by Lewis Swann | Jun 15, 2016 | Blog, Rileys |
On Thursday, June 9th Wayne, Chris and I headed to Tsiko, which is three hours by car on the worst road ever. BUT, it had the most spectacular mountains that you ever did see! I love the trip down to Tsiko! In the last story we had on Chris, we asked for prayer for him as he had an enlarged spleen that needed to be removed ASAP.
We found out about the Baptiste Hospital in Tsiko, west of Atakpame. We heard about this hospital through the family that has asked us to live in their home! This hospital has been there for 35 years and has at least a dozen or more American doctors/surgeons that give the best quality healthcare in Togo!
We didn’t even have to make an appointment, we just showed up and got a consultation.
We mainly wanted to get a second opinion to make sure Chris had the care that he needs.
They ran several tests and got another echography.
They examined him well to find out the he does NOT need surgery after all.
We give God the glory for this answer as we know many people prayed for Chris!
We stayed the night in Tsiko in their guesthouse because the doctor said his level was low and needed a blood transfusion.
The campus is lovely and welcoming.
We ate and had Bible study with all the doctors.
God certainly has a group there that loves and serves the Lord with all their heart.
They put the Roman Road on the back of every patient card, so the gospel is being told to every person who comes through their doors. It was a blessing to meet and talk with them. We also know that Chris will receive the best care here at this hospital. We return in three months for his checkup. We continue to pray that he will have no problems.
We want to thank ALL who prayed because GOD answered some BIG prayers for Chris! Chris will always struggle with poor health due to his Sickle Cell Anemia, and we are committed to taking care of him, no matter what it takes.
If you would like to help support, feed, give daily medications, and help with healthcare for Chris, go to our Donate page.
By Elaine Riley, Sight.org missionary in Togo
by Lewis Swann | Jun 8, 2016 | Blog, Rileys |
So many changes in one month!
This was supposed to be our blog post for May, but we are officially on Africa time, so it is now our June post.
After being in Togo for three months without any breaks from the farm both Wayne and I got Malaria and was down for almost two weeks.
I had become very homesick and depressed.
Talk about the hardest thing for any mother, is having your youngest daughter deliver her first child and being across the world. God gave me abundant grace to walk through that! We got all the updates thanks to Facebook and got pics as if we were there. I would love to hold that little bundle though. He’s absolutely precious and we are grateful to the Lord for all the help everyone has given them! Thank you for loving on them for us!
Through all that, Lewis had suggested that we look at possibly moving into town with electricity and water to make things easier on us.
We thought about this for a couple weeks and felt that our French teacher, Joseph, whose family owns a store in the market place, would be our best resource in finding an apartment. We talked with him and in two days he had found a two-bedroom house that we went to look at Saturday (day before Mother’s Day). The only problem was it was new and not finished. It didn’t have plumbing or running water yet, but we decided to look at it.
We did not have a clear go from God on this house, so we prayed at church the next day that God would show us what to do or if this was not the house to open something else up.
Well, at 4:30 that afternoon our answered prayer came on a moto (motorcycle) to the farm. A Dutch woman named Wijneke with her little girl Nelina came and said that she had met Laurie in November. She felt the Holy Spirit telling her to come see us that day. We talked and she said that she was returning to Holland for a job and that she needed us to come live in her house! I told her that we had just looked at a house the day before.
She invited us to come eat lunch with her the next day because her husband Alex would be off work.
Wijneke’s house is a brand new four-bedroom home with two baths and it is two blocks from a school and hospital/clinic near the main highway in Togo! It has a fridge, microwave, electricity and running water! She will leave everything for our use: furniture, TV, kitchen stuff, etc.
We excitedly accepted her offer!
Not only did God provide a house but a car too!
A neighbor of Wijneke is a driving instructor and has many spare cars. Its ours to use until Feb 2017!
We expected to rent it but God had different plans.
God has been so good to us! Thank you for all your prayers, we are seeing God’s plan unfold before us.
The way God worked everything out definitely spelled out that this was a GOD thing.
We are grateful to Alex and Wijneke and their family for asking us to come live in their home. Alex is a Librarian in Atakpame but functions as a lay pastor in his church. He is waiting for his Visa to be able to join the rest of the family in Holland. Wijneke is an anesthesiologist and took their two children with her to Holland. Please pray for the changes this family will have to endure in the coming months having to be separated.
Written by: Elaine Riley
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by Lewis Swann | Apr 19, 2016 | Blog, Rileys, Uncategorized |
We have been in beautiful, sunny, HOT Togo, Africa for 3 months now.
We have come a long way in many aspects of the word. We are breaking into a new language and can communicate some but we have a long way to go. We have French lessons that are classroom style every Tuesday and Thursday with Joseph who has graduated from the University of Lomé. We are blessed to have him teach us. We really enjoy the time we have with him. Not only are we learning conversational French but learning the grammar and writing of it as well as learning the customs, culture, and history of Togo.
We received our packets of seed from America and are excited to say we are working to get them into tilled ground by next week. We are happy that God has sent the rain to soften the ground. Different team members have their own plots and the plot we chose has never been broken up so it was especially hard. Unfortunately, because of the way they do their rows, both Wayne and I could never do the back breaking work, so we hired some school age boys who come after school to do this BIG job.
We are learning much about farming, as this community and region is mostly farmers. This city girl is now a farmer’s wife, who would have guessed?
Wayne, Ishaka and Chris holding the seed packets that we are going to plant!!! We are so excited!
Our head farmer—Ishaka with one of the young boys who tilled up our plots!! We have all the plots behind them to plant!!! We’re planting corn tomorrow!!! We can’t wait for the harvest!!
Our church is small and is only .02 miles from our farm.
It’s a little Assemblies of God church and has about 50 members. We love their worship time and love to watch the children dance. The service is done in both Ewe and French and one of our team members translates to English for us. We have such a fireball of a pastor and this church loves to pray and has a passion for God, especially the younger kids.
We were glad to have a part in helping to finish their concrete floor this week inside of their building. We hauled all the water for the man who was going to do the floor, otherwise the children would be responsible to haul it up in buckets after school from the well.
They hold one of their Sunday School classes outside and we do the one inside for adults!
Our whole team has been battling what seems to be Malaria. We are starting to recover, but we are still weak and wiped out. Please pray for healing for us and the rest of the team.
We want to thank all of our family, church body and donors for making this possible.
God’s adventure is slowly unwrapping before us.
It is a privilege to serve this community and team! Thank you for all the cards, pictures, and gifts that was sent to us. We truly appreciated the time, effort, and cost in doing this for us!!! We miss you all so much and our previous lifestyle in American is fading so quickly but we will never forget you guys!!!
The pace of Africa is SLO-MO here if I can describe that for you. We will try to explain that in many ways in the months to come. We are praying for you. We certainly can feel the prayers from home!!!
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by Lewis Swann | Mar 4, 2016 | Blog, Rileys |
We are settling down on the fram just outside of a few miles from the third biggest city in Togo, Africa in Atakapame. We have met many neighbors who have stopped by to greet us! We feel very welcomed here. Their customary greeting is Bonjour and curtsey.
We have noticed a young boy about age 9 or 10 (most people here do not know their true age) named Chris who is very malnourished and has Sickle Cell Anemia. He is skin and bones with a huge belly. This boy has been abandoned by his parents that live in the city and brought him to his grandmother who also is skin and bones and cannot provide for him very well. His parents have taken him to a witchdoctor and the witchdoctor said he would die. We have taken him under our wings and take him to the hospital where his doctor is treating him each month and we feed him twice a day as well as love him. He has improved in his countenance, knowing somebody loves him and wants to provide for his daily sustenance. The doctor at the hospital gives him only until he is 18 years of age to live. But God…
So we see Chris each morning and each afternoon when he comes to eat. It is a blessing to be a part of his life and I’m sure God has shown him that He will take care of Chris and we are building a relationship with Chris for many days to come.
We have some chickens here at the farm…4 roosters and 2 hens with 6 baby chicks. We will be making a pen for these chickens first thing as we desire to raise chickens to eat as well as having eggs to eat! We are excited that God has already provided these chickens for our team! We also desire to raise goats soon!
We are praying for all our family, friends and loved ones, we miss home and desire to see your faces. It is so hard being ahead six hours as you are still sleeping when we arise at 5am!! It has been some adjustment with the weather and time change! God is GOOD! We will keep you posted! Love to you!!
by Lewis Swann | Feb 10, 2016 | Blog, Rileys |
We were sent off by our church body and we have visited with all our kids (of course it’s never enough time) and we still have a long list of “to do’s” to get finished!!! We haven’t even started packing but my closet (the only place I can put stuff and it will stay put) is full. We actually have 6 suitcases full of things for ourselves as well as the team in Togo. Team Togo keeps thinking of things that we can bring over so our space is getting very limited. Lewis found these two at the market and thought they would be great for the farm and company for us!
Meet Buddy and Buster (German Shepard mix) who will be our companions on the farm! They are less than 6 weeks old, we think. They should make great guard dogs! We will have a day of rest after travel and be heading North to do an eye mission as soon as we arrive! So we will try to keep you posted as the first 2 weeks will fly by as we have a lot to accomplish before a couple of our team members has to return to the USA. We are counting the hours now….very excited to start our “new journey”. We will keep in touch and please pray for us if we come to mind!! We LOVE our church, friends and family who have been a great support to us!
by Lewis Swann | Jan 25, 2016 | Blog, Rileys |
This week we are preparing for our final fund raiser–a garage sale at our church on 3421 Old Jacksonville Hwy. The sale is Friday, January 29 starting at 8am-4:00pm and Saturday, January 30th ending at noon. We NEED help in pricing, setting up, selling the days we are open and tearing down! You can private message me on Facebook or call me to let us know you are coming! We have had many families bring in their donations and we are thankful for those….we will be posting pics of items on the Tyler Online Garage Sale and Swap and Shop online soon as well as posting the garage sale times. Pray that we can get rid of 85% of it!!
We got to do children’s ministry yesterday at our church; it was fun sharing. The kids were very curious and had many good questions. They decorated an African ornament and got to pretend through a game what it would be like to be blind. Please meet one of our “support prayer groups” while we are in Africa. “Let the little children come unto me…Matthew 19: 13-15. The children will be praying for these needs specifically:
–They will be praying for the work (sight.org) in Togo.
–Praying for a water well.
–Praying for a work truck.
–Praying for people to ask Jesus into their hearts.
–Praying for us to learn the language of French quickly.
We are so privileged to know that they will be supporting us in this way each month!
As of the end of today, We will be officially Volunteers for Sight.org with 19 days to go. We have reached our 70% mark in monthly donations. If you have not had a chance to donate please click on the following link to to do so. We will be honored to work for the Lord through your support!! Click on this link— https://sight.org/support-a-missionary/
You will have to check out our NEW website (SIGHT.ORG) that is finally up and going strong! We are completely blown away by the support of our family, friends and church! Thank you for giving us this opportunity to serve the Lord!
-Wayne and Elaine Riley
