posted by Jesse on Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 2:50 pm
For several weeks I have been receiving various emails from people who are having difficulty with this website. I have also had some of those same problems but unfortunately have not had a sufficient internet connection here in Togo to even take a look at the problem. Today, however, I think that I might have figured out the problem. Could you do me a big favor and if you are reading this by email or RSS, can you go to the website and let me know if it loads correctly and looks alright. You can either email me directly, or leave a comment at the bottom of this post. Hopefully the problem is fixed, and sorry to all of you who have had difficulties with it. Thanks for your help!
posted by Jesse on Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 5:23 am
One of the things that we’ve been really looking forward to in our move to Togo is getting a house and setting up a permanent home. Ever since being married we’ve been either living in temporary houses or with family because of our constant travel. So, the prospect of living in one place for a very long time is quite invigorating to us nomad types.
Our coworker, Jim, started searching for available houses a couple weeks ago, so as soon as we got into town here we went and looked at two of them. The first was overall a very nice house (by Togolese standads) with a gorgeous yard, but it was in pretty bad shape and would need several thousand dollars put into it in order to fix it up. Also, the kitchen was smaller than most American bathrooms, so I immediately decided that it wasn’t going to work for us. If Tiffany is going to be using a kitchen for a very long time, then I want it to be as comfortable as possible for her.
The other house we saw is THE house! It is fairly new, which is hard to find out here and means that it should have less problems than most others. It also has semi-American style windows and doors which should help in keeping out the heat. It has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a spacious living/dining room, and a larger-than-typical kitchen. It does need a couple minor repairs, a paint job inside, ceiling fans installed, and lots of work to the yard, but overall house is SO much better than anything else available.
What’s also nice is that the landlord is flexible and willing to work with us. In Togo, a house can be great, but if the landlord is difficult to deal with, it can cause a lot of unnecessary frustration.
We have met with the landlord, worked out all the negotiations, and have set a move-in date of April 15th. What’s amazing is how incredibly cheap the cost of rent is here. We’ll be paying $260 USD per month! It’s nice to know that at least one thing here is cheaper than in the States. Not much else is!
Once we pay the deposit, the landlord will start having all the work done that we negotiated. After that’s all done, we can do the extra stuff we’re wanting to do, and then we can move in as soon as our container gets here.
It’s exciting to be so close to getting into our own home. We’ll keep you updated with our progress in the next couple months.
posted by Jesse on Friday, February 20, 2009 at 6:09 am
Over the weekend we took a trip up to Togo’s northernmost city of Dapaong with two of our missionary coworkers, Jim White and Lisa Lewis. We visited two rural village churches and showed a film about Jesus in each one. That involved bringing a generator, projector, speaker, lights, and the always effective high-tech projector screen, a bed sheet.
Before the films, we let the kids play with a big ball, which was a completely new experience for them. Joshua even jumped in there with them and had a blast running around with all the kids, stirring up the biggest dust cloud I’ve ever seen!
It was interesting to see how at the beginning of the films there were only a handful of church members there watching, but by the end there were probably around 150 people, many of whom were standing outside watching through the windows.
Afterwards, Pastor Sopa gave, in the local Moba language, a clear explanation of how to know Jesus personally. Sopa, by the way, is the pastor of six churches right now, and as you can imagine needs help very badly. He started out by walking to each church, then he upgraded to a bicycle, and now he has a motorcycle that Randy Alderman bought for him. He preaches at two churches each Sunday and rotates between them. Please pray for him, and for God to call other Togolese men to go help in this needy area.
posted by Jesse on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 6:42 am
This afternoon we will be leaving with Jim White and Lisa Lewis heading North to the city of Dapaong. We will be working with one of the pastors in the area, Sopa, as we do some outreach events in a few villages around the city. We’ll staying for a couple nights and coming back on Sunday afternoon. We would appreciate your prayers for our safety, and of course pray for these events that God will bless and draw people to Himself to experience His grace!
posted by Jesse on Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 12:49 pm
One of the biggest adjustments to living here in Togo is the weather. We come from the beautiful, but cold and rainy Northwest. Coming here was quite a shock to our quickly thawing bodies! Right now we are entering the hot and dry season. There is a unique weather phenomenon here called the Harmattan which blows hot dusty air south into Togo from the Sahara Desert. In a month or so it will cause temperature of up to 130 degrees. I’m not too sure exactly what the outside temperatures have been like lately, but I do know that we walked into a 93 degree room the other day and it felt very cool and refreshing, almost like air conditioning!
Joshua has been dealing with heat rashes now and then, so please pray for him. He’s a real trooper though and doesn’t complain too much. He’s doing really great here, and enjoying all the new sights and sounds that Africa has to offer.
So, if you find yourself freezing this winter, remember to pray for your overheated missionary friends!
posted by Jesse on Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 4:39 am
Click here to download a printable copy of this update on our letterhead.
Today marks one week since we first arrived in Togo. It’s been quite an amazing experience so far, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for us in the future here. We started out by crossing over the border from Ghana into Togo’s capital city of Lome. Our missionary coworkers had quite a bit of shopping to do there, so we stayed for a couple nights before heading up-country to the city of Kara, which is where we will be living. Until we get set up in a house of our own, which could take up to two months, we are living with Randy and Jeannette Alderman, who are the veteran missionaries that we’re working with. We are living in a small detached apartment on their property.
There are two other missionaries here also whom we’re working with: Jim White and Lisa Lewis. We’ve been having a great time with all the missionaries here, but I think that the greatest thing has been getting to know the Togolese people and speaking with them every day. While talking to them, we really begin to understand how much of their culture we need to learn. I also am convinced that at some point I need to learn the main tribal language here, which is Kabiye. It’s definitely not something that is absolutely necessary, as most of the missionaries in Togo only know French, but I believe it’s something that will make our ministry here much more effective in the long run. So, I figure that in about a year from now I will start with lessons in Kabiye.
Joshua is having a really great time here, but is having a little difficulty getting used to the heat, as we all are. He’s been having fun playing in the backyard as he’s trying to catch the very fast lizards that roam the area.
I also have some very exciting news to tell you about starting our ministry here in Togo. Once we get settled a bit more in the coming weeks, I’ll be starting to work with one of the churches here in Kara. It is a smaller church that has had some struggles, so the plan is to work along side the pastor, Pastor Nicodime, to help encourage him and build the church through discipleship and evangelism. Please be in prayer about this that God will give me wisdom in this comfort zone stretching opportunity.
Also, there is a man in that church named Élé who is very anxious to get started in the Bible Institute, but Randy is going to be leaving for the States soon, so he has asked me if I’d be willing to start teaching him a course in New Testament Survey. I think that this will be a great opportunity, and I’m really looking forward to getting started about a month from now.
We still just can’t believe that we’re actually here, it’s so exciting! Thank you all so much for praying for us.
posted by Jesse on Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 4:30 pm
We’re here! We have finally arrived in Africa! Our flight landed on time, we got through immigration and customs with no problem, and all our baggage was undamaged and accounted for. We sure were glad to be done with our 24 hours of travel! It was an extremely tiring trip, but that was expected. We are looking forward to a shower and sleep tonight!
Our missionary coworkers picked us up at the airport and we are now at a guest house in Accra, Ghana. Tomorrow morning we will take a couple taxis a few hours East to Lome, the capital city in Togo.
We received so many emails from so many people letting us know that you’re praying for us, and we want to say a big thank you!
Please continue to pray as we get settled into our new life here. Internet connections might be sporadic, but we will try to keep you updated as much as possible on our blog.
posted by Jesse on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 10:30 am
By the time you read this, we will be on the plane and beginning our looong journey to Togo. Please be in prayer for us over the next 24 hours, since that’s how long it’s going to take for us to arrive in Africa. Twenty of those hours will be actual time in the air, with four hours of layovers. First, we’ll be flying from Portland to San Francisco at 10:25 a.m. PST, then to Germany, then to Nigeria, and then to Ghana. We land in Ghana at 6:40 p.m. (10:40 a.m. PST) on Wednesday. From there, we will spend the night in Ghana and take a taxi to Togo on Thursday morning. When we arrive in Ghana, we will be met at the airport by some of our coworker missionaries, so please pray that there are no major delays on our end or theirs.
We will update you as soon as we possibly can once we’ve landed. In the meantime you can subscribe to get all our updates automatically by email, if you haven’t done that already. We look forward to saying hi from Togo!
posted by Jesse on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 3:23 am
Here is the audio from the sermon I preached last Wednesday night. You can either listen to it here with the audio player or you can download the mp3 file from the link below.
Right-click and select “Save Target As…” or “Save Link As…” Download Sermon
posted by Jesse on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 3:06 am
Our families have meant so much to us. It goes without saying that we wouldn’t be where we are right now if it weren’t for them. They have supported us all along the way and while they are very sad to see us leave, we know that they are completely behind us in what we’re doing. We’ve been staying at Tiffany’s parents’ house and spending time with them lately whenever we can, and earlier this evening went out to eat with my parents at Jerusalem Cafe, one of our favorite restaurants. I almost “lost it” again as I told my dad how thankful I am for having him as my dad and that there’s nobody else I would have rather had as a father. I could tell that he was a bit emotional as well, but I think that it’s all being stored up for tomorrow where we will say our final goodbye to our families and board the plane.
posted by Jesse on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 3:04 am
God has given us so many great friends in Oregon and Washington, and we are really grateful that we’ve been able to spend some time with them during the couple months before the big move. On Saturday night we all got together with some couples for a game night. We did much more talking than game playing, but that was quite alright for us. They then took several minutes and all prayed for us one by one, which of course meant a lot to us.
Then, Sunday night at church our pastor had us come to the front at the end of the service and the entire church came and stood around us and prayed for us as a couple people led in prayer. I did not think that I would be very emotional about leaving, but it really affected me. We were all crying and so were many people around us. Joshua in the mean time was trying to figure out what was going on! Afterwards, we said our final goodbyes and found it very strange to be saying “See you in three years.”
Many people have asked about Joshua and how he’s doing. We’ve tried our best to prepare him and explain how long three years is, but he still doesn’t quite get it. He was just happy to run around the gym at church one last time on Sunday night with all his little friends! He’s very excited to go, but also sad about leaving and saying goodbye to his grandparents.
posted by Jesse on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 2:56 am
During the past several days we’ve been saying goodbye to all our friends and family who mean so much to us. They will, of course, leave the biggest void in our lives. But, one other thing that the three of us will miss a lot is the great outdoors of the Northwest. Having grown up here, Tiffany and I, and now Joshua too, really enjoy hiking and exploring the woods.
The other afternoon, Tiff and I had the chance to do one last little hike (and the first in a long time) before leaving. We went down into a canyon that is within walking distance from our house. We had a really great time together, and it was a good opportunity for us just to talk and have one last gulp of really fresh, clean Oregon air! We had a lot of fun and thought we’d show you some of the pictures below.
