Light of Togo

It’s been a while since we last updated our website with a new family picture.  Well, since June of last year to be exact. Several people have asked for a new one, so here it is.

To download it, right-click (NOT left-click) on one of the following links and select “Save Link As…” or something similar, depending on what browser you’re using.  If you need a larger size, please let me know and I’ll send it to you.

| 4×6 landscape | 4×6 portrait | 5×7 landscape | 5×7 portrait |

Don’t we look so Africany?  This was taken from our rooftop in front of our neighbors’ beautiful palm trees.

What do you get when you combine a broken bridge, 200 semi trucks, angry taxi drivers, and four tired missionaries?  A big adventure!

After a few days in Lomé, Jim and I started heading back for Kara around 11 am, which normally means arriving home around 5 pm.  Around the half way point, however, things started to get interesting.  We came up on a 4 mile-long line of semi trucks that had been building up since at least Monday.  It was at this point that we just “happened” to run into a couple other missionary friends from Kara who were only two cars ahead of us.  They had a map, and we had no clue, so we decided to follow them.

We got turned around, drove back to the last village, and asked about a road on the map that could have brought us out north of the bridge.  The locals, however, told us that the road is impassable.  So at this point we had two options: sit in traffic, going nowhere; or sit on the side of the road drinking Coke, going nowhere.  The decision was unanimous.

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Once we started seeing vehicles coming from towards the bridge, we figured it was time to move out.  Our progress was stopped short, though, by all the traffic trying to go north. After two hours of stop and go, we were diverted off the main road and onto a narrow dirt road.  This road wasn’t at all a problem for our 4×4 vehicles, but there were all kinds of small cars, overloaded taxi vans, and huge semi trucks trying to make one lane into two.  As night fell we slowly crept along, hopping out of the vehicles from time to time in order to direct traffic, push vehicles out of the mud, or just to find out why we weren’t moving.

A couple hours later, we were past all the traffic and on our way to wherever that road would take us.  Five and a half hours after starting into the traffic jam, we came out a whopping 7 miles north of where we started!

Now it’s late, we’re tired, we’re hungry, but at least we’re past all that mess…right?  Let me interrupt my own story here and explain something.  I have learned two things about frustrating circumstances in Africa: first, that you don’t get too excited about a bad situation getting better because it’s usually not over; and second, that you don’t get too worked up about it because it just makes everything worse.  Just take a deep breath, say “WAWA” (West Africa Wins Again), and go with the flow.

So, not even an hour of driving on the main road brought us to the toll booth where we would normally pay 300 francs and pass right through.  But not tonight!  A line of taxi vans was blocking up both lanes of the road, making it impossible to pass.  Walking up to the booths, we saw a group of about 150 people standing around, some talking, some arguing, and some shouting loudly at nobody in particular, and some just watching the whole scene like a movie that you don’t want to be in.

We eventually found out that several taxi van drivers wanted to protest the bridge situation by blocking the road and refusing to pay their toll.  We soon realized that there was nothing we were going to do or say to fix the problem.  They wanted to voice their complaint to the local authorities, so until they showed up nothing was going to change.  We had the idea of just jumping the curb with our vehicles, and going around everyone, but we seriously felt like it wouldn’t have been the smartest move at that point.

We felt like the best place to be at this time was back at our vehicles, which is where we stayed until everything settled down.  Once the local “préfet” arrived, they came to an agreement that those who wanted to pay their toll and leave could do so, and those who didn’t could stay as long as they wanted.  The only problem is that the people blocking the road were the ones staying and they had no desire to move so that everyone else could leave.

With the situation having settled down a bit, and us getting more tired by the minute, we went back to the curb-jumping idea.  We moved several small concrete barricades out of the way, payed our toll, jumped the curb, and drove off into the sunset.  Well, the sunset part isn’t exactly true since we missed it by several hours.

In all, the 6 hour trip took 12.  A 12 hour trip doesn’t sound that bad, but I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase before: “You just had to be there.”  Honestly though, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything!  It was a great adventure and something that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.  I can imagine us missionaries sitting around 20 years from now laughing about the “good ‘ole days.”  Just do me a favor and please tell me if 20 years from now I’m repeating this story over and over again as if it’s the first time you’ve heard it.

The other night as I was moving all our boxes from upstairs to downstairs where they’d be loaded on the truck the following day, I thought to myself, “Hey, why not have some fun while I’m giving myself a ruptured tendon?” So, I did. I set up my camera and took a shot or two after moving each box, then I later put them together to make a time-lapse video. Enjoy!

NOTE: If the video seems to play too fast (in just a few seconds) you might have to play it again in order for it to play correctly. This happened to me a couple times so hopefully you don’t have any problem with it.

Never Ending Boxes from Jesse Shanks on Vimeo.

It thrills me to be writing this, and any parent will understand why.  You see, Joshua decided a couple weeks ago without any suggestion or coercion from us to spend his own money and buy Christmas presents for everyone in our family and extended family.  That’s 11 people in all.  We made sure that he understood that he would be spending his money and that once it’s spent it can’t be used for something else.  He acted like he already knew this, but it wasn’t a big deal.  What’s even more surprising is that he hasn’t been asking incessantly about gifts that he will be receiving.

So, last night Joshua and I took a trip to the dollar store, where every kid’s Christmas dreams can come true!  With just a little help from me he picked out each gift very thoughtfully.  It was adorable to see him walking up and down each isle with his finger on his chin as if pondering a difficult math equation.  This morning Tiffany snapped a shot of him under my parent’s dining room table, wrapping all the presents.

We’re so thankful for a kid who thinks of other people before himself.  It reminds me that I could definitely use more of that kind of attitude!

Have a very merry Christmas!

Well, my original intention was to write a blog post about packing our first box and about the big task we had ahead of us, but because we got so busy completing this big task I never had time to do it.  So now instead of writing about what lies ahead of us, I’ll tell you about what is now behind us: specifically, 57 very heavy boxes.  More than that, however, is a very heavy load off our shoulders!  At times, it felt like we’d never get everything packed, but we just used every bit of spare time to pack, even if it was just one or two boxes at a time.  It was an extremely slow process because every item in every box must be accounted for on spreadsheets that will be given to the port agents in Togo.

Other than packing up the remaining last-minute boxes, we still have quite a bit to do.  I’m in the process of ironing out the details for trucking all our stuff to Missouri where it will be packed into the shipping container.  We also are working on getting our visas for both Ghana and Togo, our immunization shots, and tying up all the loose ends Stateside.  Once all this is done, we should finally be able to take a short breather in January before heading to Togo.

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On the road again! We packed our van (and I mean PACKED) on Monday and started out our great American road trip (a.k.a “moving”). It was quite a miracle that all of our things fit in our van. We have no idea how it happened, but somehow it fits and the back bumper isn’t hitting the ground! As we drove across the St. Laurence River leaving Québec City, we rolled down the windows and all shouted “Goodbye Québec!” We had really made Québec our home for the time we were there, and were so sad to be leaving that we actually cried briefly as we drove down the road. Well, Tiffany cried and I thought about crying. And all Joshua was thinking about was opening the gift that Pierre (my conversation partner) had given us and told us not to open until we were on the road. It was Belgian dark chocolates!

Our first stop was in Harpswell which is very close to Portland, Maine to visit Tiffany’s Great Aunt and Uncle for a few days. We had a really, really great time with them and their massively over sized dog named Bear.

Next was a quick stop in Cortland, NY to visit some old college friends, Steve & Cassie House. We were really sad that our stay was only for one night, but it was great to see them again. This morning we left there and stopped by Niagara Falls on our way to Toledo, Ohio which is where we are right now, ironically staying in a Hotel on Oregon Street! So, that’s our quick update on our coast to coast trip from Portland to Portland. We’ll try to write at least one more post before arriving back home in Oregon. Thanks so much for praying for our safety!

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How could we possibly describe the desperate situation that Joshua and I found ourselves in during the 14 incredibly long and arduous days without Tiffany?  A few words come to mind: starvation, filth, depression, thai food take-out leftovers…again.

OK, so maybe it wasn’t that bad, but we sure didn’t enjoy being away from the best mother and wife in the world for that long, and miraculously she didn’t either!  I was afraid that she’d enjoy her new-found freedom so much that she’d stay for a couple months!

She arrived back in Quebec exactly one week ago, and this has been one of the best weeks in our lives.  It’s funny how being apart really makes you realize how much you appreciate somebody.  We’ve all had a great time as a family together around the house, not doing anything special in particular, but just goofing around and having fun.

Other than that, Joshua started school again with Tiffany.  He’s doing excellent with his learning to read.  He gets impatient like every kid, but he’s very excited to start reading.

Just as a side note, thank you to those of you who gave me your, uhhh, “recipes” for great dishes such as ramen noodles and PB&J sandwiches.  They were so, uhhh, “helpful” in helping us to survive those darkest days minus Tiffany.

The fact is that I make a very terrible housekeeper.  Some things I can do well, but cooking is not one of them!  After these two weeks, I have definitely decided that I don’t want to be a domestic homemaker when I grow up!

WARNING: Do not read any farther unless you want your GeekFactor to be raised by approximately 17.82 percent!

Ever since coming to Quebec, I’ve been wanting to help out the church here by redoing their website, which the pastor has been wanting to do for quite some time as well.  A few weeks ago, I found out that the pastor’s son, Jonathan, and another guy, Benoit, both have done website development (webdev) before.  Between the two of them, they have a working knowledge of html, css, and php, and I have a bit of experience in Wordpress, which is the platform we used for the site.  So, on Saturday they came over to our house where we set up our “Webdev Workstation,” which slightly resembled something that one might see at a NASAcontrol room.  We started at 10:00am and began working on a completely new design and functionality for the site so there can be a regular public area and a “members only” section which contains a blog, church member photo directory, and other helpful stuff.

It was really neat to see how the three of us worked together with Jonathan doing a lot of the technical coding and problem solving, Benoit doing the page setups, transferring information, and translating things into French, and me doing the visual design and work within Wordpress.

By the time the public section was done, it was 2:00 in the morning!  But, we got it done.  Yesterday, we worked got almost the whole members section finished, and it should be entirely done by Thursday evening.

It was a lot of fun and I learned a ton of things about webdev in the process, but I am glad that it’s almost done.  Below is a screenshot of what it looks like (click the image to enlarge it) and a link to it if you’d like to check it out.

It seems that ever since the summer started, we have been going non-stop. In all the busyness though, we’ve managed to take advantage of the sometimes nice weather and do some really fun things together. I fully intended to write blog entries about each one of them as they happened, but blogging often has to take a back seat to other things.

So, here is a whole summer of fun wrapped up in one long blog post. I have included two different kinds of photo slideshows that I’m experimenting with so please let me know if you have any difficulty viewing them.
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ow, I can’t believe it’s been a week since Joshua’s and my camping trip. I really wanted to have the video done and this entry written right after we returned last Saturday, but between lots of work to catch up on, taking longer on the video than expected, and incredibly annoying frustrations with uploading it to Google Video, I have just now got around to it. I know that since last weekend you’ve all been sitting at your computers in anxious expectation of this moment, so I do apologize for keeping you from your TV and other important things.  I hope you do know that I’m just kidding about TV being an important thing.  Of course, everyone knows that video games are much more important.

The camping was really a blast.  Although the mosquitoes were almost unbearable - we couldn’t even sit down long enough to eat - we really enjoyed ourselves and had a great time.  I asked Joshua what the funnest thing is that he’s ever done in his extremely long life, and he said it was this camping trip.  That right there made all the mosquito bites worth it!

OK, enough babbling.  You probably just want to watch the video.  It is really quite a lot longer (13 minutes!) than I wanted it to be, but when putting it together I just couldn’t cut out so many of the cute things that Joshua did or said, so 13 minutes it is!  Because of the aforementioned problem with Google, I am trying a different video hosting service called Vimeo.  Hopefully I’ll have better luck with it than I have with Google.

You can watch it in full screen by clicking the squarish-looking arrows just to the right of the volume.

Jesse and Joshua’s Camping Trip from Jesse Shanks on Vimeo.

And here’s some photos:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Here’s a drawing that Joshua did a few weeks ago of our future house in Togo.  Well, at least how he envisions it to be!  I certainly hope that we have a little more protection from the rainy season than a hay roof!  Notice that he didn’t leave out any really important details like the slide and swing.

Since arriving in Quebec, Joshua has had somewhat of a difficult time being away from all his friends and family. Add to that the fact that none of the children here speak English and you can imagine that this would get a little frustrating for a young boy. What has been really neat to see, however, is how Joshua has become very good friends with two sisters, Kelly and Lydia, who speak no English at all. Joshua has picked up some French words here and there, but he’s not really able to communicate at all in French. It’s amazing to see them play together though; somehow they manage to communicate through body language and the very little English/French that they know. They can play for hours like this.

This picture was taken on Easter Sunday, so I also included the one we took of our family and Malerie. By the way, Malerie will be leaving in four weeks, and will definitely be missed. She has been such a help and a blessing to our family, and we’re sad to see her go, but happy for her as well as she begins the next stage of her life. Please pray for us when she leaves as we will need to make many adjustments to our schedules and daily routines once she’s gone. Pray that Joshua can quickly adjust to this.

Several times a year, people and churches ask for our family photo. Why, I’m not too sure, but I suppose it’s because of Tiffany and Joshua being in it. A black marker can easily fix the ugly third of the family! Anyways, on Easter Sunday we took a new family photo which was long overdo. There’s no copyright licensing, so feel free to download it, print it, make wanted posters with it, draw mustaches and fangs, use it for blackmail purposes, etc. To download it, just right click on the photo and select “Save Image As…”

Isn’t Joshua getting SO big!!??

Today I was looking forward to a nice Saturday around the house catching up on homework and some personal work. However, our washing machine had other plans in mind. We were surprised to hear an unexpected doorbell ring, and looking through the peephole I saw our downstairs neighbor. Now let me stop here and explain that on the previous three occasions when we have met him it has been because of our seemingly paper-thin floors. As I saw him, I thought, “We were barely making any noise! How could he be telling us we’re too loud?”

When I opened the door, he looked a bit frantic and began telling me (in French) something about water coming down his wall. I thought, “Hmm, that’s not good!.” Then he said it was coming from our “laveur.” I thought, “Laveur…laveur…laveur…OK, I know this word…’laver’ means ‘to wash,’ ah-ha! Laveur is the washing machine!” So quickly I told him thank you and ran over to our washing machine and looked behind it, surprised to see a large pool of water on the floor.

To make a very long and frustrating story a lot shorter, I spent a few hours looking at the thingamajigs and the doohickeys, and not to mention mopping up a very wet floor, trying to figure out where the leak was coming from. Finally, I found what you see in the second photo. After a repair diagnosis by my dad via online video, who was a washer repairman many years ago (back in ‘09, as he says). He said that there’s very likely a bigger problem than what I can see from the exterior. In order to find out for sure would require a major repair attempt with tools that I don’t have, and then once I did find the real problem, he said that the cost of the part, and my time, would likely be just as much as a new used washer.

So, after much contemplation (about 2.7 minutes), I decided that it’s time to get a washing machine! Probably on Monday we will head to a couple stores and check out some used ones, so please pray that we can find a cheap but reliable washer.

As Tiffany said, “Well, at least we got 11 months out of a free washer!”

Each Friday evening we all head over to our friends’ house for some fun and lots of French conversation with them. They have two girls, Kelly and Lydia, who are very close to Joshua’s age, so you can imagine how hard they play together while we’re over there. Normally we stay until at least 10:30, but usually later. Adding to this the fact that Joshua doesn’t get a nap on Fridays, by the time we get home we have a limp and unresponsive kid on our hands, or should I say in my arms. I carry him upstairs from the car and put him on the couch before transferring him to his bed. On the night that I took these pictures he was so tired that I took off his boots, jacket, and lifted him up into his bed without him moving a muscle!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.