How are we coping with lockdown in Togo?
Cristina, Maria and I, Christa, currently in lockdown in Dapaong, are doing a lot of housework like cooking and gardening. We make the most of all the time that we have to plant trees in our future mission centre. But that´s not all. Lockdown isn’t strict here, as people have to sell their wares to earn a living. Everyday we go out to exercise and to do the shopping. Occasionally we meet one of “our” young people: a member of our community youth group or those who spend time in the “Home for Young People” Library where we work. We miss them so much! So it’s wonderful to see them even briefly and it lifts our spirits.
At the same time it’s painful to realise how difficult this situation is for them. It’s especially difficult for them to study without lessons or the library and it’s also difficult for them not to be able to meet each other. All this motivates us to carry on accompanying them. We send them messages of encouragement and a short reflection that can help them in their prayer. In the best case scenario we send them by Whatsapp, but mostly we send them by text message because not many people have access to internet. Then there are those who don’t even have a phone so we hand out written copies and distribute them around the houses. They contact us to share their prayer with us. They feel supported both by what we send and by the fact that we keep them in mind.
Prayer is precisely what sustains us most at this time: we look for Jesus every morning in the Covid19 grave like Mary Magdalene did but he always finds a way to tell us that he is not in the grave, and that he is alive. Like his disciples, we are learning to seek and love him in the Galilee of our current daily life and relationships. This is how we feel that we are counterbalancing the “nightmare” of the coronavirus, which is progressing quietly through our region. Let’s keep praying.
Very united
Christa
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