WYnet Togo team
Read the final update and prayer requests from the 16-18 year-olds on a WYnet team to Togo, West Africa.
Monday
A few of us got up really early to go climb the mountain that has so beautifully stood in the background during our stay. Our guides are Samuel’s brother-in-law and the electrician working on his new house. I have no idea how they got roped into it, but they took us up the steepest possible route. The views were incredible, but boy was it hard work! The others hung out at the house and played cards and things. The water was off when the troops got home, a fairly unpleasant few hours for everyone involved! The afternoon is spent relaxing bar a few who walked into town.
Tuesday
First thing this morning, the team headed out to make koli koli - a peanut-based deep fried chew/crunchy stick. If you have never seen it before you’ll have to look at the pictures! It all took a lot longer than expected! And spilled over to the afternoon. Tim in the mean time shoot a promo video and wrote everything up for the meeting tonight! The evening is a highlight for everyone - we hosted a youth meeting in one of the churches. Not the normal sing a few songs hear a sermon, but we led and interactive look at mission and Bible Translation.
Wednesday
The morning was spent visiting with people, saying good-byes and giving them some of the gifts and mementos. The reality that we are actually going to leave is hitting a few on the team, who have now decided they don’t actually want to leave! Post lunch is packing, tidying, cleaning, and for Tim a lot more visiting and delivering around the town!
Thursday
Today we were up early for breakfast, final good-byes, van packing and travelling down to Lome. The journey was quite uneventful, bar a flat tyre that was sorted quite fast!
Friday
Today was the big shopping day. We headed out in two groups to the nice street of wooden carvings and things. A great experience all round - lots of wonderful things purchased. The afternoon was spent relaxing whilst Tim and Samuel headed out to the real market to try and find football shirts and the last few things on people's lists. Togo football shirts don’t seem to exist, but there are plenty of Arsenal or Man U or Chelsea available! After a long afternoon we were able to find some Pizza for dinner! Enjoyed by all including Samuel!
Saturday
Saturday was filled with debriefs and airport runs. We headed out at 10am to get our bags checked in. We bumped into Adebayor, the Togolese forward who plays for Arsenal. Tim shook his hand and chatted, Richie tried to get an autograph and the girls wondered who he was! At lunch time a couple of guys arrived at the door with some Togo shirts which was awesome and the afternoon was filled with debriefs. We managed to get through everyone and we felt it was a very positive time all round. After dinner we had our final team sessions, looking at transitions and reverse culture shock. Then at 8pm we piled into the blue bus for the last time and headed to the airport, arriving in London at 10am on Sunday morning.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for us, support us, looked out for us, read our updates, sent messages and generally expressed an interest!
