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Togo Mission 2007with Kipuke Ministries
Day 6, Day 3 in Kara Clinic day 2
If you ever get the chance to read this, I pray you will find it interesting and not too verbose.
Today for breakfast, just bread and coffee and a little laughing cow cheese.
We arrived at the ministry site about 0800 and after assembly and prayer we set up our little clinic and saw mostly the children of the students at Kipuke Ministries.
We saw what we thought was impetigo of varying degrees, one 3rd degree burn already beginning to heal (thank God) and various and sundry other ailments which we treated with pain/fever reducer, Tums, pseudofed and benedryl. We also lanced one small lesion to drain and dressed it, passed out worm pills and vitamins. Gary Billingsly called and said “you do what you can do”. Esahu says you never know how positively you impact these people, but you do. I am now being called Papa here the same as Esahu.
We had on Mother come for treatment and she was 30 by her admission, but looked much, much older.. She had heard that “whites” were here and wanted to know if she could come also
2 things here.
First, the extended malnutrition affects these peoples health and physically makes them appear older. The saying we have “rode hard and put up wet to dry comes to mind.
Second – they have a unique custom here. You can go to court and have a judgment to legally change your age. Marilyn might like that. Many of the girls we interviewed yesterday when asked their age would say 15 by judgment, but I am 19 (or something similar)
The chief of many villages a doctor herself came by and thanked us for our involvement.
After seeing the children and adults, we washed at home and went to the same restaurant as yesterday... If you are looking for food at home, they do have a hamburger and hotdog. Otherwise if you order chicken for example, it probably was killed this morning and they are not very big chickens as you can imagine and they are rather tough. It came with a sauce almost Cajun in content, I asked for hot, and it was!
I loved the sauce and rice. They really could have kept the chicken, but I ate it.
We then drove to the North of Kara to Baga, the village of chief Baga and where the Peace Corps lady resides to give her the cookies from Margee's. But she wasn’t there.
This was not a trip in vain, because we met Chief Baga, most of his 16 wives and children. Everyone in the village is either his wife or his child, totaling 90 people. He complained of backache, Go Figure and knee pain. The man is between 70-80 years old and still producing children with 16 wives.
Esahu met him by seeking a village with a reputation for relying on witchcraft. This is about 45 minutes from Kara depending on how fast you are driving. Just wear a seatbelt.
He was steeped into the protection from many witchdoctors and as Esahu and he began to be friends, he slowly began accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and is now a Christian, as is his village family. He is chief over 8 villages and is in ill health. Esahu states he looks much worse than the last time he saw him and asked him to go to the hospital tomorrow. We left him a bottle of Advil with instructions on how to use for his pain.
We sat with him under the Tree of Truth, or judgment tree. No on can lie under this tree, and if they do they Never leave the village, “so they say”.
We then started passing out vitamins and worm pills to the children, first a few, and then more and more, and more. I have some pics, it was wonderful. Before leaving we as a group with Mary praying Prayed with them and then Esahu prayed for them, perhaps interpreting.
On the way home we say a building in the distance with many his on a basketball court.
We turned and went there and it was the University of Togo competing against the Togolese Military academy in Volleyball. The university won AND WERE IMMEDIATELY SHOT, just kidding. The university did win, there were many people there filming and cheering, and even one of our v\village neighbors was there. I got some pretty good photos. You see military here frequently; there is a paratroop brigade in Kara as well as other military. They guard banks and toll booths also.
Tomorrow we will return to Lome.
Goodnight and please pray for Kipuke ministries and the needy of Africa.
Oh yes, after 6 days of carrying the cookies and the PC girl was not there. We prevented the cookies from being thrown away. My African friends said they were very good. I had one (just one) too!
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