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.