Last September while we were in Somanya, Africa, I had the opportunity to meet a young girl named Gifty that was going through a very difficult time in her life.  She, like many young girls around the world, was facing teen pregnancy. In this small west African community, were poverty is prevalent, it’s challenging for young women without job skills to survive, let alone find a job and raise a child, without help from family members.   

Gifty got pregnant by a boyfriend that was now telling her to terminate the pregnancy. Facing judgment by others, by her mother, and by her boyfriend for “getting pregnant”, she had decided to take a pill to try to terminate her pregnancy. The pill failed.  When I met her she was five months pregnant and had was trying to figure out how to get the money to proceed with having an abortion.  Her boyfriend had left and would not have anything to do with her. She was carrying around so much guilt that this seemed like the only choice she had left.

I ran into Gifty on the school property as we were taking measurements to help Pastor Sackey plan his next school building. She was sitting below a large mango tree, crying her eyes out. I knew there was something really wrong, and asked Pastor Sackey’s Associate Pastor, Pastor Van, if we could go talk with her. She told me her story as Pastor Van translated for me, since Gifty did not speak English.  It was an emotional experience for me, as I got to share with her what it was like to have two miscarriages.  I explained how torn up I felt by not being able to see them born. How much more difficult would it be for her, I wondered, knowing the guilt that would follow if she would make that choice on her own.   

The one thing I remember telling her is that God had a plan for her and that the baby growing inside of her was no accident.  It was a “gift”. The fact that the pill didn’t work was proof that God wanted her to accept the gift He had given her. When I told her those things she looked at me and I saw hope in her eyes. As we talked over the next two hours, I was able to help her change her mind.   It was challenging and at the same time it felt like time had stopped just for her to be reminded that God loved her no matter what situation she found herself in.

I asked her to come to a meeting we were speaking at that evening and she showed up. I was so excited that she had moved from a position of having no hope or help to allowing herself to be accepted by someone she did not even know. After the day we met she continued coming around Pastor Sackey’s church, eventually getting help from the church to go through seamstress schooling.  By completing her training before she would have the baby she would have a way of making a living for herself.

Pastor Sackey reported to us that she recently had the baby and is doing well. Wow! what a gift for me to see that the time I spent with Gifty turned out to not only give life to a child that God planned, but also created a mother that God will continue to strengthen as she raises that child on her own. Thank you, God, for showing me the young girl under the mango tree that needed to hear that you loved her no matter what.  If the whole trip to Ghana solely about being seeing the gift of a child not terminated, it was worth it to me. 

““What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?”  Luke 15:4

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.

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.

WATCH FOR VIDEO COMING SOON!!

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.

Amy

]]> http://www.share5.org/2007/09/monday-in-accra/feed/ 1 http://www.share5.org/2007/09/the-drive-in-movie-ghana-style/ http://www.share5.org/2007/09/the-drive-in-movie-ghana-style/#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:15:38 +0000 Chad Houck http://66.147.240.185/~sharefiv/2007/09/the-drive-in-movie-ghana-style/ 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!

Chad

Today the talk about town is apparently that there is this little white woman from the US that came specifically just to minister to the women.  They have never experienced the compassion that they felt poured out from the Lord last night as Amy gently, lovingly took the time to minister to each one of them and hold them each.  It was beautiful and thank God for it!

Today we were supposed to be having a game day at one of the local school fields followed by a soccer match with another town, but the rains this morning have proven to be too much for the time being.  Since most people would be walking anywhere from 3 to 5 miles to join the activities, if it is raining, they will not come out.  As such, we have cancelled until tomorrow after the service.

Since we had the day off, Pastor Sackey gave us his 4×4 and we went for a drive of the surrounding area.  We saw the neighboring town of Odumasi, and drove to a local college and the area hospital.  It was amazing to see all the little children stare at Amy as we passed.  Many of them have never seen a white person in the flesh.  They may have seen one on TV, but whereever we go, if the window is down and we stop, the children come running! (and they stop at about 5-6 feet away… apparently that is the safety limit!)

Blessings for now, and we will be posting some video from Accra on Monday, so keep checking in!

Chad & Amy

After a short stop for a chicken and rice dinner, we were on to what felt like the most comfortable bed in the world (OK… a floor would have been comfy after 25 hours in planes!)

So we woke up this morning, got our breakfast complete with crystalized instant coffee (no… they don’t have Starbucks) and went to the radio show where we were guests for a 30 minute interview.

All is great, and we will be posting as possible, however the speed of connection is slower than we realistically need to post video, so we will post them in Accra when we are there on Monday.

Blessings to all, and hello to our two great little ones!  We miss you all.