A Weekend On The Town

Each week seems more interesting here than the one before.  Perhaps we're becoming more adventuresome or at least more acclimated to our surroundings.  More likely its the combination of hearing what others have been up to on their time off the ship and the opportunity to go somewhere when Peter is finally not on call all weekend. 

So - yes!  We finally had one of those weekends!  But first - I thought I'd post some more fun pictures and even videos from - where else?  The exploits of the EYE TEAM!   For the past three weeks we've been having the last of our series of appointments with our cataract patients where they come for a final laser surgery to rupture the back of the capsule that use to house the lens of their eye.  This is not always done for cataract patients but we do it routinely to ensure that the small remnant of lens that might be left will not develop another cataract and rob the person of their sight again.  It only takes a few seconds apiece so we do an entire week of patients on one morning so there is quite the circus / party atmosphere throughout the entire morning.  Since many of these people are extremely grateful for the gift of regained sight they love to tell their stories to anyone who will listen.  And since this is Africa there is, of course, a lot of singing and dancing.  So - I finally remembered to bring my camera to this festive occasion and thought I'd share some pictures and a video with you all.  

Crew play drums and sing as everyone dances

Close up of baby w/ Candace, the nurse that runs the admissions tent

Hopefully the video will load properly after multiple attempts.  The singing and dancing here goes on for about 20 minutes and then several of the patients give testimonies about how amazing it is to see again after many, many years of blindness.  Going through the paperwork I've been amazed that some of these people can barely see hands waving in front of their faces but now have almost 20/20 vision!  It is really wonderful to be part of such a medical miracle week after week. 

For some reason the video decided to attach itself to the pic of Candace - but after six attempts to load the video I'm not going to start over yet again. 


Our Friday night was quite unusual since things are moving along toward the Africa Mercy's next mission. - Yes - WOW!!  Time to get things moving in preparation for the ship to pull into Guinea this coming August for a 10 month outreach.  Of course several contacts and many visits have preceded the ship's arrival but the real detail work of getting vehicles at the port, a place for people and some patients to stay post op and all the permissions to work and travel in the country have to be worked out and on Africa time.  It's alot of work.  A team of about 8 people started leaving for Guinea this weekend to start doing all this very important work.  We went to the "team house" to pray for each of these hardy souls as well as for their upcoming mission.  The team house is a very large home in Lome that houses quite a few people that do off ships type ministries in conjunction with what we do on the ship.  We only hear about what they do so it was pretty neat to see where they've been living and to hear more about how the advanced team works in country and all the stuff they are responsible.  If you'd like to add the Mercy Ships advance team in Guinea to your prayer lists we would all be very grateful.  It was amazing to hear some of the instances where it was only the Lord's intervention that provided the way for many, many things that happened the way they did when the team did their advance work here in Togo.  It also gives me some more insight into what Peter did for the Navy in all those countries he travelled to when he was setting up the mission for the Navy ship Mercy going to SE Asia in 2008.   

On Saturday Peter and I went out shopping in the town. It was our second attempt to find a gorgeous fabric store in town famous for their specialized African batik fabric.  It is very common here to buy fabric and then have outfits made to measure.  Seemingly every local person knows a tailor that makes all their clothes for them.  As time goes on we try to note who has the nicest outfits in order to maximize the value of the fabric one buys.  Some of the workmanship is really outstanding and the prices are very cheap.  We then met up with some friends at the local artisan craft market that I've blogged about before.  We've been there twice before but are starting to realize that our time here is getting short and we need to start thinking about souvenirs and gifts to bring home!  So - we found some lovely things but for obvious reasons I can't say much or post any pictures! 

Parents with God Mothers

Today was a very special day in that one of our eye team day workers had a traditional "naming ceremony" for his newborn son at his church.  Two carloads of of folks from the ship made the trip to his church a stones throw from the Ghana border.  The parents are on the outside of the group and the "God mothers" (not sure if that's what they call them) are the two in the middle.  Interestingly, the woman holding the baby worked with the mom when the ship was in Togo in 2010.  This was also when the mom and the dad met as day workers for Mercy Ships when the ship was here for its last outreach.  Apparently, the mother and the nurse - Veronica really connected and kept in touch.  How wonderful that she was able to be here for this momentous occasion.  The Father works with us on the eye team and does wonderful work.  The other woman currently works with us as a day worker and we all fight to get her as a translator since her English is flawless after living for 7 years in Jacksonville, FL! 
You will probably ask why they are all dressed alike.  I really can't tell you although it is really common to see people at church or walking from an event all dressed alike.  At first I thoeught they were all like choir members or something.  But no...the choir all wore regular clothes.  It seems that it is usually family members that dress the same when they go places.  It certainly looks classier than the whole family going to Sea World and wearing tee shirts that say "Smith Family Reunion" or something like that.  I guess our sons better watch out for colorful printed shirts that look like dad in their future.

We really enjoyed the service, too.  Peter especially had a good time since he wasn't asked to get up and give the blessing or anything.  They really put themselves out for us as they made sure that everything was translated into English. 

Here's a picture of the pastor in the middle giving his sermon from 3John in French, the translator for the locals that don't speak French into Ewe - the local language and the the man on the left ,who is from the ship translating into English.
 
And then, since you wouldn't know you were in Africa if there wasn't at least 15 minutes of singing and sweaty dancing - here's a video, I hope, of the whole church getting up to dance.  No, Peter and I are not in this clip, but yes - we did dance for quite awhile.  Thankfully there was a washing machine open for our use when we got back to the ship since no, there was no air conditioning in this open air church. It did have large fans and was extremely nice both inside and out. 

Then to cap off the weekend we decided to go for broke, take a cab and head out to a local restaurant for a rare date night dinner. 

So - we've had a fun, interesting and rejuvenating  weekend and we hope that you have, too.