When people ask why I love Togo I normally say it is because of the people. They are very welcoming, friendly, and conversations about God can be easily started. I just feel that God has given me a passion for the people and I am delighted that He has given me the opportunity to work among the people. However, I also love Togo, or West Africa in general because you just never know what will happen and it makes you praise God a lot more for how He provide for us each day.
I have a few examples I would love to share with you from last week.
On Tuesday during English class, it started to rain and not just a little but enough to think a hurricane was coming if we were only close enough to the ocean. Well, in a classroom with partially complete bamboo walls and a tin roof, this is a big deal. Just imagine with me the rain plummeting down into the classroom while 40 students rush to push their desks as close together as possible into the middle of the room. Of course the rain is still blowing sideways into the room and then there are leaks randomly causing puddles on students desks. Then if that isn't enough, there is the deafening sound of the rain hitting the tin roof to the point that talking is impossible. As exams are approaching, it is still important to go on with the lessons so I wrote the directions on the blackboard and used the dry erase boards to show different words for the students to write sentences about or to use a picture to represent the meaning. So there we were, with the hurricane outside, and us writing down things on white boards and showing each other the response to verify our answers without saying a word. I actually had a hard time controlling myself and had to laugh at our hilarious communication but it worked and I was so thankful that they were willing to work through this difficult situation. The students are hungry to learn no matter what it takes to understand.
On Wednesday, I needed to visit a teacher who was sick at a school more than a half hour away. I couldn't leave until 4:30 as the middle school students were taking their mid-terms before this. When I was about to leave with my driver, he had me pray for the voyage, that the rain wouldn't fall, and we would be a blessing to the teacher. Away we went on the dusty and bumpy road, trying not to get run over from large trucks and avoiding large holes. We arrived at the school where I was able to greet the teachers and away we went again with one of the teachers in tow(yes three of us on the moto) to visit the sick teacher's village another half hour away.
When we finally arrived at the village, it was quite apparent that I would become a spectacle as all the children followed my every move. We waited underneath a tree until all the benches were set and the water was passed around. When we all took a sip, we greeted one another (the cultural practice) and the teacher gave me the bible to read 1 Peter chapter 2. This chapter talks about taste to see that the Lord is good. Here I was, sitting on a wooden bench, with half dressed children all around and a sick teacher and yet we are saying that the Lord is good. How is that even possible!! it is because it is the truth, the only thing that keeps us going through the hard things. I see difficult sights each day but the Lord has overcome this broken world and only through His saving grace can we proclaim that the Lord is good.
After we visited, I took him to a small clinic in town which was at someone's house. All the tools like shots and stuff were lying in tin pans and I sat there while I guess a nurse took his temperature and gave him a shot. I just kept praying that they knew what they were doing and wouldn't make his condition worse. We finally left as night was approaching and we could see a storm coming from the east. I still found time to play a few minutes with kids and then we were off again back to my town. The other teacher with us told us we were going to be stuck in the storm but I told him we had prayed to God to withhold the rains until we got back. The amazing thing was we made it back home just before it started raining and it was only through God who provided His provisions!!!! Right there in the middle of the 4 way stop, the driver and I prayed to God and thanked Him for His goodness. What an amazing testimony of God's goodness. I am learning to be thankful for the little things. They are little but they show God working in a huge way. Keep praising the name of God for everything that happens!!!
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Togo? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Togo in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez