Questions and Answers – 11

What are the duties of your job?

My main job duties at present are divided between office and kitchen.

Office work consists mainly of writing and editing: writing blog posts, typing up meeting minutes, and drafting letters and promotional items; editing grant proposals, correspondence, and miscellaneous documents for my officemate, Mr. Joe.

Our office is located in the administrative section of a conference center that also includes an auditorium, hotel , conference halls, dining facilities, etc. Every morning at 10:00 I check in with the kitchen to see whether they’ll need help that day. If so – perhaps 20% of the time they need my extra set of hands – I’m kept busy washing dishes, clearing and wiping tables, wrapping silverware in napkins, stocking coolers with sodas and juices, and supervising conference refreshment breaks. Kitchen work provides a change of pace, and gives me an opportunity to interact with more of my African co-workers. There’s also an intangible aspect to the kitchen work in that I’m encouraging my African brothers and sisters in their jobs, and showing them that I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty alongside them. A portion of the proceeds made from the conference business goes into funding mission efforts (in case you’re wondering where the ministry connection comes in). The kitchen feeds me lunch most days free of charge, so I’m glad to have a little way to give back to them. =)

A Ghanaian-Style Thanksgiving

Clockwise from bottom right: sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, chicken, bread, stuffing, carrot salad, corn, ham-and-beans, green beans, coleslaw

Yesterday Mr. Joe and I hosted a dozen Ghanaian friends for Thanksgiving. We tried to mimic American dishes as closely as possible, but some items just couldn’t be exactly replicated. We had to be satisfied with Ghanaian-style chicken in lieu of turkey (and satisfied we were!!); we sautéed slivered almonds and onions to top the green beans instead of French-fried onions; and alas-and-alack, there were no marshmallows to top the sweet potatoes. For dessert we had strawberry jello with bananas, and fruit salad made of bananas/pineapple/papaya (mmmm!). The bread from a local bakery was the only baked item on the table, since we had no access to an oven.

Some of the dishes were a little strange for some of our friends…but most of them were pretty satisfied with the obruni food. ;) I have thoroughly enjoyed the Ghanaian food here (and in fact am getting treated to a very traditional dish tonight: banku), but a little taste of home was pretty sweet too.

Happy Thanksgiving! Truly we have much for which to be thankful. =)

It was bound to happen

Jason’s father finally heard that he’d become a Christian, and under the advice of Jason’s uncle – who warned the father that one day all the children in the family would become Christians if harsh measures aren’t immediately instituted – banished his son from the home. Thank the Lord that Jason had the courage to acknowledge his new faith, and the desire to stand firm. As he informed Mr. Joe and me of this new development yesterday, he also revealed that for over a month he has not been eating anything served in his father’s house, lest one of his own family members try to poison him for becoming a Christian.

We read about situations like this that take place all over the world, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to Mr. Joe or me; but knowing such things happen doesn’t make it any easier to observe, and our telling Jason that such reactions are to be expected doesn’t make it easier for him to live through. It certainly doesn’t seem to help when Amos marches into our office with a big grin and says, “Don’t worry, my brother. Our father just won’t listen. God will take care of you, but I don’t know how.” I tried to offer encouragement from John 16:33 and similar verses, and through my tone of voice conveyed the sympathy that was in my heart, the feeling of “God, does it have to happen this way? Is there any way his circumstances can be turned around?” God later convicted me that I need to just release Jason into His care and stop wanting to shield him from the harshness of life. Once again I am moved to thank the Lord that He is God and I am not.

All the same, please do pray for Jason: may God be merciful to him at this time and fill him spiritually even as his life is being emptied physically.

Thanks for your prayers for our brother in the Lord!

This is why I had to walk home….

(As opposed to taking the taxi)

There’s one spot on my walk home that I’m growing to love more and more: a place where perhaps twenty children are within earshot. Every time I pass these days, one of them will notice me and start to excitedly exclaim, “White person! White person!” Others will hear and swarm out of surrounding buildings and alleys, pressing about me, grabbing at my hands, scratching at my freckles, pulling at my hair. I love it, and am carried along with them, laughing and feeling like the Pied Piper of Hamelin in the very best way.

One of the boys has started to pay me short visits at my worksite. This past Friday, he stopped by with some of his friends, and informed me that his mother had given birth last week: would I come and see the baby?

Would I?! The very next day I left work early – it being Saturday, after all – and was met at the usual spot by all the children. As they swept me along, off the main road into the mass of hovels behind the shops, I had to mentally pinch myself: “I’m really in Africa, surrounded by children who are inviting me into one of their homes to visit a six-day-old baby!”

The mother handed the child to me as soon as I entered the room; and the whole time I congratulated her and admired her new little one, children crowded around the doorway and at the dim window, calling from time to time for my attention, which I always gave them. Do you realize that I was probably the first Christian to see the baby and pray over him in Jesus’ Name? What an awesome privilege!

Right now I’m planning to give out candy and Christian literature to the children of this neighborhood for Christmas. Please pray that God will open hearts and lives to His good news, and that I’ll remain sensitive to areas of potential ministry that He’s opening up to me.

Note: an older brother showed me the pencil that was used to darken the baby’s eyes; and the head and arms were dusted with flour. I was told these were for “protection,” but couldn’t tell you whether said protection is physical or spiritual or both.

The Harmattan is Here

Every November the Harmattan begins in West Africa: a dry wind that brings tons of dust southward from the Sahara. Visibility becomes quite poor, noses clog, eyes water (not so pleasant); but at least temperatures drop (very pleasant). After several weeks of temperatures in the 90s and 100s, it’s delightful to experience the 70s at day and the 60s at night.

The sunrises and sunsets these days are gorgeous through the layers of haze: looking at the sun through such a thick atmosphere can’t really damage the eyes, can it? ;)

Unfortunately, this year’s Harmattan started a day too early. The skies were clear on the 16th, but choked with dust a mere twenty-four hours later, meaning that when I went out to view the famed Leonid show on the 17th, I could only faintly make out the brightest stars, and saw not one meteor. I went out three times and gazed upwards, but the heavens remained silent.

Dust or ice? Haze or snow? Guess I’ve got a few months to figure out which winter weather I prefer. =)

Praise the Lord!

A team of my friends visited three completely new villages last week (meaning that these villages had never before been reached with the Gospel) and held an evangelistic outreach in each one. A total of 57 people came to Christ: 28 in the first village, 5 in the second, 24 in the third. It was exciting to pray for their efforts as they went forth, and to hear how God had prepared people’s hearts to receive the good news.

Pastor Tirumbu didn’t want me to go on these initial trips because he wanted to make sure people were drawn by the Gospel, not by the notoriety of a foreign visitor. Once the churches are more established, there might be an opportunity for me to visit and encourage the new believers. Meanwhile I’m honored to participate in prayer, look at the pictures my friends took, and rejoice with them in their work for God.

Almost two thousand years after Jesus lived on earth, there are still places that are unreached. The people in these locations just need someone to go and tell them: it’s as simple as that! The eternal destiny of 57 people was changed last week because Ghanaian Christians took the time to visit them.

“How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ ” – Romans 10:14-15

Please pray for these new churches (which Amos visited on Monday to encourage and establish the new believers) and for my friends who are equipped with the language skills and the passion to reach these and many other area villages for Christ.

Village Work (continued)

In answers to the questions left in the comments section on the last post:

1) A toilet block is a structure that is divided into two parts (for men and women) and contains simple toilet stalls. Of course, the toilets that are used in the village aren’t necessarily equipped with running water. The deep hole in the corner is what’s used, and these stalls are bring-your-own-toilet-paper destinations. Having people use these toilets instead of the great outdoors keeps disease-causing agents contained and makes the surroundings much more hygienic. Without going into too much detail, these toilets are surprisingly pleasant to use (surprising because you expect you’ll really have to rough it out in the bush), and now it’s enough said! =D

2) The rainy season is for 5-6 months, meaning that there are 6-7 straight months in the year with no precipitation whatsoever. The rainfall during the rainy season is pretty heavy, and because it will be dry for so much of the year, it’s important to capture whatever water can be harvested while the weather is wet. Since the water collector is receiving water from the entire surface area of the school roof, it can get pretty full.

3) Believe it or not, ministry to these villages began only in January! A lot has been accomplished in ten months: praise the Lord!


On a completely different note, please continue to pray for Jason, who’s going through some struggles at present. His friends have found out about his new faith, and have begun to give him a hard time for his switch to Christianity, accusing him of receiving money in exchange for converting. “Come with me to church, and see whether I get any money,” he challenged them; but still, it’s not easy to spend over thirty years in one religion – which affects one’s entire life in this culture – and change one’s way of thinking overnight. May God continue to guide and guard Jason at this time!

Village Work

Another religion has held sway for centuries in the surrounding villages, and Satan isn’t ready to cede territory too quickly. In the villages we visited, Christians aren’t welcomed as such, and so need to use subtler means to win people’s hearts.

Here’s a list of some of the benefits our ministry partner has brought or is bringing to the seven villages we visited:

* Schools, including hot lunches for all schoolchildren
* Water sources (wells and/or rain collectors)
* Toilet blocks
* Micro-enterprise loans to help women start small businesses
* Female goats for children (proceeds from the goats – from the sale of offspring and milk – can be used for school fees/supplies, etc.)

Two of the villages currently have churches; may God open the hearts of people in the remaining five villages to welcome the good news into their communities as a result of the good work that is already being done.

The school's gutters pipe all rainfall into the water collector on the right.

As Always

My favorite aspect of village ministry is interacting with the children. It’s fun to know more and more of their language so I can exchange greetings with them and ask each one his or her name.

Our village trip was a fact-finding mission: we went to see the ministry work that is being done in each location, and interview village elders about their reactions to the work and suggestions for future development. These interviews were important; but as you can see, the little one on my lap found the process a bit wearying. ;)

For the record, although each village could identify further areas of need, each one was incredibly grateful for the work being done by our ministry partners. Village representatives said things such as, “Before they came, we felt as though we were living in a hole,” “The gap between the time before they came and now is so long,” and “Our children no longer feel isolated.”

Guess I’ll have to write another post about the kind of work in which our ministry partners are involved! Stay tuned….

More on Ghana’s Roads

Vehicles weren’t the only traffic we met as we traveled along.

We also had to keep an eye out for livestock that darted out from time to time from the tall grass lining our route. I was thankful NOT to be in the driver’s seat on the trip!

OK, so the roads in Ghana aren’t always the best

These are some shots from our recent village trip…and this isn’t even the worst time of the year for driving. Just imagine what the journeys are like at the height of rainy season!

Yet our Ghanaian brother and sister who acted as our hosts travel these roads each week – by motorbike! – to visit the seven villages to which they took us, and share Christ’s love.

Please pray for their ministry, and for their safety as they traverse these roads!

Village Photos

This isn’t a National Geographic photo shoot, I mused when I first saw mud huts up close.

This isn’t a two-week safari.

This is real life for the people who live here, the only life they will ever know.

Robert Moffat famously said, I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages – villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in this world.

Yesterday I was part of a team that visited seven villages. On that one day, in those seven villages, there were two funerals. People are passing into an eternity on a daily basis without Christ, without God, and without hope.

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. – Matthew 9:37-38

Because Two Languages Aren’t Enough

I’m about to launch into learning a THIRD language today: Arabic!

Although I did learn a little Arabic as a child living in Egypt, my mind is reeling at the thought of trying to understand another language while still grappling with two African tongues. =D Please pray for my mind to work quickly – and for my demeanor to bring honor to Christ. The Arabic instructor is a devout Muslim who, when I was introduced to him, refused to make eye contact with me (but interacted quite naturally with Mr. Joe, who will be studying alongside me). May my heart seek to glorify God and not cause offense, rather than take offense at being treated as Islam treats its women. =)

God is good ALL the time, and ALL the time God is GOOD!