November 25, 2009 – 8:20pm – Lome Togo
Choir in Lome Togo singing in church
Leave it to the French to make things difficult. I arrived in Lome Togo today after only a very brief stint in Ghana. It really amazes me how different the two countries are although put together I do not think their combined width is even 150 miles. One of the differences is the outlets. Its true that everywhere I go has different outlets from the UK to Nigeria to India. Here in Togo I have found generally the same two round holes like in India, BUT they are inset into a round cavern with a single flat vertical protuberance coming out of the wall, so that they not only need the correct sized metal protuberances sticking out from your plug, but the shape of the rubber housing on the plug itself must all fit within certain parameters. This made me very doubtful as to the usefulness of my ingenious American made plug of all countries. However if I underestimated the French flare for uniqueness, I also underestimated American cleverness, my handy little international plug did indeed fit just fine without any problems. It seems France and America can indeed work together. And I must say that however strange their outlets the food here in Togo is the best I have found in Africa. It is incredible. It isn’t just the food either everything in Togo seems to take after France, which is understandable since it was a french colony. I admit that I don’t know that much about French style, but there is something about the hair and clothes here that just seems well French.
Children singing and dancing in Lome Togo
Another and better surprise awaited me in the car on the way to Togo. We have a pastoral conference in Lome this weekend. In order to lend support and help to encourage both themselves and those members in Lome, Pastor Gideon, as well as Martin Essien, Pastor Essien Michael, and Pastor Eric from Nigeria, are coming to take part in this conference. I flew first to Ghana to visit the church there and picked up Pastor Gideon and brought him with me to Togo. When we only a few miles from Lome, Pastor Gideon received a phone call. After talking on the cell phone for a little while he informed me that he had forgotten that he has a program Thursday night in Accra, so he would have to go back to Ghana and then return on Friday to Lome to take part in the Pastoral Conference. Naturally curious, I inquired about the nature of his program. I have to preach the Gospel he said at this other church. I do try hard not to jump to conclusions, in these foreign lands it is so easy to misunderstand what is going on especially when their native language is not English. So I inquired further. Turns out what he meant was that he was going there to do exactly what he said, to preach the Gospel and show them the difference between what the Gospel truly was and what their church taught. “We must not hide in our churches, we must go to them and tell them the truth,” he told me. At that point I almost could have hugged Gideon if I weren’t German, well maybe thought of hugging him, well . . .