Monday, March 21, 2011

(Day 4) Conference day two...

We started early with the last three sessions. The leaders seemed to connect with what Dad was saying and with the material; with almost 250 attendees it's hard to know for sure.
(view from the back of the church)

Tuesday night a Togolese friend popped up on Facebook chat and wanted to see if we could meet before I left. Emmanuel is a current student at the University of Lome and served as a day volunteer translating for the Mercy Ships crew. He also came with us to Kpalime (see previous post) and served as a valuable resource that weekend! Emmanuel said he would try to come by the church as the conference ended and meet my parents. I wasn't sure he would make it before he left, but I'm glad he did!



As I stood by the church's back door waiting for Emmanuel I got into conversation with a few of the young men/women that ran the A/V equipment, sang for the worship team, or manned the book table. They wanted to know about the US, what I was studying in university, and how I liked Togo. One guy asked me what American thought about Togo and they were absolutely shocked when I told them that almost everyone has never even heard of Togo and I have to show my friends where Togo is using my Africa necklace!

We had a great time talking for about 20 minutes and they shared with me what they did (some were students, one was a bread maker, one sold produce in the market, and one repaired refrigerators). They wanted to make sure we took a picture together before I left!
(Anita, the girl to my right, is a 4th-year English major at the university and
works part-time as the church secretary... I love her "Queen's English"!

Then we came back to the church at 4pm so Mom and I could meet with some of the women leaders from the church and other churches around Lome. We got off to a bit of a slow start, but Leo translated for us and about 30 min into our time the ladies started to ask questions about how to teach the younger women in the church (from Titus 2, Mom's main point), modesty, how to keep girls from "running off with boys", and other issues common to girls around the world! :) Poor Leo, trying to translate for us about modesty. :) But it was a very good time and I hope that we were able to encourage them.

Leo drove us back to the hotel and we found ourselves in a traffic jam. After waiting for about 15 minutes and realizing we would soon get completely blocked in, we took a bit of a detour down a road that was still under construction. There were so many cars, zimis, bicycles, and pedestrians on the this road that could not have been more than 20' wide! And although it was only about 7 pm, it was completely pitch black because Lome has no street lights and most of the homes and shops operate by the light of a kerosene flame or a single florescent bulb. Ah... Africa.

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