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Name: Ethan
Country: United States
Gender: Male
Interests: Doing anything with MMM! Hiking, Theology, Youth Ministry, Missions, Wood Working
Occupation: Youth Pastor, Business Manager
Industry: Church/Non-Profit
Message: message me
Member Since:
9/21/2004
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| I've heard a few people say they didn't get some of our updates from Togo so I'm going to include them here. Sorry about this long post. If you're looking for the photos scroll way down. March 26, 2007 Hello, Well after leaving Seattle at 7:30 am on Sunday I am now writing you from Accra , Ghana where it is currently 8 PM Monday night here. We are staying at a Southern Baptist guest house until tomorrow morning when we will be picked up and driven the 5 hours to the Togo hospital compound. It's been a long day that involved nearly 20 hours in the air and four airports. We had a two hour layover in Washington D.C. and about 4 hours in Frankfurt, Germany. It is very hot here in Accra and incredibly humid. The local missionaries remarked at how cool it was due to a large rain today (Praise God). Aaron traveled very well although I'm not sure he's going to be ready for bed tonight and probably has no idea what time it is. Of course he got all kinds of smiles and was a great conversation starter on the plane and in the airports. I think he even got us a spot in the fast lane at a couple of ticket counters. All of our luggage also made the trip so that is nice. Something I noticed tonight as we drove from the airport to the guest house is hoards of flying insects, it turns out there flying termites which frequently hatch after a hard rain an after a few days they'll all loose their wings and won't be flying everywhere (might explain most buildings being built from cement). Well since we have Internet at the guest house I wanted to let you all know that we have arrived safe and sound. Thanks for your prayers. Ethan (Melissa & Aaron) March 29, 2007 Hello, Since we have been here a couple of days now I figured it was time to write and let you all know that we made it the last leg of the trip. Email has been cantankerous here. The way email works here at the guest house is that we write a message and put it in the outbox and twice a day one of the missionaries logs onto the dial-up service and sends and receives all the emails. Let's see, Wilson picked us up from the guest house in Accra and drove us to the border of Ghana and Togo where we met one of the hospital employees in a red hospital van. The trip from Accra to the border kept me spell bound as we saw a few very rich homes and most just scrapping out a living. All along the way were people selling goods beside and sometimes in the road. Between Accra and the hospital there were over 200 speed bumps. That seems to be the way cars are slowed down for villages since most villages have a speed bump. I will never get used to seeing the size of loads people here carry on their heads. Let's see we saw women carrying pans of water from a water source quite a ways from home to their village, we saw women and young people carrying large bundles of wood for their fires, we saw buckets of pineapples, large pans of coco beans, buckets of bananas, pans of many types of cooked foods, and the list goes on... I have been amazed at the appearance of people here in Togo. Despite living in a world where being clean has to be an incredible chore they are for the most part incredibly clean and well kept. In fact, I heard one of the doctors who is also here on a short-term assignment mention that the people he saw at the clinic and hospital here are by far cleaner than the patients he sees in the states. I think I just mention this because it really stands out as you drive through a village with one paved road through it and all the rest are dirt or clay and houses are more like open air stalls made from baked brick some with cement floors some with hard clay floors and still the people are dressed so clean and colorfully, it's quite the contrast. Grandparents and everyone concerned: Yes, Aaron is doing great so far. His schedule is a bit mixed up but I think he's getting things figured out. Last night he woke up less than the night before so maybe by the end of the week he'll have caught up. Babies are very much loved in Togo so anytime I'm around the people of Togo, Aaron is waved at, played with, tickled, and generally given way too much attention. Most of which he thoroughly enjoys and rewards with a grin. Giving Aaron his malaria medicine has been a struggle but I think we've finally figured out something that works. He has to have a pill every day and the pills are very bitter so at first we tried adding it to his milk which he hated and basically wouldn't drink. However, we were given some banana baby food by a mother at the Accra guest house and if you hold him at the right angle and give him three spoonfuls of that mixed with his bitter crushed malaria pill he has no choice but to swallow and within minutes he seems to have forgotten the pain and its inflictor and is once again playing. Of course he may never again eat bananas but it's a small price to pay. The medical facility here has two clinic buildings and a hospital with 31 beds. This morning I walked Melissa down to the hospital where she does rounds at 7:30 am and looked in on a number of patients. There are two very small babies in the little plastic compartments, they were each born about three months early. There is a men's ward, a women's ward, a children's ward, an infectious disease area. Yesterday Melissa helped with a C-Section and I walked down to the hospital in time to see her come out of the OR with the little guy. Most afternoons Melissa will work in the clinic. Well I'll write more later. Take care and thanks for your prayers! Ethan (Melissa & Aaron) March 31, 2007 Hello, We are well. Noah is one of the Togolese men who works as a cook here at the ABWE guest house on the hospital compound. He does a great job keeping us fed. Noah also operates a "restaurant" in Adeta (the village closest to the hospital). So last night 11 of us piled in the van and drove to Noah's restaurant where we enjoyed rice with two sauce options (egg sauce and chicken sauce). Both were good, the egg sauce really tasted more like the tomatoe-base and I was told the chicken sauce could be hot if you got one of the pimas (hot peppers) but I somehow avoided those. Noah also made pizza for us one was cheese and the other was hot dog pizza. We were told that Noah's restaurant was started when the Peace Corps workers who were around town several years ago wanted someone to prepare pizza on Friday nights. The restaurant was actually a table in a screened in porch attached to Noah's house. With 11 of us, all possible chairs and stools were pulled around an old table and the plates were an assortment of plates, serving platters, and a couple of pie dishes. A curtain separated the kitchen on the house from the screened in porch where we ate. As we glanced into the kitchen it included a few shelves, a stove and cement floor and walls. We brought our own water and enjoyed a great meal and great fellowship, all for less than three dollars each. All the people living in the huts and houses nearby watched with great interest and immediately started holding on to Aaron as we left the table. As we've said before, he is a huge hit. I missed the excitement at the hospital today but Melissa and others told filled me in. As Melissa and Robert (a young doctor who was here for two weeks and left today) were in the middle of morning rounds they heard a loud commotion near the operating rooms as one of the other short term doctors was yelling for another doctor. As everyone rushed to see what the emergency was, they saw that a green mamba (very poisonous snake) had entered through a door near the OR and was slithering down the hall towards us and the nurses' station. It was confronted in the hall and then retreated to one of the rooms. What a circus as the Togolese female nurses and patients were up on a gurney, the male nurses were on the beds as well trying to kill the snake by jabbing it with anything handy including a IV pole. Finally, Todd (one of the missionary physician assistants) grabbed a backboard and slammed it down on the green mamba ushering him into snake heaven. Melissa was very careful about where she put her feet from then on. I later held the green mamba and when his head was on the ground his tail was about three inches above my waist. The story made us wonder at the wisdom of the ruffle around our bed that makes it impossible to see under the bed without getting close and lifting the ruffle. Well tomorrow's Sunday and we're looking forward to walking down the road less than 1/2 mile to the local church. April 2, 2007 Hello, We had a very hard rain storm last night during our Sunday evening service at the guest house. In the middle of the truth project video we were watching the storm started up with tons of rain, thunder & lightning and wind. Melissa had to do evening rounds at the hospital and she got very drenched on the walk down to the hospital. They say that the storm brings out the "critters" so she was especially careful when walking. Remember the green mamba I wrote about? Well, I should have waited until later on Saturday to email you since later that day a second one was killed in the hospital (the surgical sterilization area). They have done a great job of setting the hospital compound up with generators to cover local power outages. So much so, that we hardly even notice when the power switches from local power to the compound generator. Yesterday the generator was running a lot and I'm told that the village closest to us didn't have power from before the storm last evening until late this morning. We walked to church down the road yesterday. Since the whole service was in French and translated into the local tribal language it was quite the experience. The church has a strong brass band and a big base. There were also two choirs which both did specials. Thankfully a young man who spoke English sat behind myself and a couple of other short-term missionaries and translated the service into English. Aaron had begun to make noise so Melissa took Aaron to the nursery (a bench in the shade outside the church building). There was a nice breeze so the open doors and sidewalls were greatly appreciated. Next Sunday they will have a combined church service with four of the local churches meeting for Easter Sunday at a local village where they hope to begin a new church. In fact, they will begin with evangelistic meetings Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then culminate with the Sunday combined worship service. We were all encouraged to bring food for the meal after church and to bring palm branches which will be needed to construct a large tent for the meeting. We pushed the little collapsible stroller down to the church which brought lots of comments. One of the young men (probably a teenager) really wanted to push Aaron home. He got a lot of teasing and looks from the passers-by. Thankfully on the way home we had the shade of the mango trees to protect us from the sun for part of the way. A couple of the young people enjoyed collecting a few of the ripe mangos and giving them to me. When I got home I peeled them and ate them. They were delicious although they were a type of mango that is smaller and seems to have very little meat for the size of pits that have. There are also a number of mango trees on the compound that are much larger and are soon going to be ripe. I'm told it's getting to be mango season and it has been nice to either have fresh mango or pineapple for most breakfasts. Last week as we drove with others above the hospital up onto a plateau we stopped at one of the villages and purchased pineapples for our kitchen staff. The pineapples were just piled by the road and what we paid for these delicious pineapples was equivalent to 25 cents. Well I better see if Aaron has awoke from his nap. Ethan April 7, 2007 Hello, I'm hooked on mangos. I've discovered a nice ripe mango is very similar in flavor and texture to a nice ripe peach. Speaking of mangos, one of the short-term doctors purchased 10 mangos and 6 avocados from one of the street vendors the other day for the equivalent of $1.20. However, gas is over $3.75 a gallon. A few of you have asked about our accommodations and I've been reluctant to reply in case some of you were still planning on sending funds to our ABWE account to offset our expenses for this trip. However, at the risk of you thinking we are actually on some sort of tropical vacation rather than a mission trip, I'll fill you in on our accommodations... No mud huts or tiki torches here, we are actually staying at a very nice guest house on the hospital compound. Our room has a queen bed, a couple of chairs, a couple of dressers, a crib, a full bath, a ceiling fan that hasn't been turned off since the moment we initially walked into the room, a colony of small ants and at least 4 documented lizards of various sizes. If you feel your skin itching we've found that you really should investigate the source as it is most likely some small insect running around. The floor and the shower are made from large flat rocks placed in cement. There are four main guest rooms like our in the guest house and a large attached dining room and kitchen where our meals are prepared. There is also a covered porch with chairs for sitting our when the bugs aren't out that attaches all the rooms to the dining area. Laundry is done three times a week for us (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) we simply bring our laundry to the laundry area and it is magically done during the day, all our meals are prepared for us and for the most part they are American style food. We do have an air conditioner in our room but we try not to run it more than a few hours at night since we are charged by the hour for it. We are so thankful for the nice facilities here it really makes the hot hours Melissa spends at the clinic and hospital more enjoyable. There is even a swimming pool on the grounds for missionaries and short term guests. When they built the compound they really wanted something that would be a good source of recreation for the missionary families and kids, hence the swimming pool. So there you have it, instead of suffering in a far off land we are actually racking up air-conditioning, and pool fees (actually I've only been swimming twice so far). One thing I've learned both from personal experience and listening to Melissa talk of her day over the past few years, is that there are a lot of very sad and devastating moments that happen at hospitals. The hospital here is no different. One of the photos Melissa took the other day involved two of the doctors outside under the mango trees telling a wife that her husband and father of their children who were present, was in the final stages of dying of AIDS. This family had sought help at a number of places and had not got a good diagnosis but thanks to the tests that can be done in the lab here his diagnosis could be found quickly. Interestingly here in Togo it is much more expensive to hire a taxi for a dead corpse than for a living person (regardless of how living he or she may be). So for many cases such as this man with AIDS, where there is nothing further that can be done for the person at the hospital the staff speak frankly and encourage the family to take the person home. This keeps a incredibly poor family from having an additional financial burden put on them. [Melissa writing now] I am seeing patients in the clinic by myself (with an interpreter) and taking call every 3rd night. Last Wednesday, I was called to the hospital around 4:15am. Just minutes before a huge wind and thunderstorm had swept through. We had been told that "critters"come out after the storms so Ethan kindly walked her over to the hospital and stuck around while I admitted 2 patients. To Ethan's great disappointment though, no critters were seen. The thunderstorms are magnificent though and remind us of God's power. The cases I have been seeing are incredibly interesting and often heart-wrenching. On Wednesday we lost an 8 year old boy that I had admitted for pneumonia. It was a severe case but we didn't have the appropriate antibiotics. The reason he died though is because there are no ventilators and he was breathing so fast that he could not continue. When he tired out, he died. Today, a family brought their 2 year old daughter in who weighed about the same as Aaron. After much questioning, we found out that she had tetanus when she was 6 months old and now was paralyzed with her muscles and spine frozen in a semi-fetal position. She could only move her eyes which were wide and fearful much of the time. The family was extremely poor but still were very concerned and wanted to do what was best for her. It seemed she had an infection on top of everything which was causing her arms and legs to swell so much that her skin was shiny and taut. There wasn't much we could do for her so we gave her a shot of antibiotics (she was so swollen that we couldn't start an IV) and sent the family to the cuisine to stay the night (explanation of the cuisine to follow at a later time). It was so tough to see her suffering and know there was nothing you could do. We were able to witness to the family with the help of one of the hospital chaplains and both parents came to know Christ as their own personal Savior. Earlier this week a 15 year old boy was brought in after falling 25-45 feet (no one could quite pin down the height) out of tree. He spent the night in the bush before his family found him and brought him in. His back was normal except for a huge bump on his lower spine. An x-ray showed that his spine was very broken (almost totally dislodged and out of alignment at the break). He is paralyzed from the waist down and is incontinent of stool and urine. An injury like this is untreatable and devastating to a young teenager. We have 3 premature babies right now that each weigh about 2 lbs 9 oz. There are a few incubators which are really just plastic boxes with a light attached for warmth. There are no ventilators, no IV nutrition, no monitors so it is really up to the babies to try to fight. The mothers have stayed by their bedside for weeks now. They sit on small benches during the day and lay down a thin cloth or a bamboo mat (if they are lucky) on the hard tile in front of the incubators at night to try to sleep. Thanks again for all your prayers and emails. Ethan & Melissa April 9, 2007 Hello, He has risen... He has risen indeed. We may have the record for the longest Easter service among everyone reading this email. Our service was 4 hours and 15 min. (not that I was checking). Actually one of the MK's told me exactly how long the service was. Of course, being unable to understand French and Ewe (pronounced eh-vay, the local tribal language) made pretty much the whole service interesting to watch but I didn't follow it too well. This Easter service was a treat because it was held in the village of Tutu where the local churches are cooperatively planting a new church. So far they have just purchased a piece of property so this Easter weekend service was a sort of kick-off for the new church. In fact, they had been showing films at the property the last few nights and I heard there was a great response from the local folks. For the services they had constructed a large bamboo covering for shade. There were bamboo upright poles that supported a bamboo ceiling frame that was then covered with Palm branches which provided shade. This was no small covering as it provided shade for 600 people for this morning's service. Since there were at least four churches that attended, each church had one or two choirs that provide one or two special music pieces plus there were prayers and preaching done in both Ewe and French. I found it amazing that with 600 attendees there was not a parking problem. While there were some motorcycles parked around on the property, and maybe a car or two in addition the the missionary's vehicles, other than that everyone either walked or paid for a ride to church on a motorcycle (it was not unusual to see a family of three or four arrive on a motorcycle with their paid driver and some sort of food dish as there was a picnic after the service), or taxi. During the service they had the folks from each of the surrounding churches stand and I was surprised to see a large number from each of the four churches. Getting to church for the combined Easter service was a priority for these folks as some walked for at least 2 hours to reach the service and many of those were carrying bowls on their heads for the picnic to follow the service. Last night (Saturday night) one of the physician assistants from the hospital and a couple of others organized a showing of the Jesus film for the local villagers. The film was in Ewe (pronounced eh-vay, the local tribal language) and since we had experienced a very hard rain most of Saturday we weren't sure how many would show up. Outside of the walled portion of the hospital compound is a hanger and a dirt landing strip for airplanes. While they do not currently have a missionary pilot here there is a small airplane in the hanger and I understand there is currently a missionary pilot who is trying to raise his support back in the states to come here as the pilot. This plane will provide a vital ministry as it will be used to fly critically ill patients to the hospital and ferry doctors, nurses, and others between this site and a proposed new medical facility in northern Togo. What does all of this have to do with the Jesus film? Well they opened the big doors of the hanger and with the airplane in one corner set up the projector on the opposite wall with cement blocks that supported boards as benches. We began the film at about 7 pm with probably 50 people but out of the darkness people kept appearing and before we were too far into the film there was probably 150 people or so. It was amazing how dark it was due to the cloud cover and yet they seemed to know the trails since they showed up without the use of flashlights. Since we had the hard rain there was a sort of special effects with the flying termites flittering all over the "screen" (cement wall) for a portion of the film but many of them lost their wings so that by the end of the show things were back to normal (they hatch after a hard rain, fly for a few hours, and then loose thier wings so they are deposited in a new location). Praise the Lord, 6 or 7 people accepted Christ during an invitation that was done prior to the end of the film. I was impressed with the rapt attention that was paid to the movie despite less than comfortable seats and what this American thought was a pretty long invitation done in both French and Ewe. Aaron Report for the Grandparents: Aaron is doing well. Since one of the missionaries that left also left a bunch of baby things, Aaron has conquered the walker. He rolls all over the dining area and it's really fun to see his face light up into a huge smile when mom walks into the dining area after working at the hospital, and his little legs propel him across the floor as towards mom as quickly as possible. He's also beginning to really want to play in a glass of ice water (I think he even swallows a bit), and he's getting pretty good at eating applesauce. He starts waving his arms and reaching for any glass of water that is sitting on the table. When we bring it close to him, he grabs on to both sides and pulls/guides it towards his mouth and then sticks his tonge in it and begins to lap/swallow. We give him bites of food that are appropriate from our plates so that he will get used to a variety of tastes. Unfortuately, he is more attached to the sweets than to any vegetables. One of his favorite tastes is to lick a Pringle (especially the salt & vinegar flavor) -- crazy kid!! :) Of course he misses you all! Thanks again for your prayers. Ethan, Melissa, and Aaron Molsee April 21, 2007 Hello, Well over the last few days internet has been very iffy. In fact we had a few days where no emails went in or out and then a day or so of incoming messages coming through fine but no outgoing messages. The phone system in Togo must be tied to the electrical system which is completely unreliable. Please remember if you email us to not send photos and if you're responding to our email, delete our original message from your response. These help keep the size of the email smaller and more likely to go through without problems. Wednesday the field council meeting was held here at the hospital. That's where all the ABWE missionaries on this field (Togo) come together for a day of meetings. Melissa and I helped out with the children trying to keep their fighting to a minimum and rethinking my desire to have 12 children. Actually, they were very nice children and the day was fairly uneventful. There was no clinic on Wednesday due to the meeting but Melissa was on call for the hospital so more folks could attend more of the meetings. Actually most Wednesdays there is no afternoon clinic for Melissa so her Wednesday afternoons are fairly open. Last Wednesday we joined five others (short-term docs and others) for a trip to the largest waterfalls in West Africa. It's in Ghana, but just barely over the border so we drove the 45 minutes to the Ghana border and parked to walk to the waterfall from there. Well, actually it was a bit more difficult than that, since every time you cross a border between Ghana and Togo you have two check-points. One to exit Togo and about a mile further down the road one to enter Ghana and of course the reverse is true on your way back into Togo. As we encountered the exiting Togo checkpoint we gathered up all our passports and a couple of us went into the guard station to get their approval to cross the border while the rest of us waited in the shade in front of the guard station. While waiting, we watched a Togo "road crew" do some street repair. Everything was done by hand. There was large fire that kept buckets of tar boiling and smoking and a couple of men moving the tar in buckets to the street where gravel was being dumped on the street, tar was porn on top, and a large barrel was rolled over to pack it down. It is amazing how much work is done without the use of equipment we come to expect in the states. Also while we waited outside a very loud and lively debate between about 10 young men was looking like it would come to blows (later we learned that a young man was locked up in one of the cells at the guard station for stealing a bike in Ghana and selling it in Togo to an unsuspecting individual). I know when I mention a guard station unless you've been here you're not picturing what we visit. It's typically approximately a 14 X 14 cement building with a rusting tin roof that consists of either one room or a front room and a back room separated by a curtain (I think the two room version is so that naps can be taken in the back). This cement building may have had a coat of paint years ago when it was built but since then, so much has come off or faded that it's hard to determine if there is more grey cement showing or the soiled paint. The doors which are always left open since there's no A/C remind me of the doors we made for the barn on the farm (a bunch of upright boards with a couple of braces to keep them sturdy and somewhat square). Inside at a rustic wooden table on a bare cement floor sits an officer of some sort and maybe a junior officer or two. Noah, one of the guesthouse cooks, went with us as a guide and he helped speed the border crossings up a bit with a firm handshake with an appropriate Togo bill that was transferred during the handshake. When Melissa and I initially came into Togo (over three weeks ago now) we ended up at the Togo border during the guard's nap time and waited outside on wooden benches under a palm branch covering until the guards finished their naps. When they signaled it was fine to come in they were still pulling thin mattresses from the cement floor to be piled in a back corner. Well once we made it through the borders (10-20 minutes at each country's border) we walked to the office for the waterfall trail where we paid a fee to be tourist (it wasn't cheap, almost $7 each) and we were off with our trail guide who showed us some of the different types of trees and told us how many more bridges until we made it to the waterfall. The hike was about 45 min. each way and a very nice hike. I carried Aaron in the Ergo Baby Carrier (it has my endorsement) and he actually slept most of the way. Along the way we crossed small streams where women were washing clothes, encountered young boys gathering mangos (one boy only wore a pair of brief underwear so he just stuck the mango he collected in his shorts), young boys gathering sticks and logs on a small cart to be taken for fuel for cooking fires, and men and women gathering bananas and carrying large bundles out the trail on their heads. Overall the trip was nice and the waterfall was beautiful. Since we were told by the Ghana border agents we needed to be out of Ghana in less than two hours (some of our party did not have Ghana visas and had just been let in due to the "negotiating" of Noah) we quickly walked in, looked around for a few minutes, and walked back to our vehicle. Some of you have asked what sort of animals we have encountered. Sorry, no large animals remain in most of Togo as anything with meat on its bones has probably been served over rice in a sauce with pima peppers years ago. On our trip in from Accra the first day we did see some baboons next to the road at a game preserve but even there Wilson our driver, said that there weren't many other animals as even on the game preserve people had killed all the animals for food. Of course there's all sorts of little lizards and geckos and we've mentioned the flying termites. In fact they're out again tonight, I just turned off the guest house porch lights so that they won't leave large quantities of wings on the sidewalk for morning. I have discovered that very large toads like to eat the termites shortly after they have lost their wings so tonight on my way back to the guest house dining room to type this email I notice 4 large toads hanging out under the lights eating the termites as they lost their wings and were down at their level. Last week we also got to see a chameleon and I got some good photos of the dude. We also saw a couple of scorpions. One of the scorpions had a bunch of babies attached to its belly when you turned it over (very carefully). One evening last week I opened the door to run to the dining room for a cup of water and discovered that a herd of red ants had swarmed the cement walk area just in front of our door. A five foot square in front of our door was just teeming with the little dudes so much so that it looked like the ground was moving. One of the ladies that lives here found some pesticide and we sprayed the area and then swept them off the walk. While some of them died, the next morning they had moved in mass in front of the next room up from ours. Unfortunately, I believe the tribe was pretty much decimated after the chemical warfare those docs unleashed on them. Speaking of those docs in the next room up from us... Dr. Gus (OB/GYN) and Dr. Kerry (Radiologist) were here for over three weeks and have been coming for over 10 years and they're a riot. They left us last Saturday but shortly before they left a carpet viper snake was killed near the maintenance building and when I saw it I mentioned that the docs would want to see it. Since they were not in their room someone suggested that for a little excitement we set the snake up so that half of him was outside the door to their room, and the other half of him was already under their door. When Dr. Gus returned to his room to wash up for lunch, despite his previously stated heightened sense of caution when it came to snakes, he was oblivious to the dead snake so carefully setup to look as if it was slithering into his room. In fact, he walked in and out of his room twice without even noticing it. So much for getting a great reaction. Of course when Dr. Kerry returned and immediately saw the snake he was shocked that Dr. Gus could walk over the top of a snake in his doorway TWICE without noticing it. Dr. Kerry told everyone we saw about Dr. Gus and the snake story. I'm certain that story was told many times on the way home to perfect strangers and Dr. Gus won't live it down as long as Dr. Kerry is around.
Remember my last mention of the grand opening of the airplane hanger theater and its success with the Jesus film? Well last weekend they showed another film in French that had African actors and dealt with animism and blood sacrifices that are practiced. Once again by the time the film was nearly done there were probably 150 or so people in the hanger. There was a great salvation message given by one of the Togolese hospital workers and 9 people accepted Christ. One of the Togolese pastors was making sure there were Bible studies they could get plugged into. It's sounding like the hanger theater may be here to stay due to its popularity. Well, those are some things that have been happening. Melissa has continued to be busy doing morning rounds and then seeing patients in the clinic the rest of the day. Since the mission station has pretty much all either recently switched to QuickBooks Pro or departments are in the process, I've been put to work doing some bookkeeping and making QuickBooks entries, so I feel right at home. Aaron Report Aaron definitely has a tooth. Melissa told me she thought she felt one and I, much like Thomas, said I'd believe it when I felt it. Well next time he chomped down on my knuckle I was a believer. His daily malaria medicine is going much better. Translation: He is no longer needing mom to hold him down and dad to force feed him his crushed tablet in spoonfuls of baby food while he screams like a banshee. I've personally tasted his medicine and the taste hasn't improved (still very bitter), but I think he is enjoying the eating process and its newness enough that he doesn't mind the taste. Of course, we give him some food that isn't tainted with Malarone after he finishes his medicine. So all that to say Aaron is now beginning to eat baby food. Let's see we've fed him rice cereal, applesauce, baby food carrots, baby food mixed fruits, and fresh crushed Mango. On that crushed Mango... Sunday morning breakfasts here at the guest house are a come-on-your-own fend-for-yourself sort of ordeal. They usually have rolls in the refrigerator, cereal, and toast available. So Sunday I decided to cut up a very ripe Mango from the refrigerator so we could have some Mango to crush for Aaron and the rest of us to enjoy. The mango had a dark bruised area so I just cut around it and crushed a few pieces for Aaron and put the rest in a bowl for others to enjoy. While I was feeding Aaron his mango, one of the ladies noticed what looked like a maggot on her mango. Upon further inspection she found another in the serving bowl. I guess the frugal side of me cut a little close to the bruise. Oh well, Melissa and I had already eaten our mango and the crushed portion Aaron was eating was not moving so he finished his as well. Thanks for your prayers and your emails. Ethan (Melissa & Aaron) May 2, 2007 Hello All Sorry but this one is going to be long... Yes, I had a great birthday, thanks for your emails. As Melissa and I were remembering... Last year we were in Yellowstone National Park for my birthday as I visited Melissa for the weekend while she completed a medical rotation in southern Idaho, this year Africa, I can hardly wait to see what exotic and exciting place I will be next year for by birthday. Last Thursday we got our share of African food. For lunch Florance, Elizabeth, and Noah pounded fu-fu for us. I was told by the Togolese young man who originally drove us to the hospital from Ghana that fu-fu was his favorite food. It's not my favorite food but I did appreciate the opportunity to try it. Fu-fu is made from the pounding of cocoa yam root or casava root until it is similar consistency to a light bread dough and a similar color. Thursday's was made from the yam root (different than our yams). This dough is then formed into clumps. You take a clump on your plate and pour the sauce (chicken, pepper, tomatoes base) over the fu-fu and then you eat the mess with your fingers by breaking off clumps, dipping it in the sauce, and in my case swallow without chewing. We also had gawu (rhymes with cow), which is a mixture of mashed white beans with onions and other spices and it is then fried (someone who's eaten hush puppies said it tasted similar). For dinner that night we once again ate at Noah's restaurant in Adeta with missionaries Sharon and Judy this time. These two single ladies are amazing! Sharon is a nurse practitioner and has a PhD in nursing. She taught nursing at Liberty and Cedarville before coming to Togo to help with a short-term need for nurses. Now she's on her second term and heads up the nurse training program for the hospital. While the hospital's nursing staff was originally all missionaries, they are now all Togolese nurses that have been taught right here at the hospital. The doctors here claim the three year nurse training program has produced by far the best nurses in Togo. Judy heads up the CRC (Christian Resource Center) here at the hospital. This ministry is excellent as it provides all sorts of printed material in French and Ewe (local tribal language) such as Sunday School materials, Bible Study helps, tracts, and a variety of books and videos for use in ministry. The CRC has its own printing press and pumps out a lot of literature for all the local missionaries and ministries in the country. Saturday we went to Lome (pronounced Low-May) with the Baer's, one of the missionary families. It was a great opportunity to tag along and see the capitol of Togo with its 1 million residents. The scattered villages, random police barricades, village markets, and the traffic all amuse and amaze us. In Lome the missionary's children that we went with lobbied hard for a rare box of Golden Grams cereal but the deal was vetoed due to the price tag of seven dollars. Despite being the capital, Lome has worse power problems than we have here in Adeta, their power is out for hours nearly every day. Some say this is due to not enough water at the main reservoir that provides power for Togo but most believe it's more political. We did see the ocean at Lome, (Bay of Benin) it looked beautiful but we were told it is so full of sewage that no fool would dare take a swim. Yesterday (Tuesday) was Togo's Labor Day and we rode into Adeta for the festivities. While there was a parade to the junior high school, my pushing Aaron in a stroller up the main street may have been the bigger attraction. Well it might have been a close tie with Melissa getting children to pose for her photos and then showing the children the screen on the digital camera. I wondered a couple of times if she would be mobbed. Once we arrived at the school there were speeches, and then each of the groups of people (hospital workers, taxi drivers, moto drivers, hair dressers, seamstresses, gas station attendants, etc.) walked down a dirt strip of road that separated the lawn from the front of the school. People gathered on both sides of the dirt strip and cheered for each of the groups while a church brass band played hymns from the porch of the school. I was told the band was a new touch this year as most years it's just simply people walking that makes up this parade. The hospital workers were able to sing a hymn (All Hail the Power) at the end of their march down the strip. After everyone had walked by we enjoyed lunch with the hospital workers under the shade of the trees of the school lawn. After we returned to the hospital, Melissa, Aaron, and I headed up the valley toward the waterfall. Since we hadn't arranged for a guide prior to the hike we asked Noah what the French word for waterfall was (cascad). The hike is about an hour and a half each way and until the last half mile or so is fairly flat. We enjoyed the hike through the rainforest like vegetation that had villages, huts, goats, chickens, and children spread throughout. When the trail became a bit confusing we were fortunate to find a "guide" who attempted to point out different trees (cocoa, banana, grapefruit, etc.) despite not knowing any English. By the time we made it to the falls our group included the young man who had become our guide and five or six small children we picked up along the way that wanted to hike with the crazy white people. I've many times heard how we as US citizens are spoiled/blessed/fortunate compared to the citizens of the world's underdeveloped countries. While I agree with that point and see daily reminders of it here in Togo, I have never heard anyone talk about the spoiled status of the US cars. That's right, the cars and pickups that you drive no matter how rough you are on them have an easy life compared to the motor vehicles here in Togo. The hospital compound sits at the base of a mountain (keep thinking "mountain" if you're from Wyoming otherwise North westerners think "large hill"), while most of Togo seems fairly flat there is a small "mountain range" that extends in from Ghana. Literally right after the hospital driveway the road begins a steep climb for a couple of miles as it switchbacks up the mountain to the plateau at the top. When it's cool out in the early mornings or sometimes in the evenings we've walked a ways up the road to get our heart rate up and because we enjoy the view as you're walking up looking over the scattered villages and the hospital compound and airstrip below. As cars, trucks, and motos (motorcycles) travel this treacherous stretch of the road they all use their horns to signal oncoming traffic of their arrival at each corner. It seems the most common farm truck, lumber truck, and commuter car is a late 80's Toyota Corolla wagon. I've seen many of these packed with pineapples, bananas, lumber, casava root, or avocados so that the entire compartment other than the front seat are so full of these products that all you can see in any of the windows to the top of the car is the fruit, root, or produce. Then in the front seat (two bucket seats) it is not uncommon to have four people crammed into that area. Did I mention that virtually all of the cars here in Togo are manual shift rather than automatic. I can only imagine the acrobatics that take place in the front seat as the driver is attempting to keep these over weighted vehicles slowed down using his shifting when it has to happen with four people in the front seat. This road and these driving conditions have brought more than one customer to the hospital here at the base of the grade. A couple of weeks ago there was a taxi (same sort of car) that lost it's brakes and didn't make a turn. Out of that accident I believe the most serious injury was a broken arm despite many rolls or flips in the car. I guess there is safety in cramming people in so tight that if the car did have a air bag it would pop a window out if it ever deployed. The other common vehicle I see is a Toyota van larger and more sturdy than the mini vans we see in the states but not as large as the 12 passenger vans we have. These seem to be one of the main taxi type of vehicles as they carry folks to and from the market, hospital, homes, and farms. I've seen as many as 29 people in one of these vans and many times they are piled 6 or 8 feet high on top with the passenger's crops, furniture, or market goods. Once in a while you'll see one that literally leans so far on corners that you wonder if it will tip over from being so top-heavy. Some of these vans get to the first real steep corner of the grade and realize they don't have the power for the hill with their loads. They will unload passengers and drive through the steepest parts while their passengers walk. Many of these vehicles have shattered windshields and have other signs of a not-so-easy life. So you see how I have come to think of our US vehicles as spoiled. Well, unless you are driving an older stick shift car with high miles in which case take it easy on that car as it has a hard life ahead of it when it gets dumped at the port in Lome, Togo. Speaking of spoiled... I think even the food animals in the US are spoiled compared to their relatives here in Togo. Oh sure, they all die in the end (or are murdered if you're a PETA member) and are eaten, but in the in-between time it seems the Togo animals are more likely to live a hard life. All the goats, sheep, and chickens I've seen so far are not given consistent meals but are rather open range animals who are responsible for finding their own food and keeping from being hit by cars, trucks, and motos as they cross the road, walk down the road, lay in the road, etc. Last Monday as I was at the market in Adeta I saw a bouquet of chickens. These chickens were still alive and had been carried to market on a woman's head in a large flat metal bowl. There must have been a dozen or more chickens and they had been secured by gathering up a single leg from each of the chickens and tying these legs all together. They filled the bowl completely and really did look like a bouquet of chickens. With the different colors and things it was actually quite pretty if they would just pipe down. Now some of you may point out that this is no harder life than the chickens we see careening down I-5 between Tacoma and Seattle on the back of a truck being ruffled in 70mph wind in their overpopulated little wire condos, and you may have a point. While I'm stuck on spoiled US animals, Saturday on our trip to Lome we spotted a few motos being used as stock trucks. Each of these motos was carrying three sheep and they were alive. They were crisscrossed with rope and I did find myself wishing I was around with my video camera when those sheep were loaded. Kofi also told us of an incident when a moto driver tried to carry a large pig on his moto and wrecked when the pig tried a daring escape and threw the moto off-balance. Well I better move on or I'm sure some of you may be thinking of moving to the dark side and becoming vegetarians. Tomorrow Melissa, Aaron and I will be going along with the mobile medial clinic folks as they take the Landrover to some of the more remote villages. Melissa will give out medicine for hypertension and the nurses that go along will do blood pressure checks. Well this email is getting incredibly long so I'll bring it to a close. Let me close with three prayer requests from the Togo field... 1. Madame Lorray and her husband are an African couple that have had a great ministry in regions of Togo as missionaries to predominantly Muslim areas. They are known throughout the local churches as great workers for the gospel in Togo. For the past 3 years Madame Lorray has had difficulty swallowing and when she came to the hospital several weeks ago they found that she had cancer of the esophagus and it has begun to block her airway. She was given a tracheotomy and a feeding tube as the mass in her throat makes swallowing and breathing difficult. She was taken to Lome for a CT scan and photos of the CT scan have been emailed to a thoracic surgeon in Canada for evaluation. That surgeon was out here a couple of moths ago and has stated if the mass can be removed he would be willing to fly out to do Madame Lorray's surgery. Without the surgery she has anywhere from a couple of months to a year. 2. ABWE has recently approved a project in northern Togo. Project Mango will be one of the largest pushes ABWE has done in a predominately Muslim area in a long time. Pray for the families that have committed to this project and are in the process of getting support, going through language school, etc. The hope is to have a number of ministries in northern Togo including eventually a hospital and clinic, Christian schools, church plants, etc. Funds have been donated to purchase a piece of property for an eventual hospital in northern Togo. Pray that the men and women involved in this project and the planning of it will have wisdom and that God will open hearts and lives to the Gospel in northern Togo. 3. Since the hospital has been operating there has been coverage either through full-time surgeons, or short-term surgeons for all the surgery needs. In the last few years their has not been a full-time surgeon here at the hospital and the need for a surgeon has been covered by incredible men and women who have given anywhere from a few weeks to a number of months. We currently have a retired surgeon, Dr. Sam Williams, here until just after we leave and he is followed by a young surgeon who will be here until May 28th. However, after May 28th there are not currently any surgeons scheduled to be here. The prayer request: that God would direct individuals to fill this need either on a short term basis or through a full-time surgeon making it to the field as soon as possible so that people in need of surgeries would not have to be turned away. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, Ethan (Melissa and Aaron) | | |
| So Saturday''s wedding was fun to attend. It was in a palm covered structure to the side of the Adeta church and folks were seated in an assortment of church benches (with and without backs) and plastic chairs. There ceremony was very God-honoring and it was fun to see them make the ceremony their own. They walked in together and sat in the front facing the audience as the pastors preached and gave the couple the charge. There were a few congregational songs and then we headed over to one of the missionary's house for a reception. One thing I found funny as it reminded me of being back in the states was one woman had her cell phone go off three or four times during the ceremony. It's actually sort of humorous how many people have cell phones here.  
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| Saturday (later today) we will be attending a wedding. The groom seen below holding Aaron is a nurse here at the hospital and his soon to be wife is a Physician's Assistant (I think I got that right) at the hospital as well . We are excited to be attending the wedding and I'm sure we'll get some great photos of these two wonderful people on their special day. We do feel we've had some great cultural experiences here. In the 6 Sundays we've been in Togo we will have attended 5 of the local churches that have been started since the hospital was founded. We've had such great times with the wonderful people of Togo and the beautiful children. We will miss the friendliness and joy we've seen in the people of Togo. 
 
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| Well with less than one week left in Africa I figured it would be nice to get you a few photos. We leave West Africa next Thursday, will spend a week in Germany, and then we'll be home on Friday, May 18th. Melissa has had a chance to help with many procedures here. There are some days when the women's ward is almost completely new babies and moms.  
Aaron in his stroller was a big it at the local Labor Day parade and we enjoyed the meal the hospital staff cooked for the special day. 
 
Yesterday's trip with the mobile clinic team to some of the more remote villages was a great experience. One of the hospital chaplains presented the Gospel, one of the nurses spoke on ways to change your life and diet to help decrease one's blood pressure, blood pressure checks were done and medicine for high blood pressure was handed out to the villagers. 
Monday's trip to the waterfall that is within walking distance of the hospital compound. | | |
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