Spending a Night in Another Village

My favorite kind of mission work is being surrounded by children: holding one on my lap, having one on either side of me (and then one on either side of those, reaching around to touch me), having young ones behind me and in front of me, crowding in and each wanting a little piece of me.

Men definitely hold the preeminent place in Ghanaian society, followed by teen boys; down at the very bottom of the social scale are the women and children. It is a joy to be able to spoil African children with some attention: to look around and give this one a smile, this one a pat, this one a nod – to deliberately make each one feel s/he is significant and special to me and, by extension, to God.

Since we arrived at the village at 4:00, I was able to enjoy two solid hours of this kind of ministry: we all laughed and babbled at and about each other, went to fetch water together, and told each other that “Jesus loves you.” We rubbed each others’ heads, and four or five of them held my hands at a time, and we clapped and cuddled and waved, and ended up with filthy clothes and grimy hands, and we could have continued for hours more.

But at last we were called away to supper, prepared by our amazing friend/driver/chef extraordinaire, who kept urging us to “Eat more!” And after every last bit had been eaten, we unrolled sleeping mats, pulled up benches, and lay on our backs, marveling anew at the night sky, singing songs from the American “Indescribable, uncontainable, You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name: You are amazing, God!” to the African “All other gods: they are the works of men. You are the most high God: there is none like You!” I saw three shooting stars, and lay perched on my bench thinking, “Thank You, Lord: this is where You have me, and there is nowhere else on earth I would rather be right now.”

We had just finished singing “O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining!” when the national missionary who has brought twenty of these villagers to Christ, and who had introduced us to the chief, fetched us for evening service, where we had an opportunity to share the good news of the Gospel of our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And then back to set up camp. As I helped assemble the tent, turning bent rods into straight ones, I felt like a magician, and laughed aloud with the villagers at the astounding sight. Maybe they’ve had foreigners sleep in their midst before ;), for after we crawled into bed, they left pretty quickly.

Sweet little warm bodies: making funny faces, and loved by Jesus!