Day Off: Exchanging Money and Encountering Muslims

Mondays are our day off – sort of.  This one was a little busier than usual, but not at all atypical.  We were away from home for almost twelve hours, which is quite rare.

It started off with a drive to Lomé, the capital city of Togo.  First stop was to drop our poodle, Salty, off at the vet.  Salty has developed a pretty nasty problem with ticks, so dropped him off to get cleaned up and for his annual vaccinations.  (OK, we were about two and a half years behind.)

Next on my agenda was to get my shocks replaced.  I learned on Friday that one of my front shocks was busted.  But, we couldn’t contact the mechanic right away, so we went on into town to see Mr. Murali, an Indian business man who will give us local currency for our American checks.  In the parking lot of the building where he has his office, I bought two belts – a black and a brown, since my reversible belt is about to fall apart.  I paid $15 for the two– Maureen says it was too much.

Then we made a short drive over to the Togo-Ghana border to meet Kossi, who is the primary translator for the Train & Multiply materials.  He has a house just across the Ghana border, so he met me there to turn in some materials he had translated.  He gave me book no. 54, and I realized that we are inside the “10 more books to go” mark.  This translation project has been going on for over two years now, much longer than I had anticipated.  But the end, at least of the first edition, is in sight!

I tried again without luck to contact my mechanic, so it was off to lunch at Marox’s – a Filipino-owned German restaurant (go figure) that is a Lomé staple.  We ordered “Royal Sauerkraut,” a Spanish Omelet, and fries, and that fed the family.  The boys can subsist on French fries.  While we were waiting for our lunch, Maureen bought vegetables at the outdoor sellers who are set up near the restaurant.  Afterwards, she went across the street to a supermarket to see if they had any affordable breakfast cereals.  Did they ever!  They actually had cereal on sale, so she came out with quite a few boxes.  You learn quickly here that if it’s on sale today, it’ll probably be out of stock tomorrow – and for the next few months.

We had promised the boys to take them swimming, and the Koonces had discovered a private pool we could go to, so we set off there.  In the afternoon, we swam while the mechanic put new shocks on the car.  He had said that he would be finished by 5:00 p.m., but that time was rapidly approaching and he wasn’t finished, and the vet was closing at 5:30.  While Maureen and Jeremy waited at the pool, Jonathan and I took a taxi to the vet to get Salty.

When we got into the taxi, I heard some strange other-worldly chanting coming from the radio.  I assumed that it was the Qur’an being chanted, and I was right.  I asked the driver if he understood what it was saying.  At first he said yes, and quickly added that he was a Muslim.  I asked again if he really understood what it was saying, then he said No, but he just listened to it.  I asked what that did for him, but he didn’t answer.  He may not have known how to answer, or it could have just been a communication problem since we were speaking French.  I just get by in Ewe/Watchi, but I can’t get anywhere in Kotokoli, the people group that he belonged to.  They are the largest predominantly Muslim group in Togo – about 99% Muslim.

I’m pretty new to Muslim evangelism, and I tried to talk to him about how Christians believe that God speaks our language – that his message can be translated into any language and still remain his Word, but that didn’t seem to connect.  I asked why Kotokolis who want to become Christians were so severely persecuted, but he didn’t want to talk about that either.  When I suggested that, because he was no longer living in the traditional area, that he could become a Christian, his only response was, “There are lots of Muslims here, too.”  In other words, he wouldn’t even be free to consider it.  I’m afraid my Muslim encounter didn’t get very far, but I pray that God will work to convert that taxi driver.

We went back the pool and that same taxi driver took us to the mechanic’s vacant lot (alias, garage), where they had just finished working on our car.  After settling the $200+ bill, we left just as the sun was setting.  We made stops at several pharmacies on the way home to try to locate a polio vaccine for our friends, the Hendersons, arrive next week for a visit.  Didn’t find any, but did manage to order some through one pharmacy.  We enjoyed our dinner, some savory pastries we picked up at a bakery, in the car.

Jonathan slept all the way home and went to bed immediately with his clothes on when we got home.  Jeremy went down pretty quickly;  I’m about ready to go, too.

It’s days like this when I should feel guilty for abandoning the Sabbath principle on my day off, but I’m just too tired.