On studying for our outreach to Togo we studied a pretty interesting thing about warm climate cultures vs. cold climates cultures. We studied how in northern places, like Europe, Russia, North America, everything revolves around time and efficiency; while in southern areas, like Africa, South America, parts of Asia, things revolve around relationships. Washington of course is a cold culture, so you'll probably notice in our culture its really important to do things as quickly and efficiently as possible, or you at least need to be fast. We tend to focus a lot on business and being successful. While on the other hand we don't have a very relational culture. We tend not to be very open in public, or towards strangers. Hospitality to strangers is pretty rare. During street evangelism here in Switzerland people are usually in a rush. Most people are usually to busy to stop and talk. Some people just get freaked out when we try and talk to them.
On the other hand, we talked about how in warm climate cultures things tend to move much slower. You can't politely just walk up to someone and ask them to do some. I'm told I need to practice my small talk. You need to ask them how they are first, how their family is doing, so on and so forth, and then maybe you might get around to asking them to do chore for you. I'm told in Togo its much easier to talk to people on the streets, its common to invite strangers to your front porch (they still don't trust complete strangers in their house all the time).

We learned a few other interesting things about Togo culture. You use your left hand very little. If you shake someone's hand, wave at someone, hand something to someone with your left hand, it's a way of cursing them. You can still use your left, but if you're doing thing with meaning or anything interactive (as in waving or shaking hands) you most do it with your right hand. Luckily we don't have any lefties on our team. We also found out that public displays of affection are rare, however, it is perfectly acceptable for people of the same gender to hold hands. This may not be that horrible for you girls, but it includes guys too. Its an act of friendship, so I have been warned some guy I've known for less than a week might randomly grab my hand and walk around with me for a while...... yeah.

            

So for the Outreach phase of my DTS I am going to Togo. I will be leaving for Togo on December 13th. I assume not much people know a lot about Togo, so here is a little info about it. Togo is a tiny country on the coast of West Africa. It is officially a French-speaking nation, so I'll need to be practicing my a little more. They also have a number of local tribal languages that my team is learning a little of. Its pretty hot and humid. Togo is about 10-20% christian, 10-20% Islamic, and about 60% or so is tribal religions, animism, and voodoo.

For those who don't know mush about animism and voodoo and all that, its the belief that everything has a spirit. Trees, rivers, deserts, have spirits and many, many other thing; so anything that ever happens to someone is a result of spirits affecting them. There is also a lot of ancestor worship involved. They believe in a supreme god, Mawu, but they do not believe he connects with people; so they worship a secondary god which, according to there beliefs, isn't as powerful but can still hear them. The practices of this religion can involve animal sacrifice, blood-letting, spell-casting, etc. Some sources say about 29% is christian, but its common for some of the people to mix and match their christian beliefs with traditional rituals and such.

My team going to Togo has 8 people in it, 2 staff and 6 students. We also found out that the founder of YWAM Togo, Reymond Serex, is going to be traveling with us most of the time. No one speaks french like Reymond. out of all the Franco-phones in the world, he is the coolest sounding. That's a picture of him over there. I know so much about his voice because he was the translator for several of our lectures. We are going to spend one week in the capital of Lome once we arrive. Lome is on the South coast. Then we will travel a little way up to Kpalime and spend two weeks there. I'm not completely sure what we will be doing for the first three weeks, but I've heard we would be doing a lot of children's ministries (50% of the population is under 15) some mercy ministries, and prison ministries. Then we will travel to Kara in the North and spend two weeks there. There we will be teaching youth basic computer skills a long with other ministries. Then we will travel to a nearby region called Tamberma and spend three days with a tribe that was recently rated one of the ten most unreached people groups in the world. And for our last week we will drive back down to Lome, which we hope will able to work with the Africa Mercy ship, which should be docking at Lome about that time.

  

SWITZERLAND! Lausanne in the lower left hand corner of the map.


 Notice that Switzerland is not next to Norway.

I've been in Lausanne for almost two weeks, I wanted to update you a little earlier, but I'm a lot busier than I realized I would be. I have discipleship classes through most of the day with an hour of maintenance after lunch (fun fact: in Switzerland lunch is the main meal of the day as opposed to dinner in America). My DTS has 25 students from 17 different countries. I have four roommates, two of which (James and Jeremy) are Korean-American, one (Levi) is from California, and one (David) is from Zurich, Switzerland. I noted before that Swiss has three languages (French, German, and Italian). I found out from David, who is from the German region, that they actually speak something called Swiss German. From what I can gather the only difference between the two is dialect, but he insists they are very different. It was also interesting to find out David has been in the military, not because he signed up, but because it is mandatory for all able-body Swiss men to either serve in the military or civil service.

Our base is in the French speaking portion of the country and all our lectures are tranlated into English and French. It has also been a pain because I can't figure out how to translate the internet out of German. As a part of our studies all the DTS students have to take language classes, most of us are taking French.

The Y-wam base is in Lausanne, a city ot the shores of Lake Geneva. The base itself is an old Swiss hotel which is called a chalet, which means house. Its a really cool old building made back when people wanted their buildings to look nice. It is three stories tall and has almost all the classrooms and dorms in it. Y-wam owns a few other houses in the property, but those are mostly for the staffs' offices and housing.

The Chalet

My dorm is on the top floor with a window looking right at the French Alps

View of the French Alps from my window

Its beautiful and colorful here. As a couple of my classmates have pointed out, we're pretty much living in a fairy tail country. Hopefully you will understand why I say that further on in the post. It is very much like Washington in the sense that its very mountainous and green. Every morning a heavy fog rolls in and then the rest unlike Washington it gets really clear and sunny and you can see all around the valley.

THE DESALPE

On Saterday our class had a wonderful day exploring the country. We went to the little  village of La Gruyere (if you are an advocate of cheese you may know that name as it is a well known exporter of Swiss cheese). Gruyere is in a very green valley bordered on every side by mountains. At Gruyere we got to experience the yearly Desalpe.

"Fairy tail land"

Every year during the summer all the farmers herd their cows into the mountians to stay there for the Summer. At the end of Summer they herd the cows back down in to the valleys. Herding the cows back down every year is a really big event, and they call it the Desalpe. All the farmers get dressed up in their traditional Swiss garb and decorate their cows with boquetes and flowers; and they have a big festival. This is done all over the country, not just in Gruyere.
   

After most of the herds moved through the village we went and visited Gruyere Castle. Situated on top of a huge hill in the center of the valley. As one who had only seen castles in movies and such, this was quite the experience. We spent a while exploring all the battlements and beating off imaginary invaders.

To end the day we went and took a tour of an actuel Swiss chocolate factory. It seemed obvious the factory was inspired by Willy Wonka, but they didn't quite reach that level of tour.

This is a small portion of the gift shop.

Caillers Chocolate Factory. I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong, and I don't have the slightest clue how to pronounce that name. I remember it sounds nothing like it looks.

When traveling abroad, the adventure usually begins when you first get on the plain or walk onto European ground for the first time However, On my trip I had quite a big experience before I even left my home.
The day before I left I had a mild caution in my mind because during the day my family noticed a whole lot off sirons passing our house, along with a number of Police, Firefighters, and utility workers blocking off Roosevelt Avenue on the east side of our block. From what my family could see it looked like they were fixing a gas leak. Like I said, I had a mild caution, but from my experience gas leaks usually weren't huge deals. Anyway, I went to sleep that night anticipating the plane ride the following morning.
I quickly sat up in my bed. A huge crash had just rang through the house.  The clock read 5 AM. It sounded like someone had tipped over the refridgerator in the kitchen above my room and hit the floor like the surface of a drum.  A sat slowly absorbing what I had heard. The crash was folllowed by a thumping sound, as if someone was knocking on the walls of our home. Each thump was about two seconds apart. I got up and edged up the stairs to investigate the eeiry sound.
I walked into the kitchen just when my mom came running down the stairs. She seemed to know exactly what was going on. She told me something had just exploded near the house. I began creeping along from one window to the next to see if there was anything out of the ordinary outside. It was still dark, so I did not see anything. (the thumping had turned out to be our rabbit, Henry, thumping his feet on the floor which is what he does when he's scared)
Being in my very sleepy state of mind I wandered out onto the back porch because I noticed it was raining a little, and nothing cheers my tired mood like a little rain (seriosly, I enjoy rain). once outside I heard a clacking noise, as if people were slapping sticks together not to far off. Coming to  odds of exactly how illocal it was that a bunch of people would be out at 5 in the morning to do such a strange, I realized that it was the sound of a crackling fire. A very very loud fire. Hurrying to the front yard where the sound was coming from I came to see the entire sky to the North of house blazing orange against the darkness. I could see a harsh orange flame flickering behind the neighboring houses.

This is what had happened about a block fom my house:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.king5.com%2Fnews%2FFire-engulfs-house-in-Seattles-Pinehurst-neighborhood-130558363.html&h=sAQDRKdi3AQBgkBaPqEAupTOSKVJb8dt7HClOR_HZY3IDsA

We were not in the evacuation zone, but we ended up spending most of the day at my Grandma's home who was graciously willing to accept us at 5AM.

Since then the gas leaks have been taken care of.

Intro

I’m writing to update you on my life and this program that I’ve decided to take now that I am graduated from high school. I’ve been accepted to spend six months in Switzerland and abroad by an organization called YWAM (Youth With A Mission). YWAM is an organization that teaches youth mission and evangelism skills that will help spread God’s message and love.

Why am I doing it? During this school year it was very challenging deciding what I wanted to do after I graduated high school. I was stuck between studying art at WWU, the Marine Corps. After much thought, I decided to go with a third option, which was YWAM. My sister had gone to YWAM in Switzerland and she strongly recommended it. YWAM seemed like a great opportunity to travel and meet new cultures. Yet, overall I felt called to finally get experience in ministry.

When will I be going? Why, I’m in the plane right now as I write this. Anyway, more about this program. I am taking a DTS (Discipleship Training School) at the YWAM base in Lausanne, Switzerland. This consists of three months of class and lectures and then about two months of outreach to do mission work in a country that we decide on after training.

If you are unfamiliar with Switzerland, and I know many of the people I’ve talked to are, then here is an important thing to know. Switzerland and Sweden are not interchangeable names. Switzerland and Sweden are, in fact two different countries in two completely different places. Switzerland is the country of chocolate, Swiss army knives, watches, lederhosen, bankers, Alps, cheese and neutrality; and is situated in central Europe. The Swiss speak French, German, and Italian. Sweden is the land of Fish, Vikings, and stew; and is situated up in all that cold stuff. They speak Swedish…. So remember. I’m in SWITZERLAND.

Without a doubt, my time here will be challenging at times and very live changing. It would be much appreciated if you prayed for me and my adventures, that they all go well, and that I would stay encouraged and hungry for new experiences and learning.   

Thanks!