Well it has been two weeks since our return to the US. I had been asked to share what happened in Africia with a small group of young girls at our church this eveing. I had so many things that I wanted to share and had a hard time fitting them into a time limit. The girls are learning about missions, so I shared how great it was to be able to meet the local people on the streets of Somaya. I told them that when they get to take a trip one day, walking in and with the people is the best way to get to experience and know more about a culture. Getting involed with the community was important for us to truely understand how the people of Somanya, Ghana live. Tonight, as I showed the girls the photos and videos, it really made me miss many of the people we met while we were there. It is amazing to me to have been in a place for such a short time (two weeks) and have made a connection with people that left me crying as I left to come home. I really miss the relationships that were just getting established. I look foward to the day we can return with a group of people that will leave wishing they could stay as well.
Since it was in prayer that we were sent, it was only appropriate that it be in prayer that we should be returned.
This was the closing of our time with Pastor Sackey, Mama Pamela, and their staff of associate pastors and teachers, after which we loaded up and headed for Accra.
As we sit in the Chicago O’hare airport on our return flight, we find us with plenty of layover time on our hands, so we took the liberty of beginning to compile some of the fun clips from the Ghana trip that we didn’t get while in country. Enjoy!
Well, the last day has come and we have stopped by busyinternet on our way to the airport for our trip home.
Today was an amazing day as we had an opportunity to share with and minister to the 10 people who staff and support the school as teachers, bus drivers, security, cooks, and more. We had an amazing time ministering to them, and then presented them with the special gifts that were created for them (thank you Debbie and Amanda!) prior to the entire staff coming together to pray to release us back home to the USA.
How much better can it get? We were sent in prayer, and now released to return in prayer. That about sums it up for now!
So with that, we sign off from Accra, and with tears in our eyes, anxiously await our reunion with both our family at home, and in another season, our family we are leaving behind here.
We had a great time today getting to play with and get to know some of the school children.Since they are on holiday, the full school was not present, but we were able to get about 80 or so of the children together for the day.Amy had a full day of activities for them, starting with Noah’s story, followed by coloring and making animal stick puppets.We brought with us some of the songs from Vacation Bible School at Life Church that Amy taught them, (obey, obeyO) which we followed up with Max Lucado’s film “Buzby the Misbee-having Bee”, a gift from Thomas Nelson Publishers.Having completed her theme for the day on obedience, Amy sat down (way to go girl!) and the children ate a lunch of Jallof rice and chicken, followed by some games.
One thing that struck me didn’t happen until they were leaving at the end of the day.It was a visual that was almost surreal.As three little children were crossing the footbridge behind the school to head home, I watched them disappear into the banana trees and 5’ tall grasses.They were out of school and back to the African bush.As they started disappearing into the various parts of the bush surrounding the Academy and down the different paths in their clean school uniforms, they seemed to be a crude contrast to their surroundings.If you focused just on the smiling, clean, joyful child bouncing along the path with a coloring page or a popsicle puppet, you could easily forget or fail to notice where they had come from that morning and where they were now returning.Many of them were wearing possibly their only pair of shoes.Most if not all only own one uniform.As soon as they get home, it comes off, is cleaned, and prepared for the next day, when they will happily bounce back to this place again.On one hand, that is so very sad.On the other, they are way better off than their parents were.Either way you look at it, they are the reason we are here.The Academy has done amazing things so far, and there is still much left to do.
Today we visited Accra the capital of Ghana. Wow, what a busy place! We got to see the offices of TheoVision where we got the camera from to film while we are here. Very cool to see an editing system and sound studio in an area that hardly has internet connections, except for internet cafes. Also while in Accra we went to the only “mall” that currently exists, it was like a Dollar store with high priced items and electronics. Not much for shopping! We realized it is pretty hard to find just anything after attempting to try to find some cables for Pastor Sackey to be able to move the projector from the front of the church to the back and be able to connect into their sound system. Not one of the four stores we went to had anything close to what we needed. There was one store we went into that could order it though, takes about a week or to two to get here. Oh, they sold Mac’s!! Yes, West Africa has Mac’s!!!
We drove through a very beautiful area not far from Somanya, through the mountain cities of Mamfe and Akosombo. While driving through we stopped to wash the car, (lots o mud from three days of rain), and car washes here are both very common and very different. You pull your car up on two concrete ramps and they power wash it off. It costs only a dollar or two.While waiting I got to meet some village children and share with them the little bit of sign language that I know from some videos I watched with Emily and Dillon at home. It was so cool to see kids that did not speak English be able to copy the signs and say it as well. It taught them mommy, daddy, please, thank you, play time, sleep time, ball, friend, sorry, grandma, grandpa, food, thirsty, and the most important one of all that Jesus Loves You! I really had a great time and they did too!
We returned for the evening and had a village film crusade that brought about 150 to 200 people around. The church parked the bus and put a sheet on the back of it for a screen and then ran the projector and speakers off a generator. The movie was on the story of Joseph. Chad, through a translator, explained the movie, gave an alter call at the end of the movie, and lots of people stood up! Pastor Van continued from there in their native language and led about 50 to 70 people in the prayer of salvation. I got to pray for a women that had cut her fingers cooking and then her daughter asked me to pray for her too! She was maybe 8 years old. The kids around them started talking to me and wanted to touch my nose. They said, “ you have a different nose, I like it!” and pinched it if you will. Very funny for me to have kids be so intrigued by me being different than them.
While we did go into Accra on Monday, got the last two posts up, and even got to eat pizza and a cheeseburger, the definite highlight of Monday for me was getting to see and be part of an innovative outreach in a small sub-community of Somanya on Monday night.Electricity has come to Somanya’s main road in the past two years or so, and though there is electric street lights in some areas, many small “communities” of 50-60 homes may have an electrical wire passing by them or even right over them, but no electrical utilities or lights themselves.We went into one such area only a few miles from the church.Revival Harvest has been working on creating open doors in this community for the last two years, as many in the area have not heard the gospel, and those who have but cannot read know few if any bible stories.A few months ago, their efforts began to pay off.They were invited to come into a “square” area (a small central open dirt commons) and set up to project a movie.
The funny part is that it was a true “Drive In”.We drove the church bus into the middle of the clearing, unloaded the projector, generator, and speakers from the back, and then hung a sheet on the back of the van for the screen.Within 10 minutes, a crowd of over 150 people had brought chairs, buckets, and mats to sit on to watch the movie we had brought.Since this was the second “Movie Night”, they all were excited to see the next bible story that we had for them.Tonight was the story of Joseph’s journey from the pit to the throne room of Egypt.
After the film, which itself was an amazing experience when you consider the contrast in “technology”, (many of the homes have no electricity, no windows, and dirt floors) I had the opportunity to give a short message on how Joseph traded his old life as a slave for a new one of authority and dominion over the affairs of Egypt.I then got to present the gospel, sharing that Jesus offers us the opportunity to trade our lives for a new one in Him, and what he did for us on the cross. When my translator got done explaining that with confession of a belief in the work of Jesus on the cross we can make this trade, and offered the opportunity for people to respond, I was blown away by the response.About 50-70 adults and young people (hard to count in the dark) raised their hands and then stood to their feet to pray to accept Jesus Christ.As I listened to them praying in their native tongue and heard them finish with “Amen”, my eyes filled with tears. I realized that we were welcoming over 50 new brothers and sisters, from young people to the elderly, into God’s family.The looks of joy that filled their eyes in the darkness of that dirt lot is burned in my memory.Praise God!
This is the video that we edited for the Sunday service (a first for their church) that Chad used to talk about having an intimate understanding of our God, our neighbors, and our community. We said that if we didn’t engage with people where they are, we may never meet them. We can not expect them to simply come to us! Our message was that for them to change their community, they must grow intimately close with eachother, with eachothers needs, and with eachothers issues. At the end of the service, the entire congregation joined together in two circles around the wall of the chuch, arm in arm, standing together as a family. It was a powerful visual.
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