New Missionaries

This past week, I headed down to Lome with fellow missionaries; Lisa and the Shanks Family. The drive down was pretty much uneventful with the exception of a couple wrecks along the way. Nothing as bad though as the two trucks that we saw complete totaled after jack knifing in the mountains with cement and cotton loads. I’m not really sure that anyone walked away from that one.

We had several goals to accomplish while in the capital. Most dairy products such as cheeses really can only be found in Lome, so, groceries where high on the priority list. I was also in search for propane and steel. In Togo they sell propane tanks about the size of bbq tanks in the US. However, for over a year now there has been a shortage of propane in the country. I think it has more to do with the inability to keep up with supply and not so much the lack of the gas itself. Either way, we left Kara with four tanks and after visiting the Director of Gas for the entire country we headed down to the Port i.e. the filling station and left there with seven. From there I was in search for steel to finish the Church building project in Pagado and also the garage at Sarakowa. While, I didn’t find exactly what I needed, I was able to get something I believe would work for my project but the Church project is still in limbo till the right type of steel gets back into the country.

I think, quite possible, the greatest blessing of this trip was meeting up with JJ and Melissa Alderman who had just made it into the country for permanent residency. We all went out to a local French restaurant and chatted about various things and caught up on life. It’s such a blessing to have them in country despite them living so far south from all of us in Kara.

All in all, the trip to Lome was extremely productive and profitable if not terribly busy! God blessed and we had no troubles traveling and made good timing on roads and whiling looking accidents we ourselves where not involved in any—which is always a huge blessing!

Finalizing Phase Deux.

For the past week, I’ve been taking daily runs about 10 miles from my house out to Sarakowa where my container is and the ministry’s tractor is stored. This project has been in planning for sometime and this past November/December phase one had begun on the garage. I’m so thankful to say the phase two has been successfully completed. The walls and the floors have been raised and poured.

Yesterday, I spent the entire morning and early afternoon (with a nice red sunburn to show for it) with two masons and three helpers as we mixed and poured nearly a metric ton of cement by hand with the aid of a diesel cement mixing machine. Each bucket of gravel, sand and water were painfully and meticulously measured out and then dumped into the mixer before ultimately making its way into the front end loader of the tractor or into a near by wheel barrel and then finally into the slab itself. After nearly five and a half hours, the 16 x 26 foot slab with reinforced steel had been poured. It took the masons another two hours to do the finishing work on the slab before it was ready to be left overnight.

With phase two behind me it’s not time to focus on phase three which is right around the corner and it consists of hanging the steel door, fabricating rafters and attaching the steel. Prayerfully, sometime in the next 30 days or so we’ll see that accomplished.

After the building is complete the tractor and other construction will have a permanent home while not being used for ministry purposes.