P.S.

African culture is actually very interesting, I’ve discovered; and African people are quite lovely. And living in Africa doesn’t automatically mean you’ll contract typhoid or dysentery. And the bugs really aren’t so bad.

Just wanted to share that with you…and bump the number of posts in 2009 up to 88, just because that’s a cool number. ;)

Happy New Year and God bless. =)

Questions and Answers – 12

What made you decide to go to Africa?

OK, I have a confession to make: growing up, I’d always considered Africa to be among the least interesting cultures of the world. Egypt, Persia, India, China, Greece, Rome, England – these locations had fascinating histories and alluring possibilities. But Africa? Nothing there but grass skirts and drums and – oh yeah, zebras, lions, elephants, giraffes. But you could go to any zoo for that, and skip the visit to a continent that swarmed with tsetse flies and reeked of malaria and yellow fever!

“Have you ever thought of joining the church’s mission committee?” asked my friend as we shared supper at our church’s 2004 Ladies’ Retreat. (My friend ended up moving to the mission field herself with her husband and their children just a few years later.) No, I’d never even really thought of the fact that our church had a mission committee, let alone that I could join it; but it seemed all I needed was an invitation, for suddenly I found myself on the committee!

Our mission chairman and his family had lived in Ghana for two years in the 1990s, and he planned a mission trip to Ghana Dec05-Jan06. As the committee helped him plan, his excitement became contagious; and as he challenged each of us to pray about being part of the short-term team, I found to my surprise that God wanted me to go. Seven of us ended up going, and as we flew out, the men on the team all knew exactly what they were going to do for our 2½-week visit, while the women on the team had absolutely no idea what role we would play. All we knew was that God was calling us to go, and so we went.

Well, the trip was beyond all expectation, to make an understatement, as God worked in and through us. As I was leaving, Pastor Tirumbu invited me to pray about coming back for a year.

I did pray, and that is why I’m ending 2009 in Ghana. Praise God for using a link of little events to bring about this current term of service! May He be glorified in all. =)

Watching God at Work (again)!

Thanks so much for your prayers for Daoud, who returned to Sunday school yesterday, and recited Ephesians 2:8-9 perfectly when we reviewed last week’s memory work. After the class, I pulled him aside: “Daoud, you obviously understand what we’ve been talking about in class, and you’ve obviously been thinking about it. Would you like to ask Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior, which you said last week is the only way to get into heaven?”

“Yes, I understand everything,” Daoud replied, “and I see that Christianity is right; but I don’t think I can become a Christian. You see, I was born into Islam, so I have to be a Muslim.”

“Daoud,” I agreed, “You’re right. You were born a Muslim. The only way you could become a Christian would be if you were born again.” And I explained to him that wonderful concept Jesus gave us nearly two thousand years ago, the good news that will never grow old. We discussed how important it is to make sure we’ve made the right decision before we die, because we won’t get a second chance; and we talked about how God won’t accept excuses from anyone who chooses wrongly. Then I asked him again whether he’d like to invite Jesus to save him and be the Lord of his life…and Daoud said “yes”! It was a joy and a privilege to pray with this 12-year-old boy and hear him repeat aloud after me, ending with “I give you my life.” Amen!

Praise the Lord after all for assigning me to Sunday school. ;) His plans are ALWAYS the best!

Bringing in the Sheaves

The phrase has a very literal meaning in northern Ghana at this time of year.

Let’s praise the Lord for all His goodness to us, and for the great salvation He has provided through His Son and our wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ! And let's pray that many spiritual sheaves will be harvested in 2010 to His glory.

Have a merry Christmas. =)

Taxi Time – 3

The taxis in town really are decrepit. Most windshields appear to be held together by tape; many doors won’t open or close properly; and I can fasten the seatbelt about 15% of the time. Taxi drivers usually slow waaay down to cross speed bumps, probably because their vehicles would fall apart if jolted. Lest these factors leave you concerned for my safety, rest assured that we don’t usually top 20 mph, so things aren’t as dangerous as they might at first seem.

A few weeks ago something finally happened that I was surprised hadn’t happened before: the taxi in which I was riding simply stopped in the middle of the road. Sputter, sputter, stop. “Come on,” said an acquaintance who was on the same taxi, “Let’s get out and take another car.” Easier said than done – mine was a door that wouldn’t open from the inside. My traveling companion recognized my dilemma and came around to open my door from the outside before hailing another taxi for the two of us. This was the first time in months a man had opened a car door for me, so I wasn’t complaining too much. ;)

This morning I noticed that the taxi I boarded was particularly dilapidated. The driver hopefully shifted up to third, but at top speed we were whizzing along at about 8 mph (I’m guessing: forgot to mention another feature of these taxis, which is that 90% of the time the speedometer doesn’t work). “The clutch isn’t working today,” the driver explained to me conversationally. “I noticed your car didn’t really want to drive today,” I murmured, surprised that it was still operational. My thought came too soon, however: after I was dropped off, I noticed that the taxi didn’t drive off. It had finally succumbed to its many woes.

Note: None of the above is an exaggeration, except perhaps for the speed bumps: I’m giving you a very accurate account of the transportation available in town!

Sunday school

One of my official, formal titles in Ghana is “Sunday school Madame” – a little different from the simple “teacher” we have in the States, even as the class style is completely different. Here’s the general format the students follow:

1) Open with prayer
2) Sing action songs
3) Review the lesson from last week
4) Review the memory verse from last week
5) Report on the challenge from last week (homework-style assignment to be completed throughout the week; e.g. make a mark every time you obey your parents; make a mark every time you say a kind word to someone)
6) Listen to this week’s lesson (which, in Africa, is followed by the students asking the teacher questions about the lesson, and then the teacher in turn asking the students about the lesson…lots of repetition to make sure it’s understood!)
7) Learn this week’s memory verse
8) Get assigned a challenge for the coming week
9) Give offering
10) Say the grace and dismiss

I’m serving alongside an African Sunday school Madame, and she is wonderful at keeping order. Of course, her methods are again a little different from ours in the States: “If you don’t keep still, I will beat you!” She oversees most of the class activities: my responsibility is conducting #6, #7, and #8 above.

While I love children (as you might know), the position I’ve been asked to fill has frustrated me at times. The children don’t understand my English as well as adults do, and it’s not uncommon to finish a carefully-told story and find that I need to repeat it because no one understood what I was saying. Also, there’s no Sunday school rotation schedule at our small church, so I’m missing a year’s worth of sermons. =( However, my family continues to faithfully pray for me each week, and I try to serve as unto God, leaving the results in His hands. Some Sundays have been more encouraging than others…and this past Sunday was one of them!

We had two unsaved visitors – a boy, “Daoud,” and a girl, “Mona” – and the lesson was on Jairus’ daughter being raised/the woman with an issue of blood. As soon as the time for questions came, Daoud’s hand shot up. “Does this mean that if we just have faith, anything we trust for can happen?” What a great question! And when we went over Ephesians 2:8-9 for our memory verse, and I explained the meaning, he answered my question “What is the only way to get into heaven?” with “We must trust Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.” I told Daoud’s Christian mother afterward to please ask her son what he learned in class.

Please pray with me that God will save Daoud very soon if He’s not already. I’m thankful after all to be a Sunday school Madame. ;)

Another Post About Children

So I was waiting for Latif to finish his morning tasks – iron shirt, eat breakfast, behead chicken – and got to visit with his little neighbor children while waiting. The little brother and sister speak perfect English for their ages and are obviously well-loved. They prattled about all the things precocious children normally discuss, taking a brief break to see the chicken get beheaded (I stayed quietly behind, having seen plenty of that in my past already), and danced to the music they heard floating out the window from the radio.

Suddenly the radio began to play Christmas carols, and the little girl began to sing along about life forevermore because of Christmas Day. “Do you know what the song means?” I asked, and told them all about the Jesus Whose birth we celebrate on Christmas, and the eternal life He offers each one of us if we will only repent and believe.

May many in this city repent and believe this Christmas!

Ice Cream

A sweet friend of the ministry who’s visiting from the States decided to bless a nearby village with ice cream, and invited me to come along and see the distribution. =) We went to the ice cream warehouse and purchased 350 packets of ice cream, packed them into a cooler, and went off on our mercy mission.

It was such fun to share out the ice cream and see people’s reactions as many of them tried it for the very first time. Some of them were younger…

…and some of them (like the chief) were a little older.

The village is one in which our friends have established a church, so the distribution helped to build goodwill between the villagers and the church leadership. The chief reiterated that he wants the church to flourish long after he is gone: praise the Lord!

Just as a note of interest: this village is actually the first one in which I spent the night, and the tree in the first photo was our hotel. =)

The Fun Afternoon

My Muslim brothers showed up at the front door (the ones who’ve been teaching me the local language small-small, occasionally using my local-dialect Bible) and asked whether I’d like them to show me the neighborhood reservoir. “Let me grab my camera,” I replied, thinking it sounded as though the dam was right around the corner. Actually, it turned out to be at least two miles away. But you know I don’t mind long walks: and the boys were such fun company. “Latif” is 17 and “Halal” is 14; both are fascinated with cultural differences between Africa and America. At their request we sang our national anthems to one another, discussed our constitutional right to keep and bear arms, talked about trash pickup and farming techniques and much, much more.

The boys passed one tree and casually mentioned that its fruit was getting ripe. “What kind of fruit?” I asked; so Halal quickly scaled the tree to pluck some.

The fruit was rather dry, but sweet.

Latif loves to stage photos, as I found out. When at last we made it to the reservoir, he wanted me to fetch a pail of water so he could take a picture. As long as they didn’t ask me to carry it dripping dirtily on my head, that was fine. Knowing it would gross me out, Halal drew my attention to the fact that he was drinking the water. But I ended up grossing him out by pointing out the ducks and the fish, and asking where he thought their waste was going…yeah, I hope he doesn’t drink such filthy water again.

On the way back, we passed rice harvesters. “Would you like to help clear the threshing field?” Latif asked; so we stopped and asked the laborers whether we could borrow their tools and space for pictures. The boys had me clear away some stubble prior to sweeping the earth clean.

We moved on to another threshing field, where threshing was actually going on. The women pile up the dried rice stalks and use heavy sticks to beat the grain from the chaff. It’s fun as a novel activity for a photo op, but must quickly tire the woman who has to beat out rice for days on end during the harvest time.

Thump! A bat fell out of a tree. The boys said someone probably knocked it down with a slingshot, but not seeing the hunter, we picked it up (yes, I touched the bat =D) and the boys told me what sweet eating a bat makes. Hmm, I don’t think I want to find out for myself.

I showed the boys how to whistle with a blade of grass, and they showed me how to make miniature purses out of mango leaves. And they told me African jokes, some of which I got and some of which, honestly, I didn’t.

The whole outing took more than three hours, but was such fun. Please pray for Latif and Halal: they know that I’m a Christian, and that I want to see them saved as well. May God be at work in their lives!

It is well with my soul

But not so well, alas, with my body. For whatever reason, the mosque is once again awakening me at 4:00 in the morning, and I can’t get back to sleep: a great thing in regards to prayer, but not so good in regards to rest.

And then the harmattan and its attendant dry wind and dust are resulting in eyes that water at the slightest provocation. I’m taking allergy pills and using eye drops, but still find myself digging for my hanky several times each day. The onset of the tearing up is very random, and occasionally embarrassing. =D Will this be a way of life through March?

Furthermore, although I’m downing plenty of water each day, my throat is often cracking from dryness, and my nose is plugged –

All right, enough complaining. I’m just throwing this all out for prayer (especially on the sleep front: it’s bad when there are literally dark circles under the eyes!), but truly, all of that is very minor in comparison with God’s goodness in so many other ways each day. He protects, guides, and LOVES me! Praise His wonderful Name – indeed, it is well with my soul. =)

Stories from the Villages

Yussif (left) with Amos

“You shouldn’t even unload your equipment,” “Yussif” told Amos and his team as they prepared to unpack the paraphernalia related to showing the Jesus film at Yussif’s village (first village mentioned in November 18 post). “We’re all Muslims here: we’ve always been Muslims, and we’ll always be Muslims, so you’re wasting your efforts.”

This visit was the first village outreach effort in which one of Amos’ teammates was participating, and he was a little nervous at this “welcome” – maybe it would be best to just pack up and leave. Amos assured his fellow Christian that God had called them to reach this community: they had invested so much time, thought, and prayer into the evening’s activities that they wouldn’t be turned away by one threatening comment.

Yussif watched as my friends continued to set up for the evangelism event and a crowd began to gather. At last, when the movie began, he sat a little way apart, angry that the Christians were not dissuaded from proselytizing. As the film continued, however, he found himself increasingly intrigued by its message. At last Jesus was attacked by His adversaries, and healed an enemy whose ear had been cut off by one of the disciples. “If these things are true, then Jesus is like no one else!” Yussif thought. “Everyone needs to know about this Man!” As soon as the invitation was given at the end of the film, Yussif was the first to respond with a commitment to Christ Jesus.

And the second village, the one at which only five responded the night the film was shown? Well, more people are choosing Christ every week. When Amos visited them last week, he found that the chief has become a Christian! In a culture where chiefs’ examples are closely watched and emulated, this change of heart is a huge step toward open doors for the gospel. Amos conducted a church service that included taking an offering, and to the amazement of all, the chief placed a 10-cedi note (approximately $7) in the offering plate. Just to put this gift in perspective, the average villager earns 10-15 cedis a year at most. No doubt a chief makes a bit more, but nonetheless ten cedis represents a substantial gift! “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” May the gospel be treasured in this village…and in many more surrounding communities!

Outreaches for the month of December are about to begin. It’s an exciting time to participate in the work through prayer!

And the prayers continue

Jason came to my office Friday evening in a real funk. He is not considering giving up his Christian faith, but he doesn’t understand why his father should be so antagonistic, or why God is letting him go through so much hardship. (Well, I can tell you one reason, which I didn’t have the heart to tell him: his family’s rejection is forcing him to make a sure choice for Christ…for the first few weeks after his conversion he wasn’t even telling Amos of his new faith, but now there’s no doubt about where he stands.) Anyway, he was so discouraged that I told him that I’ve been asking some of my friends in the United States to be praying for him. You have no idea what an encouragement it was for him to know that Americans who are complete strangers to him, yet his brothers and sisters in Christ, care about and pray for him. So on his behalf: thanks for all the prayers!

Jason asked me to request specific prayer for two things. He’s praying for a job, as he currently needs some means of self-support now that he’s without a house; and he’s praying that God would be merciful to him and not add any more to his burden of suffering at present, as he feels he’s currently at the limit of what he can bear. Indeed, may God be merciful to him and give him the needed grace for every trial he’s encountering! (Editorial note for additional prayer: Jason also needs to develop a better work ethic in order to secure a successful job. But he’s not two months into his Christian journey yet, so we won’t judge too harshly.)

Friday also brought another visitor to the office – surprise, surprise, Hassan dropped in, having read Genesis 1 with his Christian friend, and having told his father about his explorations with Christianity. His father wants to meet Mr. Joe and ask his own questions about the faith his son is investigating. Hassan also had a really insightful question: Why do Christians love each other more than Muslims love each other? We replied that we serve a God of love: we love Him – and others – because He first loved us. Isn’t it cool that the Christians Hassan knows demonstrate so much love that he can tell there’s a difference in their lives? “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” – John 13:35

May our lives similarly be showcases of God’s love…and may part of that love be lifting up these Ghanaian men in prayer to our Lord!

A little story from this past week (prayer needed)

Last Friday a taxi driver took me directly from my point of departure to my destination, and wouldn’t accept any payment. This time, when asked how we’d next meet, I was prepared to say “How about my office?” “Hassan” came by on Tuesday and renewed his proposals from the previous week, so I told him he’d need to talk to my African dad. We went over to Pastor Tirumbu’s office, where I made introductions: “Hassan, this is Pastor Tirumbu. Pastor, this is Hassan: he is a taxi driver who gave me a ride last week and wants to marry me.”

Pastor greeted Hassan cordially, and his first question was, “Are you a Muslim or a Christian?” He went on to describe the differences between how Christian and Muslim men treat their wives; to grill Hassan on his education and career (“How can you support my daughter on a taxi driver’s earnings? Do you know how expensive a white woman is to maintain?”); and to end with, “It’s not that I don’t love Muslims: we actually love Muslims deeply! It’s just that I can’t let my daughter marry one.”

“What he said is true,” I told Hassan as we left Pastor’s office. “We do care about Muslims, and we want them to go to heaven.” Then I told him what had recently been told me (isn’t God’s timing good?!): the Koran actually encourages people to read the Bible! We had a really great spiritual conversation which culminated in him taking my Bible.

He was back the next day, and this time Mr. Joe was present and took the lead in the conversation – describing the differences between the Koran and the Bible, establishing our guilt and how Jesus was the only One Who could take away our sins, and carefully outlining the costs related to becoming a Christian. At the very end, after Hassan had asked his questions, and made excellent comments such as, “Being clean on the inside is better than taking a bath!” Mr. Joe clarified, “I have to be Leah’s big brother and warn you that even if you became a Christian, she is off-limits: she came to Ghana to introduce men to Jesus Christ, not to marry them, so if you choose Christ, recognize that you are choosing Him, and not my little sister.”

Well, that didn’t deter Hassan at all, because yesterday he again dropped by for a visit! He told us that he remembered everything that had been shared the day before; that he felt all his questions were answered; and that he couldn’t sleep the previous night thinking through all the new information he’d received. Furthermore, he decided that he would involve his father in his thinking process, and that he would call a Christian friend to come over last night and read the Bible with him, since he struggles with reading English.

God is obviously at work in Hassan’s heart: please pray that he will clearly see the truth; that the conversations with his father would go well; that the Christian friend would truly be born again, and a support to Hassan at this time; and ultimately that Hassan would choose to give his life to Jesus Christ!

As always…thanks for your prayers. =)

Banku

Some of Mr. Joe’s and my friends, all university students, treated us to a very traditionally Ghanaian meal the day after Thanksgiving: banku with okra stew! Banku is a thickened, fermented corn paste (but not as fermented as kinkee, which is chalkier in texture and has a stronger flavor), and okra stew’s most notable feature is its sliminess.

There’s a chunk of chicken on the plate pictured above, but there are also pieces of white flab that are – believe it or not – boiled leather. The hide was carefully scraped clean of hair before being cut up and mixed into the stew. Cowhide doesn’t have much of a taste, but it has an awfully chewy texture.

At the end of the meal, I finally asked the Africans at the table how they were managing to eat the food without having stew dribble down their chins as they took their hands away from their mouths. One of the guys considered the question, then demonstrated the difference in how we’d been eating: where I’d been putting my fingers to my lips and simply depositing the food in my mouth, my friend had been putting his fingers into his mouth along with the food, licking off the fingers before withdrawing them from his mouth. So now you know how to politely eat slimy stew!

The above makes it sound as though I didn’t enjoy the meal, but actually I really did! The new flavors and textures were interesting, I didn’t mind the dribbles down my chin because no one else did, and most of all the fellowship was sweet. And the guys even did all the cleanup afterward: how much better can it get? ;)