Africa - July 13

Our team was about to visit another small village where the CHE program is being implemented. This community not only had very little, they did not have water or a well and disease was very prominent. We got to meet with a small group from the Christian church that was just started. The Togolese in this community were very rich and new in their faith. We performed our skit for them, did our salvation bracelet presentation as well as had the children perform the lost sheep skit. Before we left we were able to fit only the men with flip flops. Apparently in these communities you cannot hand out the goods or else it causes major confrontation. The leader of the village or church will decide how to divide the material between families.

Things I learned in this community: *Eating the seeds of a papaya is a natural remedy for the children who have the worms in their stomachs. *The leader of this village has numerous wives and children with all of them. *Two women were breast feeding the same baby. They just passed the little guy back and forth. *Roads to this village are incredibly bumpy and my hips are bruised! *Even the smallest things: like 6 plastic beads on a small plastic piece of string is like Christmas for these villages. A great reminder to cherish the small things in life! *This village made me miss Daniels house very badly, which is crazy because when I first got to his house, I was pretty uneasy about my surroundings! *The smallest chair in the world exists in this village! :D

*When a man says give me beads and then flash me...doesn't mean what it would mean in the US. It means...I would like one of your salvation bracelets and then I would like you to take a picture of me! (We were all dying from laughing when this man asked me numerous times to flash him...)

The evening was spend at a nearby village where we watched another outdoor movie with the Christians. The great part of this night was that the movie had SUBTITLES!! It has been very hard to stay focused during the videos with a translator changing the language from french (I don't know) to Ewè (I don't know!) At the end of the night on our drive home, Ata (our driver) lost the keys to the car! We were all searching around in the dark for them. I told him that he should check ALL his pockets...he didn't and we kept looking. A few minutes later he got really excited and had found them...in his pocket!!!

I cannot believe this trip is winding down the the end. It's a amazing how fast 2 weeks flies by! I would love to bring loved ones with me next time and stay for longer! It feels like I'm just getting used to it and it's almost time to head home.