Questions?!

Home Service brought about a lot of questions.  There are many questions Americans want to know about Africa and missionary life.  A few of our close friends, after asking many questions, joked about printing answers on t-shirts so we could just say “Read number 33, or 1, or 77.”

So, since I have a horrible memory, I’ve asked friends on Facebook to remind me of some of the questions we were asked on home service so that I can answer them all in one blog post.

Q. What question is asked the most?

1. When do you leave?  Looking back on this, I think people were trying to get rid of us.  Just kidding.  Actually, many times I had to clarify.  Leave the place/town where we currently were or leave the United States to return to the mission field.  Usually people meant the United States, but not always.  We were always on the move while in the U.S.  

Q. Do you like living in Africa?

1. No and YES.  Someone with us at language school in France once said, “no one really likes living in Africa, we’re going because we’ve been called there.”  I’ve thought this to be true so many times.  This is God’s will, not ours.  A lot of times our personal desires don’t like God’s will, but we are still called to do it.  Most days I can’t stand the heat, bugs, dirt, things not working, etc.  Yet, I do like living here.  It’s home.  It’s simple.  It’s familiar.  Two years ago, there wasn’t anything familiar about living in Africa, but now that we are back from the United States, everything is familiar.  The food, the way we live, the songs we sing in French, the heat, the bugs, the dirt, the stores, the people.  It’s all familiar.  It’s what our kids know and understand best.  And even though I don’t like the heat and things not working well, it’s still nice to be back with the people we've grown to love and care about.  My favorite part of living here is our CLET family.  All the students and their families mean a lot to us.  Wherever you go there will be people to love.  

Q. How can we send you a care package and what kind of things would you like to receive?

1. I actually got this question a lot and never knew how to answer it.  I’d usually hem and haw my way around it because even though receiving care packages is a lot of fun and we really enjoy them, the shipping is really quite expensive and we really don’t want you to go out of your way.  Actually, just a letter to the kids would mean a lot and costs about 1/100th the price.  Sending a package is around $100.  Whereas an international stamp is just around $1.  The kids love stickers by the way.  If you are so inclined to send a package, feel free to message us for ideas, and please notify us if something is sent so that we might look for it to arrive.  Our address is…

CLET

sous Rev. Micah Wildauer

B.P. 53

Dapaong, TOGO

Q. How does she do it?

1. In Christ all things are possible.  There are days I wonder if I can do it or not, but somehow “it” gets done even when I think it can’t. 

Q. You talked about getting a washing machine to help your clothes last longer, were you able to get one yet?

1. No, I decided against it for now.  Although this past week I’ve really been wanting a dryer.  It’s rainy season and even after our clothes have been on the line all day they are still as damp as they would be getting them out of a washing machine.  So then we have to place them all around our furniture under the fans all night just to get them mostly dry.  They still feel a little wet, but that’s as dry as they’ll get during this season. It really gets interesting when dealing with cloth diapers.

Q. What has been the hardest thing to overcome?

1. The fact that things don’t work as well here as they would in the United States.  For example, the Internet, light and fan switches, plumbing, our truck.  It’s extremely hard to find someone who really knows how to fix a problem.  It’s really quite frustrating.

Q. And what has been the easiest?

1. Loving people.  Everyone wants (and needs) to be loved here.  They don’t have much else.  While in the United States, we noticed among the general population how much focus was put on material goods (My! The amount of advertising Americans take in each day!) and not on the well-being of other people.  We even fell into that trap ourselves.  But here it’s easier to focus on the people more so than the material goods.  Except for when the materials aren’t working right and you waste so much time trying to figure out how to get them to work right.  Bahh!

Q. What is “shopping” like there?

1. Hard.  It’s hard for me to go shopping.  I have to find a time when my husband is free to take me and willing to stay in the truck with most of the kids, since I don’t know how to drive our manual truck and only want to take 1 maybe 2 kids into the little stores or market with me.  Imagine a ginormous market or city wide garage sale, where every house has things to sell.  That’s kind of what our town looks like everyday.  Our town’s name is Dapaong, which  means market town in the local language.  Everyone is trying to sell something to make some money.  The main roads are lined with little booths of food, clothes (usually discarded from the United States or Europe), tools, electronics, cloth, this and that. There are some stores as well, most are just the size of a small room.  The walls are usually lined with shelves of whatever they are trying to sell with a counter between the owner and the customer.  You tell the owner what you want and they dust it off, put it on the counter, add everything up twice on a big calculator, subtract what you give them to figure out the change to give back, box up the goods, and carry it to the car for you.  There are a few stores that are a little bigger in which you can actually walk around and put the things you want in a basket to take to the “check out.”

Q. Is it what you thought it would be?

1. I had no idea what to think. I was quite open to whatever it would be like.

Q. What were your kids’ thoughts on being in the US?

1. When we first arrived in the US they had a lot to take in.  I’ll never forget David staring at and not knowing what green grass was.  Not only were the kids excited to watch TV, but they were even amused by watching a washing machine, dryer, dish washer, and even a water fountain.  It was good for them to learn what those things are, but I think it’s even better that they know they can live with out them.

Q. What did they think when they returned to Africa?

1. So far our kids have been really excited to be back.  I was a little worried they’d be bored without playgrounds, cousins, friends, Netflix, zoos and the like, but I think they really like it here.  It’s familiar to them and the heat, bugs, and dirt don’t bother them one bit.  Kids don’t always need new and exciting things.

Q. What kinds of foods do you eat there?

1. Well, so far, since getting back to Dapaong, we’ve had mac and cheese with tuna, green beans, fresh salads, grilled pintade (guinea fowl), grilled goat, bread, cheeseburger soup (with ground donkey meat in lieu of ground beef, because the beef here is chewy and donkey meat tastes about the same as beef in the States), pork ribs, potato salad, yellow melons, bananas.  That’s just a bit of what we eat here.  I wrote a whole post on food sometime last year.

Q. Do you like the local food?

1. Yes.  I usually have our house helper cook for us twice a week and almost always a local dish.  I especially love when there’s a meal at a church or the seminary though.  They usually serve rice and sauce with a couple pieces of meat.  I have not had a bad sauce yet.  Delicious! 

Q. Do your kids like the local food?

1. Not so much.  They don’t like spicy food at all and all the sauces are spicy.  They do however chow down on the rice without sauce.  Occasionally they’ll try a piece of meat even though it’s been cooked in the sauce.  They do like the sweet beignets (African doughnuts) though.

Q. Do your kids speak French?

1. Yes and no.  Sam understands French, but is too shy to speak it.  Liza understands some, but follows Sam’s lead and won’t speak it.  David probably speaks it the most because he’s the most outgoing.

Q.What do your kids do for school?

1. I homeschool them.

Q. When is your prayer/service time?  Do you do one every day before schooling begins?

1. We usually pray Responsive Prayer 1, Matins or Morning Prayer first thing, before breakfast, with a focus on the Catechism.  Before the kids go to bed we pray Responsive Prayer 2, Vespers, Evening Prayer, or Compline.  The CLET (the seminary that Micah teaches at) has morning and evening prayers as well which the students lead.  Sometimes we will go to the CLET for evening prayers at 4:30 in lieu of prayers before bed. Of course, those services are all in French.

Q. If so, how much time do you allow yourself before beginning lessons?

1. I tried starting school right after breakfast, but always had too many things to take care of around the house, so we would often start half an hour to an hour after breakfast.

Q. How do you handle grumbling in the ranks if any grumbling occurs?

1. Not well.  I usually say something like, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but we’re doing this anyway”.  And move on.  If there are any other ideas from you, I’d love to hear them!

Q. What’s a typical day like for you?

1. I wake up when the alarm goes off, that is to say, whenever one of the kids wakes me up.  Our house helper comes at 7am to wash dishes and make breakfast.  We say prayers and then eat breakfast while our house helper sweeps and mops the bedrooms.  After breakfast we start school with Catechesis and literature while our house helper cleans the rest of the house and washes our clothes and cloth diapers.  Then the kids are free to play until lunch while I get a few things done and/or cook lunch.  At this time our house helper is either cooking lunch, going to the market, or cutting up fruits and vegetables for us.  After lunch is nap/rest/quiet reading time/a couple more hours of school.  Then the kids are free to play again while I get some work done and make supper.  After supper we play a little bit, get ready for bed, say prayers, put kids to bed, and finally have a couple hours to get some work done without interruptions (if we are lucky).

Q. Do you have running water and electricity?

1. Most of the time, yes.  We can pretty much bet on the electricity going out a few times during the day, but usually for short spurts.  

Q. What’s your house like?

1. Check out my last blog post.

Q. What kind of things are you taking back with you?

1. Toiletries, homeschool supplies, electronics, future gifts for the kids, tools, seasonings, clothes and shoes to last us for two years until our next home service.

Q. How long does it take to fly there?

1. About 2 hours from St. Louis, MO to Washington D.C.  Short layover in D.C.  8 hours across the ocean to Brussels.  4 hour layover in Brussels.  6 hours down to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  Plus an 8 hour drive to Dapaong, Togo.

Q. How much does it cost to fly there?

1. It’s around $1400 round trip.

Q. Can I come and visit?

1. YES!  You can even look us up on LutheranBNB.

If more questions are asked, I’ll create a sequel to this post.