A little over one week in Africa and I am on sensory overload. We have been in Accra, Ghana, driven almost the full length of Togo, and the northern part of Benin. We have walked the dirt roads of town and through the country experiencing West Africa. We have heard the sounds of the bustling market, the chickens and goats of town, the whizzing of scooters, the clap of sandals, the grinding of the grain mills, the clanging of the metal shops, the laughter of the children and even the cry of "Yovo" (white people) daily. We were able to observe wildlife at Pendjari Game Park for two days. There is a real thrill to seeing elephants tearing up trees, lions hunting and with fresh kill, and quietly watching a flock of Ruby Throated Bee Eaters. Each sight and sound is an awesome experience.

The most amazing part is being with these missionaries. They are living life to its fullest. These are real life heroes!!!! You can forget your heroes from Hollywood or sports or even action figures. They have nothing on the Crowson or Koonce families or Amy or Emily. Here is a sample of life in Tabligbo. No restaurants. Want corn meal? -buy corn and take it to the grinder and wait two days. Need a board to build with? - buy a hand cut board and hand plane it and cut to size needed. Lauren took Barb and me to "Home Depot" of Tabligbo. They have wheel barrows, nails, paint, tin, wire, cement, and many other staple items for construction. The whole store is the size of the check out area of our stores. We had mechanical problems with the car. You have to figure it out because there is no help for miles. OH yes they have computers, printers and phones but they are not very useful when there is no power. They live daily in ways of life and death beyond my comfort zone. The list of needs is long, but they make do with what they have without complaining. We feel very blessed to be able to share time here in Africa with this team.

I have personally found only one thing that makes them uncomfortable. They get nervous when you dash 10 feet between two cars to get a better photo of a lion 40 yards away. But that is a story for another day.

From Murphy -

I'm also thankful that our vehicle made it up there and back. We had to stop every couple of hours (or so) to deal with overheating problems and once to bleed air out of the gas line, but God kept us safe and took us there and back. Praise His name!

We also celebrated Marty's Birthday. Happy 40th Marty! May God continue to bless your walk with Him over the next 40!

Friday I took Bill out to Kpotonou for our Train & Multiply meeting. We added two well diggers to the group out there so that the well could be finished before the rains begin in a couple of months. Things are going well ("well" get it:) HA!) and they are approaching water. Mawuko, one of the leaders from the Kpotonou church, told me that they had 44 in attendance this past Sunday! This is up from 10! He had a nervous laugh when he told me this. Like, "What are we going to do with all these people?!" Perhaps our efforts to bless this community with clean water will result in their discovery of the living water from above. Let's continue to pray that God will make this a reality. I heard a podcast this week where the speaker said, in a pagan culture "you have to show Christ before you can talk about Christ." Oh, so true.

From Christine - We had a fun, adventurous trip to Kara and Pendjari. It is always such a blessing to spend time with the team in Kara. The game park was also so much fun! We were able to see quite a variety of animals and birds. We were awed by God's creativity. We praise God that we are home safely and our car is working!

We have enjoyed having Amy's parents, Bill and Barb, visiting from Vancouver. They have been a great encouragement and refreshment to our team. On Thursday Barb went with me to a ladies' meeting in Batoe. Before the meeting, Abrahamno took us on a walking tour of Batoe and a look at the Mono river. Barb was able to see a lot of Togolese life in this short tour. The meeting went well and Barb was a great encouragement to the women. We talked with the women about prayer. Barb told them about her prayer group who often pray for the Togolese. She also mentioned how they cried and prayed specifically for Batoe when Antoinette died. The hush that fell over the room and the look on the Batoe women's faces told me that they were very touched when Barb shared this with them. I was also so thankful to be reminded that so many of you are lifting these Christians up in prayer. Thank you so much!

Our Kara/Pendjari trip was definatley an adventure. I enjoyed getting to know Mark Berryman on the car rides to and from Kara. All of the lions in Pendjari were amazing! Just being in the midst of God's creation to see His creativity and greatness was a blessing. I think the African crowned cranes and the ruby throated bee eaters were some of my favorites. Riding up on the roof rack was a really fun experience. We had great food and snacks for the trip thanks to the Shaffers. Getting to worship with the Kara team and the Friesens Sunday night was a really uplifting experience. I have come to really appreciate opportunities to sing in English with other Christians. We had a day off to recover Wednesday and had a long trip to market.

We have been so busy lately that we aren't even sure what things we have shared recently in this e-news. Accept our apologies if there are repeats of information. We have been thrilled to have Amy's parents here for a visit. It has been a pleasure to get to know Bill and Barb Shaffer from Vancouver, Washington. They have been a part of the work here in Togo for a long time and it was a joy for them to see the churches and thus it was a pleasure for us to see their joy. They brought offerings of love from the church family in Vancouver and the Slack family. Thank you so much for the treats.

We enjoyed a safari trip to Pendjari Game Park in Benin with our friends and fellow workers from Kara. We were all awed by God's handiwork. For two days we travelled around the preserve "hunting" for elephants and lions. Our hunt was successful and we all shot many pictures of these amazing creatures. The highlight, however, was not seeing the lions protecting their cape buffalo dinner, but having praise time together on the last night of our safari.

With the help of Bryan and Tracey Ries, we pulled off a surprise birthday party forMarty in Kara on the way to the game park. Louise had prepared a slide show of his life. Once we were back from the safari, we hosted a dinner party for the adults of our team in honor of Marty's turning 40. Many of his friends and family had sent letters of blessing for this occasion. Louise had started a scrapbook collection of them to present to him, but, as is the case many times, everything did not go according to plans. The printer died, and so only half a book was given with promise of additions later.

Sandwiched in the middle of the Safari was Taylor's tenth birthday. We celebrated a week later with a Lego party. The interactive games got even the grownups using their creativity.

We had the pleasure of hosting Mark Berryman for a couple of nights. Mark is one of our long-time friends and mentors. He was helping prepare for a group's visit to the Village of Hope in Ghana for a medical clinic. He tries to visit us whenever he is in the area. His encouragement and endless stories have been invaluable to us.

We enjoyed gathering with the Adakonu church on Sunday. They have begun to rebuild their building and must have great expectations as they have laid out a foundation twice the size of the old one.

Please pray for Marty, who is battling Malaria.

Last week we celebrated my birthday with a "princess" party. My mom decided that I needed to have a girly party since I spend most of my time here surrounded by boys. Today I found out that the younger boys were disappointed that they didn't get to attend the party (we had it after they had gone to bed) because they wanted to be the knights to protect me. Matthew wanted to make up for it today and so I wore the crown from the party and sat in one place while he and Trevor fought off imaginary enemies. They were very proud of themselves. :)

Our time in the game park this last weekend was fun. My parents got to experience an African adventure and the rest of us enjoyed the time with the Kara team. Well and we had our own adventures too. I got to ride on top of the car for several hours with the younger boys as we looked for animals. They created an elaborate game of shooting imaginary missiles at the imaginary Indians who were chasing us and shooting imaginary arrows. What wasn't so imaginary was the spit that came out of their mouths when they made their "phewww" noise to fire their imaginary missiles and the very not imaginary spit sprayed all over the teacher sitting behind them. We discovered that warthogs aren't quite as shy as they are reported, lions become very tense when they think people are about to take their food, elephants cannot be induced to walk closer by shouting "I'm threatening you!" and "those antelope type animals" are really about five different varieties of animals.