Language

This is such an important daily focus of ours even after 9 plus years of being in Togo. We live in English at home and Eve outside our home. Occasionally we get stuck in the "but NO!" all French situation and our pride suffers greatly as we stumble and bumble along. When we got to Togo it was all consuming, language that is. For those of you who know me well, you know what I'm saying. The old eat it, sleep it, and breathe it. I forgot one very important thing, though. I did not even consider the reality that I wasn't the only one who would need to speak the other languages. I did not even consider our kids. I thought, well, you know they're brilliant, like Louise and I. They'll pick it up through absorption. I didn't consider the fact that for all these years they have sat through three hour long worship services not knowing a thing that was being said and singing songs that were rendered meaningless because they didn't have a clue what they were singing. We taught them the basic greetings and salutations, and then wondered why they shied away and wanted to stay home most of the time. If an Eve or Watchi person did approach them their reaction was that of partial tolerance at best. I kept wondering what we were doing wrong. I wondered why our sons were missing out on the great blessings of knowing and loving these people we lived among. It all came down to language and my not recognizing that my family is here as a team. You know, the old "it's all about me" problem. So, this last summer, while the boys thought they should be playing X-Box, they got to suffer through daily language class. It was taught by Rigobert who is a student in the University of Kara. I would love to say that they thanked me for it, you know "getting" to go to school all summer, but alas .... they did. They actually thanked me. That's the kicker. They saw the need, too. I found out that they had longed to be able to communicate as well. Upon asking them what their favorite / most useful phrases have been, they answer (in Eve), "Dzo yi afeme (Leave, go home!)" or "De asi le nuti nye (Get your hands off of me!). It looks like we'll have to work a little on the relationship aspects of it, but hey, praise God, they speak and they love it!

Baseball in December

While on a stateside visit in Virginia in the fall of 2002 I found myself musing about the differences in the lives of our children brought about by our living in Africa. Many of the dissimilarities brought to my mind made me smile. It's unusual in the states for the boys to be charged by an elephant and in Africa we have adventures such as that annually. There are the cultural aspects as well to consider of being able to communicate in many different languages and also the reality of seeing daily how the rest of the world lives. But, then I saw some boys cycling along the sidewalk of the park. They stopped after a tour and began playing ball. My heart ached. I realized that I had no hope for my boys to be able to just go out and have a tour of town or stop by the park to play ball with some friends for there is no park. At that time they couldn't even communicate with anyone that wasn't American.
Today, four short years later, Tucker, my oldest son, headed out the gate at three this afternoon with his baseball equipment. He had gathered up twenty or so of his good friends from Tabligbo to go have a "sandlot" experience. I had to smile at the simple blessing of a private longing realized. I don't know if I was more amazed at Tucker's language skills or at the fact that these boys from Tabligbo, Togo, West Africa can shag flies and swing for the fence. Of course, the fence is imaginary, and the bases are just rubber squares thrown down on a soccer field, and the bat Tucker likes to use is one I made on my lathe out of teak, but you get the picture of a little American missionary absolutely comfortable among his Togolese friends. This is one of those small, but extremely significant blessings from God that encourage us to continue on.

Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Taking Dad to the office

I always loved days when I went to work with my dad. I begged and pleaded to go during the summer months while school was out. It helped that at work Dad had tanks to play on, a firing range, a basketball court, pool table, all the chocolate the seargent would buy me and a German shepherd big enough for me to ride on called Brutus. Several times each summer the begging worked and I got to go. I was thinking about that today as Dad and I buckled up and headed down the road to Atitogon. My office isn't quite as exciting as Dad's was, but it still has its uniqueness. We met under our mud and thatch building in Atitogon that is beside Kossi's house. Of course, I had to show off Kossi's mud, thatch, and stick chicken house, along with all the other improvements he's made since Dad's last visit. We met with the four leaders we are training out there for three hours. Dad had to stand up a few times and wander around as he struggled to find just the right spot of comfort on his bench. He did get in some great encouragement to the leaders which I only altered a little in the translation and then Afii, Kossi's wife, fed us a delicious meal of rice, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, and fish all in a red oil pepper sauce. Sadly, Dad wasn't served the fish head, so the adventure of it began to pale, but we did get to drive home in the dark which is always the most exciting of adventures in Togo. It was a good day of bring your Dad to the office. How blessed I am to have he and Mom experiencing with us our lives and work in here Togo.

A little randomness ...

This photo is descriptive of more than can be analyzed in ten minutes worth of musing. It speaks volumes about our lives in Togo. Taking chances; hoping for the best; what will one more hurt; sure we can do it; we'll take what we can get; and "Are we there, yet?" These are all potentional captions for this picture. The driver is trying to calculate how much total he's going to receive for carrying everyone. The copilot is trying to figure out who he hasn't collected from. The riders are hoping to get a volume discount. Those hanging on are wondering if they can jump off before they have to pay. Then, there's one foreigner somewhere in the bowels of the mass who is hearing something in the suspension that isn't supposed to be there and he's thinking to himself that there is something wrong with this whole scene. All together it's kind of a crazy prospect going somewhere like Togo and sharing Jesus. Never a dull moment and a new challenge, or at least an old one revised, meets us daily. I've stopped resetting my bedside clock alarm because of all the power outages. Today was our second day without water. I hear a trickle arriving in our bathroom sink at this very minute. Now that's a good note to end my musing on.

Looking like Christmas

The Harmattan winds and dust from the Sahara seem to be here to stay. This is our signal that the Christmas season has come. Ironic to me that such a phenomenon as this is now my annual manifestation for the holiday season in the place of the first frost, the falling leaves, or that white stuff that falls from the sky (which I wonder if it actually exists). Speaking of cold it was a ripping 75.2 degrees this morning when we awoke. In reaction to this we donned long pants, sweat shirts, and drank hot tea as we sat around and complained of the bitter chill. Making it even feel more like Christmas is the presence of Nana K and Papa K (Marty's mom and dad - AKA Kelly and Anna Koonce). This presence of family gives the truest sense of fulfillment of prophetic indicators that the Christmas season is upon us. We've loaded all of the seasonal music on our I-pods, decorated the tree, and put up the lights. Truly, its beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I wish you could be here to experience it with us.

Sporting News

Well, we have returned to our domicile in Tabligbo after a great extended weekend of Thanksgiving (yeah, we're a week late on that one) with our northern team in Kara, Togo. What a weekend it was. It was topped off by the annual event of Sports Camp for the kids. This year we couldn't allow any recruiters to attend based on the fact that we don't want any of our kids seduced away to the states by promises of free trips to McDonald's, all you can eat pizza buffets, and seven figure incomes. It was a spectacular show of talent in the three sports showcased this year of baseball, soccer, and basketball. To my sons' deep disappointment football was not on the roster this year because of budget cuts and time constraints. Seriously, it did give us dads and moms a chance to cheer our kids on in English; extol the virtues of sport in general to these young athletes; and make several life lesson parallels to following Christ (which they might actually remember until next year's session). Our thanks to the Kabiye team for hosting us and all the parents who coached and encouraged as well as those fine athletes who participated heart, body, and soul. By the way, for those of you still debating silently about me calling myself an occasional golfer. I give in. You win. I realized this when a close friend commented that his explanation of my use of the adverb occasional was when I find the occasion to go. Secondly, my mother so graciously gave me a Christmas ornament this year that said, "I only golf on days that end in 'y'." Okay, I admit it, I golf semi-frequently.

The middle-aged conspiracy

It seems someone from CNN must have read my blog this week for they have responded with an article of their own that stands as a distinct contrast to my theory on middle age. You can read this article for yourself in "Americans consider 60's middle age". This interesting article shows just how scared everyone is of aging or maybe it just shows how distasteful the whole idea is to most of growing old. Instead of counting our days the ideal seems to be to forget our number of days or at least through cosmetic surgeries pretend our days never happened. Whatever happened to the splendor of gray hair that we read about in Proverbs 16:31? I think about all the stupid mistakes I made up until today, and honestly my deepest desire is to grow beyond them and not make them again. In other words to grow up, mature, or maybe in this case grow old. Paul talked about the longing we have and the groaning we go through for our redemption to be realized. To me growing old is all about finishing the race, not restarting it over and over again with every face lift, botox, and lipo treatment. I do find it ironic that the first twenty years of your life you spend trying to pretend you are older than you really are and then the next forty years you spend trying to pretend you are younger than you really are, and in the end you wind up with sixty years of pretend and only a few years left to live a life of truth.