August 18th, 2011

I can not believe I leave tomorrow. I’m not real happy about it.  There are plenty of things I am looking forward to when I get home, but the idea of finding a job and moving sounds like too much of a hassle- especially after getting used to the easy and relaxed way of life around here.  I’m definitely excited for this next chapter of my life, but I think vacationing and traveling the world for the rest of my life sounds much better haha.  I don’t think my parents would be too thrilled if I ditched my plane so I will be back in the states on Saturday. J

I went on an awesome adventure the other day.  Samuel, Josiah (just graduated form high school, spending 6 months out here with one of the families), and I hiked to the top of the highest mountain right near the compound.  There are a few families living up there, and a few young boys were our tour guides for a while.  The kids absolutely loved hanging out with us!  We ran across a man that spoke some English and he led us to the river where they get their water and to a church.  I’d say this is one of the coolest churches in Togo because it has an incredible view, overlooking Tsiko and Adeta.  Instead of taking the trail back down we (well, mostly I… it took a little convincing them) went straight down the side of the mountain.  We met a farmer working in his corn field and eventually (he really tried convincing us to go back to the trail) he pointed us to a goat trail of sorts.  It was pretty strenuous and we got plenty cut up and attacked by ants, but it was a ton of fun.

Aug. 14th, 2011

We have started a NICU. A 32-weeker, and three 30-weekers (one set of twins). We lost two preemies in the last few weeks I have been here, but these four kids are going strong so far. We just have to go day by day and tell the nurses to pray every time they give a feed that the baby’s stomach will tolerate it.  One of the long term missionary doctors, Dr. Gayle, is back from furlough so that has been nice for everyone, especially Dr. Briggs who has had the lead role around here for several months now.  The pediatric ward has continued to stay pretty full this last week, and yesterday was a particularly bad day.  A few of the kids have come in having received malaria treatment elsewhere, but it just wasn’t quite long enough so they get anemic and come to us.  It still surprises me how many of the patients have gone to several other places or tried all different types of treatments before showing up here.  It’s astonishing how many people do not have access to decent health care in this country and continent.

I watched two of the most disgusting surgeries yet: drainage of an abscess in a thigh and drainage of an abdominal abscess. I won’t get into the lovely details for you all, but it was sure a smelly, puss-filled, nasty task for the surgeon.  Most things here are a good ten times bigger or worse than anything ever see back in the states.  People don’t have money to spend on healthcare so they just wait until they can’t function any longer.  I have seen several leg fractures (open and closed) that didn’t seek treatment for months so there isn’t a whole lot we can do for them, and infections that have gone untreated so long that there is no way to save their foot or leg.

Last week Tsiko church had prayer meetings every morning from 5 to 6am.  A few of us would meet at 4:30 and take the 20-minute walk there.  It was a time of singing, prayer, and a short message.  Usually someone would translate into English.  There were about 75 people every morning.  It was really neat to be surrounded by people fervently and passionately praying around me in some remote little Togo village.  The pastors and church leaders are on fire for the Lord, the people have such a strong faith in God, and He is sure being glorified here!  The other day Samuel asked a couple of us what was the biggest thing that has impacted us so far.  I thought about it for a few minutes, and decided that the strength of a lot of the Togolese Christian’s faith is what has been most significant to me.  Most of these people do not have an easy life: There is not a lot of money to go around, many people don’t have enough food, they work hard to make it by another day, and there is so much sickness and death. There are always some pretty significant prayer requests.  Family members of patients in the hospital pray fervently, and somehow a lot of them manage to praise God despite their world falling down around them.  A lot of times the response of the parents when a child dies is that it was God’s will, it is what He wanted, and now the child is with Him.  I have had the opportunity to meet some incredible pastors who are on fire for the Lord.  There are some medical and evangelical staff members that never seem to get weary of sharing the Gospel.  The Togolese don’t have much, but they give glory to God for everything that they do have. On the other hand, there are still so many people in Togo that are not Christian and have not even had the opportunity to hear the Gospel before.  There is also a lot of Muslim and still a lot of fetishism and animism.  But it is evident that God is at work in so many different ways here! I have met some amazing people who have mission-centered hearts.  Although I have been made much more aware of how much evil is in this world through their experiences as missionaries, it has been quite an inspiration to learn their testimonies and hear some of their stories and adventures.

August 7th, 2011

For 6 days we only had two doctors here. I bet Dr. Briggs prayed really hard every day for an ‘easy’ hospital/clinic load and no major accidents with lots of trauma.  He is the only long-term doctor here, so he runs the whole place on his own right now.  Maternity, surgery, everything.  We have not had a surgeon here for a week, and a few that were supposed to be coming canceled. So the hospital is paying for a surgeon to come- Sam Williams. He was here for a couple weeks right before I came and I guess he’s a pretty fun, great guy.  A young doctor came a couple of days ago, so that will reduce the patient load for the other two doctors.

I got to witness Dr. Wicker to an excellent job of telling a family member that her sister did not have very many days to live.  She had cancer starting in her knee six years ago and it went untreated and was now spread throughout her whole body and into her lungs- there is nothing the hospital can do for them.  The sister began to ask if they had treated the knee years ago if she would be healthy now, but Dr. Wicker cut her off and said that we can not live in the past and should not dwell on regrets, but we have to live in the present and enjoy the last days that they have together.  He explained that God rejoices in our death, because it means that one of his children is coming home to be with Him in heaven.

Friday and Saturday were two of my favorite days in Togo! Samuel was going to Atakpame to show films at a youth conference (the woman Becky who does this ministry is in the states so he has filled in for her) and he invited Ben, Peter, and I to join.  We played with children for a few hours that night.  Biggest duck-duck-goose circle yet, haha there were a lot of kids.  Some members of the church prepared a meal for us.  I have eaten village food a couple of times now, but this was the first time I had half of a nasty, dried, fish staring up at me.  I have been really good about just getting tough and eating things even if I don’t like it much, but there was no way I was going to pick up a fish and gnaw on the crunchy bones.  When it got dark Samuel played about 2 hours of film with speaking and praying in between each movie.  There were close to 300 people by the end of the night crowded on the church benches outside, it was awesome! It was also the first time I have worn a light jacket since I’ve been here.  We slept in one room of the church, and the volunteers from other churches around the area slept in the main part of the church.  Things quieted down around 11pm, and got going again at 2am.  At first I couldn’t figure out why on earth people were up at 2 in the morning and wasn’t real thrilled about it, but around 3 they started praying and worshiping together, then at 4 the horrible stereo system starting blasting praise music… I thought it was pretty neat to be in the middle of nowhere Africa with people that are too excited about glorifying God to sleep. I taught a lesson to 60 young women (didn’t know I would be doing that until the night I got there, but God managed to make it work out great). My translator was awesome and there was some really good discussion with the girls.

I think this is the rest of the interesting cultural facts I can come up with:

-A lot of people’s names are the day of the week that they were born on.  Some of them have that as just part of their name, some have a different first name but still get called by the day of the week, some are named a day of the week but get called a different name. Either way, there are lots of Koffis, Affis, Kodjis, and Kossis. It’s funny- when we go to pray for a new baby we ask the mother if they have a name yet and most of the time there is a small pause in the reply as the mother/nurses think of what day of the week the baby was born on.

-Almost every girl/woman and a lot of the boys have beads that they wear around their waist. I have asked a few people what the purpose of them is, and the clearest answer I have gotten is that it is meant to ensure that the woman or child will not leave their village.  But most people seem to do it simply because it’s tradition.

-Women wear skirts or wraps that go just past their knees (or to their ankles if they are muslim).  But above the waist? Well let’s just say it doesn’t seem to matter too much what is or isn’t covered.  You see babies (well sometimes they are 3 or 4 years old- milk is free and nutritious so they nurse as long as they can here) nursing everywhere.  I still laugh whenever I see a kid nursing even though they are tightly wrapped on their mom’s back (haha bet that’s a good mental picture for ya… there isn’t much use for push-up bras around here).  It is beginning to become more common to see women wearing jeans and pants in the bigger cities- definitely not in the villages though.