January 27, 2008 – 2:03pm (GMT) – Lome, Togo
Lome, the capital city of Togo, is not as bad as Lagos, but then it isn’t as nice as Accra either somewhere in between. It’s dusty, but then this is harmaten time. This means the winds are blowing sand off the Sahara and dumping it all across this part of Africa. You can see it when you look up towards the sun, the whole sky is cloudy and the dust settles over everything. Lome is right on the ocean, you can see the Atlantic Ocean from my hotel window. It looks to me what I would expect parts of Jamaica or Puerto Rice to look like. But then I have never been to either, so it could be only my imagination. It’s a very lazy city. All of Africa gives you the impression of we’ll get to it when we feel like it, but even more so here in Lome. Sometimes we have to ask our waitresses two or three times before they finally bring us the bill.
The hotel we are staying at here is more upscale than the places we have been, and the natives know to watch for tourists. The streets around the hotel are lined with little booths selling all kinds of things. Within a few blocks of the hotel the sellers must be targeting the tourists; everything they sell is distinctly African, african robes, masks, paintings, etc. When you get a few blocks away, there are a lot more fruits and vegetables and the clothes they are selling are jeans and T-shirts. Tourists come here and want to buy the “African” cloth and clothes, but all the Africans want the American clothes. I made the mistake of stopping to look at some of the carvings and before I knew it I was surrounded by 6 or 7 guys pressing me into this little booth. I finally bought two little carvings. And even though I only paid a third of what the guy originally asked, I still think they weren’t really worth that much. In any case I wasn’t paying for the carvings as much as I was for my freedom, one more thing to learn to how to handle overseas. Usually I just make sure that I have no money on me that way I can say I have no money and they will leave me alone. This afternoon I went out to look for a “football” (soccer ball) to give to Pastor Kossi for his kids, but after my experience yesterday, I brought Kossi with me and let him do the talking.
Pastor Kossi teaches teachers how to teach during the day, super pastor by night. He said he teaches Math, Philosophy, English (British English anyway), and French. Currently he is the pastor at two separate congregations. He like any good pastor wishes to quit his other job and concentrate 100% on the ministry, but of course that doesn’t always work out.
The congregation is growing. The Mission board currently rents some land here in Lome for the congregation. The congregation is currently too big for the church they have. They are hoping and praying that we can help them buy, instead of rent, another piece of land where they will then build a church. The problem with the land we currently rent for them is that the previous owner died and his widow is making it as difficult as possible for the congregation to remain there. They need to build a bigger church but they don’t want to do it on land that they may have to move off of. There are also apparently some children who come through rocks at the church during services at times.
The service this morning was far more exuberant than any I had seen up to this point. Here in Togo the official language is French not English, like Ghana and Nigeria. In Nigeria as I mentioned previously they to a large part follow page 5 and sing hymns from the Lutheran hymnal. Here since they don’t speak English really at all they can’t do that. I don’t really know what they were saying or singing, but it was very joyful and very much not TLH. They also had African style drums going all most constantly. Tonight I am going back to their church. They have an Evangelist choir that is practicing. Pastor Kossi said they go out by bus to different places with their instruments and hold meetings wherever.
There are three new men that Dave and I met with this week, who previously had been Pentecostal Pastors but now are a part of Kossi’s church. I have pictures of two of them and Kossi under Lome Church. They are convinced of the correctness of the teachings of the CLC and wish to join. Pastor Kossi is hoping to open more churches around the city where these men can preach, and serve the Lord.
My time in Africa approaches an end. We drive back to Accra tomorrow to spend a little more time with Gideon and then on Thursday we fly out. I would say that it will be nice to return home, accept I’m not going home. It will however be a relief to get all of my luggage into one final place and only need to take a small bag from then on when I travel. Trying to keep track of and carry around about 100lbs of luggage gets a little tiring, through customs and immigration and trying to find Dave. But the end is near.
On to evangelist practice,
– Matt
PS Since I am now back from their practice let me say a few words about that. Exuberant. Okay I’ll say that one word about it. That about sums it up. During two hours of practice they only paused shortly in their singing/dancing/drumming praise to the Lord twice. I’m not sure if it was many hymns strung together or basically three really long hymns. I think that what they were in fact doing is repetitively singing one or two basic phrases over and over for 45 minutes. I believe during the two short breaks the director was telling them the new phrases and giving them a new beat for the next session. I have some video of this I will post under Lome Church, but probably not till I get to India.