost us $10! This is not the first time Adam has been a blessing to our family.

The other crazy occasion we experienced occurred about 3:30 one morning. Yes, I said morning. The weather has been very comfortable during the rainy season allowing us to sleep with the windows open (sorry Southerners who are experiencing heat during the day and night, but you have A/C anywhere and everywhere!). We were startled awake by the window blowing our curtains parallel to the ceiling. We both bolted out of bed and began rushing around closing windows as we knew the rain was either falling or would be very soon. I (April) began with our room as Brett (I learned later) headed for the playroom. We met at the boys' room. As I walking down the hall to the living room, I watched Brett slip and fall. The following thoughts happened at lightning speed: how could Corban's slobber still be on the floor, oh wait, that's water, oh my goodness, I can see the water in the air, oh no! the rain is flying in the windows! Brett are you OK? Quick, close the windows. It was at that moment we discovered that EVERYTHING was wet...tile floor, rug, couch, toys, computer, wooden chair (that we now know is stained because it was running off the chair onto the floor), pictures, walls, car seats and shoes (that were on the porch). We mopped up what we could, turned on the fans, and went back to bed. What else could we do? Nothing. Everything seems to be back to its original state and has dried out nicely.

We praise God that no one was injured during these two crazy experiences. It has taken me several days to put this post together. During that time Satan attacked our family once again. Brett seemed to catch a virus the guys on the team were passing around and Caden has something that is causing him to have diarrhea. I have never changed so many cloth diapers in one day! This is part of the reason it has taken me several days to write this post. So I ask you to pray for our family. For healing. For protection. For peace. For wisdom to see the blessings amidst the trials.

May we all learn to see the blessings of God during the times of joy and the times of stress.

Well Project Update

The well project that many of you have been praying about and even contributing funds to has had to be put on hold. Because of the excessive rains, the ground has become too saturated to drill. David Reeves (the lead guy on the project) decided to stop until at least the end of September and maybe even into October. This also has the advantage of allowing the villagers to finish up their work in the fields and harvest their crops, which will free more people up to help in the drilling process.
The drilling is very cheap to do but is also very labor intensive. Free labor is easy to come by when you are offering people a clean water well right near their home! Here are some pictures that I took out in the village of Ewede that show a little bit of the process. Basically you have two people shoving the pipe with the drill bit on the end into the small hole (about 4 inches in diameter) while two or more people pull on the rope that is attached to the pipe to help pull it back out of the hole. By some process I don't really understand, the water, dirt and sand is sucked up through the pipe and spit out onto the ground beside the hole. I can tell you from personal experience that this is hard work! It seems to use muscle groups that I have apparently never used even once in my entire life. Of course, the Kabiye take it all in stride an work as tirelessly as I would if I were merely raking leaves or washing my car. Seriously, those guys are amazingly tough and hard working! I always tell them, "Malaki tumiye ne mo noo deke", which means, "I only do work with my head". They always laugh at me in a slightly dismissive way :)Finally, this little guy wants to know, "Are YOU praying for the Kabiye and the Well Project?!?!?"

Africa Moment #8

If you're ever living in Africa and missing the comforts of home, why not try "Al Donalds"? They may only have one arch, but they have lots of mediocre, over-priced food, and that is all we really want, right?

Yes, it exists (in Lome'), and yes, we ate there. You even get your food in a dirty black plastic sack!!! Ah, Africa...

Internet, Schminternet

Who needs the internet, really? Truth be told, we all do, in one way or another. Here in Togo, we have set up our lives to be somewhat dependent on a reliable internet connection, and as I sit here and type, I realize that we may have made a mistake on the front end :)

So few things are reliable here. After our house was struck by lightning almost 2 weeks ago, we didn't expect to have our phone line repaired (and thus our internet) for quite awhile. Even after visiting the telephone company office and being assured that a technician was on his way, we knew better than to really think that it would happen. And so, 2 weeks later, our phone line is finally fixed...but the internet still is not working. I'm sitting at a local restaurant that happens to have wireless internet (a marvel in and of itself) and pondering my next move. We have set up our lives to be dependent on the internet; after making that bed, we are now lying in it :)

My mom said that we must be doing some good things over here because bad things keep happening to us, and maybe there is wisdom in that. We will continue to take it in stride, and we ask everyone back home to do the same with us. We may not get back to you in a timely fashion, but we will eventually, we promise. We love and value you all so very much!

Severe Flooding in Togo

You may remember that last year there were dangerous floods that killed and displaced thousands of people in northern Togo. Well, chaos is reigning once again, but this time the entire country is being affected. Torrential rains have done much damage already, including flooding fields, knocking out bridges and even taking lives, and the rainy season is not even close to being over. I am not exaggerating when I say that the country in many ways is teetering on the edge of disaster. You can read more about the current flooding here and here.

Please pray for our country and it's people as you read this post. Keep all of us in your prayers in the coming weeks, asking God to bring order to the current chaos. The flooding will surely affect our lives in some ways, in fact it already has, but it will be nothing compared to the suffering of the Togolese people living in villages and rural areas where the water gets out of control. Please Lord, have mercy!