With Unveiled Face

Restless

beckyreeves — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:56:02 +0000

Here I am After a very long sabbatical from my blog I’ve decided to start writing again. I think it will take me a bit to get back into the mindset of putting my thoughts and heart murmurings into written words. But the desire in me has been re-kindled and so I shall try.

A familiar feeling has crept back into my being lately…it is one I both welcome and dread. Restlessness is usually a precursor for a truth to be revealed to me by the Lord, almost always something that demands a change in me. I’ve felt pretty comfortable for awhile….too comfortable. So I do welcome the restless feeling before an awakening. But, my flesh wants to “sleep in” a little longer. Lord, attune my ears to hear your word. I know that my soul is restless for you.

Some picture highlights of the past 5 months

beckyreeves — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 06:31:12 +0000

I haven’t done a good job AT ALL of posting anything over the past 5 months. This adjustment to full time schooling, mothering, and living in the US as a family of 6 has pretty much overwhelmed my time Some important family events have transpired, however, that I don’t want to forget. We visited Crater Lake with Mike, Earlene, and Ashlin’s baby, Landon, in July. We went on a camping trip with the Lanning family and spent a day at Silverwood theme park. Caleb turned 4 in August. My 4 children started school in the U.S., We celebrated Halloween only a couple of weeks before my grandma went home to be with the Lord. Gabriel turned 7. And our family experienced the joys of our first snow together. We are thankful to God for His grace towards us and His faithfulness that we witness in so many ways.

In the U.S.A.

beckyreeves — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:21:28 +0000

We are here in Richland, enjoying seeing family and trying to get into living here for awhile I will do my best to post something fairly regularly (at least once a month). We had a wonderful farewell to Togo. Our teammates and dear Kabiye friends sent us off with gifts and love and prayers and encouragement and our sponsoring church welcomed us with the same. We have been greatly blessed!

The Lord has made Himself known to us as the precious giver of good gifts and also shepherd as he leads us into new pastures, as well as our stronghold. He has made it so apparent to me over the past week that “without Him I have no good thing” and “unless the LORD builds the house, those who try labor in vain” I can’t do anything without Him and it is He who does the doing through me. AND He Himself is the joy and peace…without Him nothing is joyful or peaceful….NOTHING!

Little Celia

beckyreeves — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:32:17 +0000

It humbles me when God uses me as a part of a plan He orchestrates me into at just the right time. Little Celia is starving from severe malnutrition. She is the fourth baby of her mother, Kumea. And I realized today that perhaps a big reason for Kumea not coming to get help for her baby (other than the fact that she lives far away in a remote village, has little to no money of her own to pay for services and her husband had refused to help) is that she thought she probably had HIV and that the baby did, too, and would just die. Kumea nervously consented to an HIV test for herself today and when it came back negative, she didn’t believe the doctor was giving her the true results. She can’t read and so she just had to trust that we were telling her the truth. Discrimination in the villages is so strong against anyone with HIV. In the villages it is still a death sentence, no access to ARVs and still little knowledge as to how to prevent it or the possibility of living with it. When villagers see a baby wasting away like Celia, they automatically think HIV/AIDS and tell the mother she has it, too. I’m sure part of her thinking was “Why waste money and time to go to a doctor when Celia will just die and I am probably about to die too?”

Soon after Christianne, Essowe, and I insisted that we take her and the baby to the hospital, we checked out her tongue and saw that her frenulum was too short. With some gentle pushing of the doctors and nurses from me yesterday and this morning, they did the easy procedure to cut it and she immediately began sucking harder and stronger as she nursed. Little Celia has sunken eyes, her little legs and arms are bones with skin from the joints down, she has lost hair, and her skin just sags all over her body. Her state of severe malnutrition meant that the WHO protocol must be followed of giving her amoxicillin for any infection in her digestive system as lack of food causes things to grow in her intestines, as well as anti-fungal syrup for the thrush that had developed in her mouth. They began giving her formula through a little sucking tube held up to Kumea’s breast and she did very well sucking it down and has continued to feed well every two hours.

Her whole family is in Djamba (an hour and a half drive from Kara) and one lady from her husband’s family who lives closer to town came and stayed the night with her last night but left this morning. However, a lot of the staying with her, bringing food (no food service at the hospitals here), talking with the doctors and nurses, and paying for every service or test before they would perform it has been my privilege to take on since she has no family near by. Essowe is visiting her tonight with some food and Christianne will come in from Lassa Tchou to see her tomorrow. It should be at least a week if she continues to improve and gain weight, before she is released from the hospital.

A blessing is that the hospital is only charging around $8.00 for their stay, regardless of how long it is because of her level of poverty. My experiences with CHR in Kara and CHU in Lome’ have been very encouraging as the doctors I have interacted with and staff have, for the most part, been compassionate and helpful. Medical cleanliness, practices, basic patient care, and organization leave room for much improvement but with what they have many are not giving up and are really trying to help and to heal. For this I am thanking God.

I am praying that God is saving Celia’s life for Him to receive glory. I am praying that her mother sees the compassion of Christ in us as she is new in her faith and walk with the Lord. I am praying that her family and acquaintances will be moved to value life more deeply. And I am praying for God to continue to form my mind and eyes to be His.

Togo Memory #8: Teaching and Being Taught Words of Life in Kabiye

beckyreeves — Fri, 21 May 2010 12:35:16 +0000

Perhaps this is one of my top 5 precious memories of the last 10 years in Togo. I find that my words fall short when trying to describe the treasure of this blessing. In the early years when I could only read Kabiye and not understand more than 5 to 10% of the words I was reading as I taught there was still a blessing watching women, especially, hear God’s words in the language of their heart, many for the first time. Looks of surprise and incredulity danced from face to face as they realized that Esso (God) would talk and use expressions like they would. Many times over the years I have experienced the serendipity of communicating truth which God in those moments empowered me to use exactly the right examples, words or phrases in Kabiye and watching the truth penetrate hearts, aware of the glorious reality that I was simply the vessel that God’s wonderful words of life could pass through to enter the open hearts of His people.

The last 3 years, I have invested my time in studying with and discipling Mazalo and Christianne, 2 ladies who have shown themselves to be devoted followers of Jesus. As we strategized, studied, and prayed and planned together as a team we realized that our resources are most effectively used by investing heavily in a few and then encouraging and training them to do the same and those they disciple training others etc. This was Jesus’ method so it seems like the best one. Our influence looks like it is smaller in the beginning but exponential growth over time gives much more return and there is the blessing of deep training in relationships. Christianne and Mazalo have been blessings to me as we’ve studied and discovered God’s word together. Especially hearing what God shows them as we study passages together and how they will obey what He is asking. Sometimes we’re thinking very similar things as I contemplate how to obey or respond to God from what is in His word. And sometimes we see very different aspects of ways to obey and I learn to see God and my response to Him in new ways. We deepen one another’s faith, we share deeply our praises and struggles, we pray for one another and as their older sister in Christ I have equipped them as God has led me to do the same with other younger sisters.

I love how alive His word is and how it penetrates joint and marrow and lives within us and becomes a part of us by His Spirit. And being a part of all of this in a tribal language so very different from my own in Togo, West Africa gives God much glory. His word shines all the brighter for me, uniquely powerful to transcend every language and every culture, including my own. I have learned in these years that God’s kingdom, or His culture, is in no way deeper connected to one human culture than another. He has placed eternity in the hearts of men from every nation so that all cultures can comprehend Him. And the beauty in experiencing Him through another cultural worldview is that I experience parts of Him that are hidden from me in my own culture. I learn to see Him outside of my natural eyes and the eyes of my heart are all the more enlightened. How beautiful He is through the eyes of His people from ALL nations.

Please pray for the immediate families and people under Mazalo and Christiannes’ influence: Mazalo’s older brother has welcomed us into his home in Ketao to study every week. Pray for Him to become a follower of Jesus. They are pictured here together.

And please pray for Christianne as she teaches and mentors the 9 orphans that she and her husband, Jean Marie, have taken into their home to raise. Pictured below: Both of these women desire to teach other women and families all throughout Kabiye land but they are beginning with those nearest them.

Togo Memory #7 Guests in our Home

beckyreeves — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:25:02 +0000

We have been blessed to offer hospitality to many in our home during our years here in Togo. I have no record of the many people we have had in our home for a meal or just for the day, but we did keep a guest book from 2004-2009 for those who stayed overnight in our guest room. I’ll try to remember our overnight guests before those years (I’m a little unsure of 2002-2004 especially) and over this past year and record them here, too.

January 2001: Fran Henniger

March 2001: Edwin and Patty Slack and family, David Wyatt

May 2001: Frank and Jenna, Aaron, Joshua, and Corrie Bunner

June 2001: 1 week of Tabligbo team interns including the Mozambique Team

June 2001: Sandi Wright (now Haustein )

June 2001: Richland Church of Christ: Barbara and Hayden Smith

August 2001: Bill and Fran Henniger

December 2001: Marty and Louise Koonce and family

June-July 2002: Harding Interns: Bryan Harrison, Liz Baiochhi, Travis Fry, Kevin Shelby, Ginni Dillahay, AnnaWalters

July 2002: David Henniger

June-July 2003: Harding Interns: Brett and April Emerson, Angela Boyd, Daniella Cilliberti, Matt Clouse, Caleb

August 2003: Tom Moore (Pappy T)

September 2003: Richland C of C: Scott Koopman, Sandi Gray

January 2004: Sarah Lanning

Sports Camp 2004?: Murphy, Christine, Stephen, and Matthew Crowson

March 2004: Homewood C of C: Bill and Twyla Jones and family

June-July 2004: Harding Interns: Terri Harding, Davie Mashburn, Ari Cale, Sarah Murphree, Sarah Jones

July-August 2004: Mike, Earlene, Bobbie, Ashlin, and Jolene Reeves

August 15-23 2004: Preston Road C of C: Holly Thigpen, Linda Farrier

October 8-25 2004: Richland C of C: Kelly and Kristi Duggan

October 26-Nov 15 2004: Barbara Smith and Fran Henniger

January 6 2005: Jeff, Brenda, Josiah, and Ellianna Holland

March 30-April 5 2005: Josh and Kyleen Bontrager

June-July 2005: Harding Interns: Joe Voigts, Thomas Ritchie, Andy Gann

April 2006: Mark Berryman

November 30-Dec. 3 2006: Emily Dunnagan and Amy Shaffer

May-July 2007: Harding Interns: Sky Vanderburg, Travis Trull, Kacy Meadows, Alan Lee, Lacy Clayton, Lauren Greek, Amy Wiginton, Angela Scott, Sarah Hug, Olivia Sambursky, Mary Margaret Lynn

September 2007: Matt and Grace Hangen

November 2007: Don, Jane, Mary Claire, Peter, Rachel and Honor Neal

November Thanksgiving 2007: Aaron, Andrea, Daniel and Dylan Burk

November 2007: Fran Henniger

December 2007: Richland Church of Christ: Rod Webring and Hayden Smith

March 2008: Louise Koonce and boys (while the men were in Benin and Burkina Faso for the week)

March 12- May 4 2008: Matthew Waller from Water For All International

April 1-27 2008: Late’ Lawson

May 7-8 2008: Bryan, Tracey, Isaac, Graham, and Owen Ries

May 20-22 2008: Andy, Melissa, Elijah and Amelie Johnson

May-July 2008: Harding Interns: Heather Mitchell, Meredith Gravatte, Niki Martz, Adam Parker, Kevin Lillis, Andrew Frazier, Josh Robertson, Ben Fulfer, Brock Grandy, Dustin Hahn

June 16-20 2008: Ryan and Melissa Head

Beginning of August 2008: Jennifer Craig

Randomly throughout 2008-2009: Bekah Gibb

November 2008: Mark, Nicole, Maddie and Michal Kennell

December 2008: Tom Moore (Pappy T)

December 18, 2008: Roger, Kathy, Elena, Fiona, and Sydney Stoll

December 22, 2008: Philip, Maritza, Jacob, and Daniel Wilson

End of April 2009: Fielden and Janet Allison

December 2010: The Darnell Family

Christmas and New Year’s 2010: Essowe, Hannah, Grace, and Joanna Adam

during two leadership seminars, a literacy seminar and 2 agricultural seminars during 2010 (already forgotten the dates): Kpatchaa from NDjei, DaCaa from Tchikpaa, Kossi from Sogode, Jerome from NDjei, Wiyao from Soumdina Po Wayi, some of the new Christians from Alibi

March 2010 and April 2010: Essowe Binewai and his mother Hodalo from Soumdina

If you stayed with us while we lived here and I don’t have you on my list please let me know I have loved visiting and hearing the stories and getting to know all of the guests we have had in our home over the past decade. It has been a part of our life and ministry that has proven to be a very sweet blessing indeed!

Togo Memory #6: Those wet spots on the road

beckyreeves — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:27:26 +0000

It was the year that Rachel Phillips was here teaching. She noticed EVERYTHING about the environment around us and always asked a lot of “Why and what?” questions. More than once she made me think about answers to questions I had never thought of about Togo. She and I walked 2 or 3 times a week in the early mornings. Sometime in late January/early February during the height of the dry and dusty season, we were walking along and she said, “What are all of these wet spots on the road?” as she walked around them. “Should I step on them? Are they ok?” I had been walking on these roads at this point for 6 years in the dry season and for some reason had never really thought much about those wet spots. “Well, I guess they’re just animal urine…” I began and then I opened my eyes to the details around me as I noticed most of the wet spots were near the edges of the road and at that moment two men just woken from a long nights’ sleep on opposite sides of the road were shaking their “things” as they zipped up their pants, turning to walk back into their houses/huts. “Actually, the spots on the side of the road are from the men,” I said kind of chuckling at the irony of it all. I’ve watched men (especially) urinate alongside the road for years but had never made the correlation that the wet spots on the dusty roads during the dry season were from them. Well, it made me not want to even be tempted to wear my shoes inside once I got home. I still shake my head in a smirk of somewhat amazement when I walk over the wet spots in the dry season in the early morning. (In the rainy season the dirt’s wet everywhere so I can kind of forget )

Togo Memory #5: The Hotel Kara Pool and Le Jardin Restaurant

beckyreeves — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:41:38 +0000

These are two places we visited today and that we have frequented throughout the past decade. Today we encountered a huge thunderstorm and were pelted by cold, hard raindrops as we stood under the little covered tables beside the pool. I stood there with the Millers and all of our children until we made a run for it into the Hotel Hannah celebrated her 8th birthday at the Kara pool and we have spent countless days off hanging out, teaching our kids to swim, and hanging out with teammates. Both the pool and Le Jardin restaurant have also been venues for our ladies’ prayer time on Thursdays through the years.

Le Jardin is the nicest restaurant in town. It is outdoors and the restaurant is host to a super yummy Duc de Boeuf de Bourgoinon as well as other dishes we like. Our family’s favorite affordable meal plan is to order 6 plates of Nems, kind of like a spring roll but made with rice paper. We have many times ordered ahead and picked up our Nems around dinner time. We had some tonight after our rainy pool afternoon and they were very delicious! Le Jardin has also been where we have hosted fancy dinners with our team, our choice of venue for Mother’s Day or other special celebrations, and a place where I’ve gone to be by myself and study or pray. Oh, and they also have really good banana splits and hot chocolate!

We know the lifeguards at the pool and the waitresses and cook at Le Jardin. They have been at their jobs for years. These are two places I think everyone in our family will really miss.

Here are the children at Le Jardin. I’ll have to find a picture of the Kara Pool later and add it in.

Togo Memory #4: Exercise and Friendship Walks

beckyreeves — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:32:59 +0000

Over the years I have walked between 6 and 7:30 am at a fast pace with my little hand weights 2 to 3 times a week. There have been seasons that have kept me from my walking, but overall its been a habit for exercise, stress relief, time with friends, and personal worship that I will always treasure. There have been seasons where I’ve walked by myself with headphones in my ears and praising God, or spending time in silent prayer. But the greater part of my walking times have been with friends. I walked for a few years on Monday mornings with Jane and sometimes Tracey or other teachers that might join us near Jane’s house. I walked “my path” which wound back by the river and over through to the Borne Fonden road and then circled back around to our old house (and now I just cut back down to where our “new house” is) with many friends through the years: Tracey, Christy Dolinger, Regan Peek, Rachel Phillips, different girl interns, and this year with Bethany Cannon. Many good conversations, hearing God’s truth spoken to me, and speaking it to others.

Rainy season walks have been full of jumping over mud puddles, pushing aside over-grown cornstalks and swatting at bugs. Dry season walks have included walking with material over our mouths when the dust was really bad, wearing sweat bands during really hot and sweaty years, and even starting out walks with sweatshirts during December and January because of the cool mornings. Always there are the challenges of avoiding feces, (usually animal but sometimes human), avoiding too long of a stare at the men who walk out onto the road in the mornings with their bath towels around their waists to relieve themselves on the road, dodging goats along the path by the rocks, and moving quickly out of the way of on-coming motorcycles or bicycles. I enjoy the smell of bean cakes (kakayesi) frying along the road, greeting some of the elderly people that I’ve seen for years along my route, and the view of the mountains behind SIL that I see when I turn left off the river path and start up the gentle hill on the wider road. During the rainy season when there’s a lot of humidity in the air the mountains sometimes appear like a holograph, zooming in and out before my eyes in the distance. They’re surreal and beautiful.

I will miss my morning walks along familiar paths where I have witnessed God’s beauty about me and in the friends I have walked with. Early morning walks have been just another one of the many graces He has showered upon me during the past 10 years in Togo.

Togo Memory #3: Illness

beckyreeves — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:34:56 +0000

I have been laid up sick for the past day and a half, so I began thinking about other memories I have of my own sicknesses or those of my family members while living in Togo. Honestly, the list is too long to remember all of our sicknesses and I’m sure many of the memories have floated away into a sea of forgetfulness, for which I am grateful. However, some still stick out in my mind. Elijah had malaria about 4 times before he was ever a year old. I remember thinking after the 3rd time that he might be about to die as he wasn’t nursing well and seemed listless. This was my first Abraham and Isaac moment where I remember telling God that if He allowed my son to die that I would love and serve Him even still. The prayers I struggled through during those times were long and full of tears but the surrender is a memory that is still so sweet. He has asked me many more times to surrender everything again to him in this way and although the cost never seems to be easier, I can usually do it more quickly.

During this same season of Elijah’s bouts with malaria Hannah had her falling accident where she fractured her skull and we thought the doctors had killed her as they overdosed her with Valium to do a CT scan, she stopped breathing, and then they shoved us out of the room. Thinking that my worst fear had happened David and I were crying and I was praying over and over “God, please help! Please!” And I heard him ask me, “Will you still love me if she’s dead? Will you still follow me?” My heart paused for a couple of seconds as I considered my answer wanting to say ‘no’ in my flesh, but the surrender came and I answered, ‘yes, Lord, I will. I trust you and I love you the most.’ Graciously, He healed her from her fracture, she began breathing and came out of the Valium. Even at the age of 2 1/2 she told me a day and a half later as we left St. Joseph’s hospital in Lome’, “God healed me, Mama!” “Yes, he did.” I answered through tears, knowing that it wasn’t our right, but thankful for His grace.

There was the time David had his worst bout of malaria just after we arrived in Rwanda on our survey, at the same time as Caleb’s malaria and ear infection, Gabriel’s bloody noses, malaria for me, and Elijah’s stomach virus and ear infection. There was the time Hannah had amoebic dysentery, malaria, and became dehydrated all at the same time and we had to take her to the hospital in Tsiko for IV treatment just before David’s survey to Rwanda. There was the bout I had with typhoid in 2006 and the yeast infection I had in my eye. There was the time Gabriel burned his hand in the smoldering ashes in our side yard after our day guardian burned some leaves. There was the time Hannah cut a gash into her hand on the tin overhang at the school-house and had to have stitches.

I’m sure there are more sicknesses to record, but this will do for now. I won’t miss the illness and accidents we’ve experienced in Togo but I am thankful for all that God has done to mold me through them, learning to trust him and hoping in His healing above all.