Monthly Archive for June, 2009

The First Law of Instability: The three most unstable  substances known to man are weapons grade uranium, the San Andreas Fault, and junior high girls.

All three (uranium, the S.A. fault, and jh girls) should be handled with the sensitivity of someone making nitroglycerin.  If you’re storing enriched uranium in your basement, by all means put it on a high shelf.  If you’re designing a home that will be situated directly over the San Andreas fault, get a good architect.  And, if you spend time around junior high girls, pray.

(Before you lecture me for being one of those adults who has low expectations for young people, let me assure you that’s not where this is going.   Quite the opposite).

I was a camp director when I formulated the first law of unstable substances.  I jotted it down on the back of a discarded Skittles wrapper while gaping at the mushroom cloud of a junior high social meltdown that made Chernobyl or Three Mile Island look like contained events.  And, while I may be overstating my case a bit, I do so only slightly – - It is  a fact that the early teen years requires young ladies to make many adjustments.  Often they feel awkward about appearance or relationships with friends.  Hormone induced emotional mood swings occasionally register 7 on the Richter scale.

But, reading a book by Kay Washer, I was I recently reminded to never underestimate how God might be at work in the life of a young person.  Indeed, I was challenge anew to pray that the Lord of the Harvest would gently tug on the hearts of young people (Matthew 9:35-38).

Mrs. Washer described that it was precisely at the time when she felt especially self-conscious of her appearance, and sure that no guy would ever be remotely interested in her, that God began to call her into missions.

As a teenager, my interest in missions grew.  My mother had a dear friend, Miss Ann Berg, who was a missionary in Africa.  When Miss Berg spoke at a neighboring church on her furloughs, our family always attended to hear her tell of her work with needy children in Africa.  A radiantly beautiful smile beamed from her face as she described her orphanages in the Congo.  After I heard Miss Berg’s presentation, I began to think a lot about the children who were accustomed to worshiping idols and who were sometimes cut or burned to get the ‘evil spirits’ out of them when they were sick.  I began to think I might like to be just like Ann Berg.

Around that same time, I was growing very tall and very skinny, and because of my awkward height, my false teeth and the polio in my left hand, I took it for granted that I would never marry.  But I knew God wanted me to be a missionary and I felt I wouldn’t miss having a husband if I had orphan children to love.  I never heard a voice in my head telling me where to go, nor did a verse from the Bible jump off the page at me, but I knew very definitely as a teenager that God wanted me to be a missionary in Africa.

Kay went on to marry Dallas Washer.  Together, they blazed new paths for the Gospel in West Africa living in Africa for 43 years.

The awkward teenage girl who heard God’s, call founded a school for the blind in Togo and was personally thanked by the president of Togo.  The president kissed her on both cheeks and awarded her the Togo Medal of Honor, the “Order of Mono.”  She and her husband Dallas opened ABWE’s work in Togo where a hospital continues to offer health care.  Over 40 Togolese churches have been planted, not to mention granddaughter churches.  Mrs. Washer’s husband, Dallas, died in Africa.  And, as was his desire, he is buried there, so that he can await the resurrection with his African brothers and sisters.

You can read the Washer’s story in One Candle to Burn, by Kay Washer with Alison Gray.

Don’t underestimate a junior high girl.  Our great and sovereign God may be working in her heart right now.  He may have plans for her to turn on the lights in some dark corner in a way that we never would have imagined.

My family and I have decided to call the little girl in this picture “Miss Mango.”  (You may recall that I speculated that she might be an angel – - I personally took this picture in a recent trip to Togo).  My family has prayed for Miss Mango.  Our oldest daughter’s teen accountability group put Miss Mango’s picture on their cell phones.

Below is a window in Miss Mango’s world from missionaries (Tim & Esther with ABWE) who are on the front line in Mango, Togo.  They give us a peek into an Imam’s hard working wives and one not so hard working wife with a gold tooth.

Note that if you decide to get a gold tooth, it is going to involve being the first wife, going to Mecca, and spending around $50.

May 31, 2009

Esther and I just returned from a visit to our Imam friend, Abdoulaye, where Esther finally had the opportunity to meet his wives and children.  I think he has three wives, but there may be four.  Grown sons are still living in the household, and there are 32 children in the compound. That includes grandchildren, of course. I told him that I now understand why he has high blood pressure.  The place is a beehive of activity, except for the first wife, who boasted to Esther that she went to Mecca last year.   She showed her gold tooth, which is prominently displayed in the front of her mouth.  If you have been to Mecca, you are allowed to get a gold crown.  She said that it cost 25,000 francs, or about $50.00, and I guess everybody was suitably impressed.  The first wife has the place of honor, and so she gets to boss the others around, or so it seems.  At least I’ve never seen her lift a finger to work, while the others are always doing something.  You’ve heard the saying, “A man works from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.” That certainly appears to be the case here.  While I talked with the Imam and took his blood pressure, Esther went over to speak with a group of the wives, and they seemed to hit it off.  One of the younger wives speaks French, so they were able to talk, and I heard Esther asking them about how to say different things in Anufo, their language.  There was a lot of laughing and smiling, which is good.  I think it’s really important to develop relationships with the people here if we hope to introduce them to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaking of women who work hard, I’ll try to send some pictures that tell the story.  We purchased 120 cubic meters of sand on Saturday, and had it hauled to our property.  Every grain of that sand was dug out and loaded onto the trucks by women.  I complained last week when one truck driver I spoke with didn’t want to deliver sand because it had rained the night before.  I won’t do that again.  The work is terribly heavy and exhausting with semi-dry sand.  I think it would be nearly impossible if the sand were saturated with water.  The Oti River deposits the sand during flood stage, so there is an excellent renewable resource for building.  We hope to purchase and haul the remaining 80 meters of sand tomorrow, if the Lord holds off the rain.  Then we start looking for 200 cubic meters of gravel. I’ve no idea as to how they are going to load that.  Put that together with cement, which is purchased and hauled from Lome, and we will have the basic building materials for the Wendell Kempton Medical and Ministry Center here in Mango.

Please continue to pray for exoneration from taxes on supplies and equipment we need to bring into the country for the building of this medical center.  At this point in time we are still looking at taxes that go up and beyond 50% of the value the local authorities determine, which is (from our point of view) ridiculous.  We need God to work in the hearts of those who are authorized to make these decisions, and again, remember that the king’s heart is in the Lord’s hand, and like the rivers of water, He turns it wherever He wills.  So please do pray with us.

Yours in His service,

Tim & Esther Neufeld

HT: Triangular Christianity