Goodbye Aflao

About Saturday, June 11:

We packed up to leave the Hotel Liberte' and Aflao in the morning. It was sad to tell our good friends at the hotel and most of the pastors goodbye.  Upon leaving the hotel, we went to the Children's Home one last time to tell the kids goodbye.  George had actually invited his small group from church, Young Adults Fellowship, to join us.  These church members from Accra were shocked to see such conditions, and children who had been left to die, just 3 hours from their home.  George admitted they kinda live in a bubble and ignore these things that are happening so close by because it's not pleasant to think about.  This really makes me wonder...how many things are taking place right in my backyard in Colorado that I could help with, but choose to ignore? In Greeley alone there really is quite a bit of physical poverty...but taking it a step further, how often do I do nothing about spiritual poverty?  There are so many people in our neighborhoods and close circles that need Jesus...it may not be as blatantly obvious as physical poverty, but it is definitely there. In a way, I am so like these church people from Accra, ignoring that there's even a problem.  However, I hope when God opens my eyes to my blindness that my reaction will be like these people from Accra.  You could see their hearts bursting with compassion, and the question of "What an I do?" immediately on their lips.  One woman took one look at baby Princess after hearing her story (she was left tied in a plastic trash bag on the side of the road by the Togo border) and said, "I want to adopt her!"  Such a beautiful representation of grace...I hope my response would be the same.

Being at the children's home one last time was hard.  I felt like I had just started getting to know these kids, just to tell them goodbye.  I got the opportunity to show some pics of my home and family to the kids before leaving though, which they really enjoyed.  I also pulled Constancia aside to pray with her.  I felt the Holy Spirit's leading that this was really the only thing I could do, and the best response to her letter I could give.  It was difficult, but I know that only Jesus Christ can give her eternal hope, as no hope of an earthly family through adoption ever could.  She didn't really say anything after the prayer, but her eyes said it all.  It looked like it was all she could do to hold back tears.

As we pulled out of the home for one final time, I kept reminding myself that if the kids have Jesus, it's not really goodbye, just see ya later ("here, there, or in the air," as Bob and Marilyn say).  It was still hard though!
After leaving the home, we drove to Adina, a small fishing village along the coast. (where there are tons of kids but no school and Tammy told me I should start one ;-) )  We left George's small group here to do ministry the rest of the day.  We prayed for them and sent them off, and our team continued our drive back to Accra, the capital city.

Just before entering Accra, we stopped to shop at a market. Crazy experience! Those of you who have been to one before would surely understand!  Every shopkeeper very forcefully wants you in their store, and to buy something.  I did kinda have fun bargaining down prices, but it is all pretty overwhelming too! This one creepy guy grabbed John's hand and dragged him into his shop back in an alleyway.  I followed immediately. Upon getting back there I just felt darkness and a really creepy feeling.  The man's shop was filled with masks of all sizes. John firmly told him, "We don't do masks," and then we managed to leave. Phew! It was creepy.  I made sure the rest of our team stayed away from that guy's shop after that.

After shopping, we drove to our beach-front hotel in Accra.  Wow...luxury!  We had a relaxing evening strolling along the beach (amidst the garbage), eating dinner prepared by Samuel and his wife, and finishing our group debriefing time at 1 am again.

I need to take a moment to describe our dinner to you, cuz it was about my favorite meal of the whole trip! We had fufu an tilapia.  Fufu is basically a big starch ball made of cassava and plaintain. They made a tomato-based soup that you soak it in so it's not too sticky (all of this you eat with your hands :))  We had big whole tilapia again with the fufu, which was by far the best all trip! It was soaking in the same soup type stuff as the fufu. Mmmm....my mouth's watering just thinking about it!  I ate the whole thing (but not all of the fufu).  Here is a picture so you can see better what it looked like :-)  In case you can't tell, that's the tilapia (butt side again) in the back left, and fufu in the front right.

 Here is a picture of Randi and I enjoying our fufu...as we try to eat it the correct way that Samuel instructed us!

After dinner before debriefing, we met a couple that are missionaries in Togo! They've been there 6 years straight and this fall are taking a 1/2 yr sabbatical. Crazy to think how difficult that'd be to adjust and everything!  It's hard enough adjusting back after just half a month!  Continue to pray for our team as we seek the Lord's direction in living our daily lives for Him back at home.

Home Sweet Home...

Hello from Colorado!
John, Nick, Randi, and I arrived back at DIA yesterday morning around 9:45. We finally retrieved all of our luggage from baggage claim by 11 and went to lunch together before John, Nick, and Randi headed back down to the Springs.  It is good to be back in Colorado and hanging with my family (excited to see all my friends again too!), but it is also weird at the same time.  Hard to explain, but reverse culture shock is an interesting thing for sure.  I hope that God can really use the things I saw and learned in Ghana to shape me more into the woman he wants me to be.  Oh by the way, before I start in on some more about the end of our trip, I wanted to let you know that if you would like to read more about our trip from a different perspective, you can check out my great new friend Randi's blog at randiswalk.blogspot.com.  She is one of the interns for eMi this summer, and shared more from an engineering perspective what went on on our trip. :-)
I actually have to go right now...gotta pack up and leave to return to Greeley! I will try to write more tonight if possible. Stay tuned!
Also, if you get a chance it would be wonderful if you could continue praying for our team and adjusting to being back at home again. Pray that God would protect us from fears and insecurities, from judgmental thoughts, and give us a desire to change in the way He wants us to.  That the reason for our going on this trip would be clear and we would be able to glorify His name better here in the States.  Also pray for a few on the team who came back a little under the weather, that God would continue to heal their bodies physically and restore their strength.

Hope for the Future

Now to the rest of last week….Thursday morning, I helped Marilyn pack the donation bags for the pastors, and also helped work some more on the model.  In the afternoon, we went back to the children’s home for Bob’s illusion presentation!  I led a couple songs at the beginning and then Bob did his presentation. The kids loved it, and 2 of the older kids, Courage and Jolie, came forward to accept Christ and have the team pray over them at the end.  Praise the Lord!

Mama Rejoice cooked for us again on Thursday night…goat this time! It was a very interesting experience. I was a little apprehensive at first, especially when I saw a few hairs stuck in the meat. :-/  But the more I ate, the more I realized I could actually handle it, particularly the crispiest pieces-they weren’t as chewy or fatty. It was a little difficult to get used to chewing and chewing and chewing. Haha.

After dinner, Pastor Osmond came by and delivered our tailored outfits. Mine is SO cute…love it!!! I have to have Randi help me get my shirt on though cuz it’s so snug haha.  Mama Rejoice also had a bunch of things she made set up in Tammy’s room for us to buy which was great! J  Tammy made me some iced coffee and I got really wired for a little bit while we were working on the model. Haha it was pretty entertaining (for everyone else).  We ended up staying up til 2:30 am finishing the model! We had to finish it for the presentation Friday morning. It was an epic night of bonding for sure. J But it turned out so awesome! Here is a picture:

Friday morning I got up bright and early at 6;30 to shower and stuff before the big day!  It was crazy….4 hours of sleep but God gave us the grace to stay awake and alert for the festivities!  The celebration started at “10:00”, which really interpreted to starting at 11:30! Lol. Yay for African time J  We all wore our Ghanaian outfits, which was so fun but very hot out in the sun and humidity!  Oh I guess I never really explained what the celebration was-basically a lot of important people from the community, and all the children from the home got together to celebrate the completion of the first stage of the plans for the new home, and to have a sod cutting/ground breaking ceremony as well.  Here is a picture of me and Samuel, our awesome police officer friend, before the ceremony!

The event started out with a lot of prayer, which is still a new but cool experience for me, cuz everyone prays out loud at once! The praise band led a few traditional songs, and the women were dancing around in a line like they do in church.  Randi, Sarah, Marilyn, and I actually went out there and joined them! It was fun, but some of the girls from the home later tried to teach me the correct way to do it and were laughing at my attempts. Haha. I just don’t have the rhythm built in like they do! ;-)

When the King of Aflao arrived (he was about 1 ½ hours late to the start time lol), he gave a speech. Most of it was in Ewe so we couldn’t understand what he was saying cuz they stopped translating, but he said that he was very glad to have us there from America and presented us each with a special gift-Ghanaian bracelets.  George told us that we should be careful about wearing them though cuz I guess he could have chanted curses over them or something…you never know.  In my opinion though, God is bigger than anything like that.

After the king presented us with the gifts, I got to hold baby Moses for the rest of the celebration.  Moses is the most precious little baby! They actually named him Moses because they found him left in a river or swamp of some sort. I don’t know how someone could every leave such a beautiful baby. :-/  But it is so great that he is alive today and has such a hope for the future! God is good. It was really a powerful experience to be holding one of the children that will be the future of this children’s home as we did the ground breaking ceremony. I am so excited for Moses and the other children who will really be able to see this dream become a reality.  When we presented the model to Chris and Tammy, they started crying.  It was so neat to see their dreams and answered prayers coming true! 

I forgot to tell their story earlier, so I’ll tell it now.  They actually were called to start the Jesse Brooks Foundation and help the children of Africa after the death of their daughter. Actually 9 years ago last Tuesday, Jesse (only 10 years old at the time) died in a car accident on their way home from her first mission trip to Montana.  Tammy was sitting right next to her in the car, and was pretty seriously injured from the accident for a while too!  Jesse had always wanted to be a missionary to the children of Africa, so God used this tragedy in Chris and Tammy’s lives to send them to the children of Africa.  Their passion is so great and I think so much more even when you think about what they’ve been through to get to this point.

After the celebration, we all went back to the hotel and CRASHED. Most of us took like a 2 hour nap, which was wonderful and very needed!  For dinner, Tammy fixed us spaghetti which was delicious! (forgot to mention that we ate American food most of the time since Tammy and Chris who were hosting us are from Texas…but for lunch every day it was just canned stuff…I ate spam for the first time in my life! LOL)  After the spaghetti, Pastor Christian came in the room and surprised John with another traditional Ghanaian meal that his wife Mama Rejoice had prepared. Those of us that wanted to got to try it. It was called Akple and Koobi.  Akple is a dish similar to the other Ghanaian favorite, Fufu.  It’s like a big starch ball, or maybe a ball of dough. It’s similar to grits also. Haha quite unique!   The other part of this Ghanaian meal was mini tilapia. Literally it's just mini dried fish and you eat it, bones and all, except not the head.  I actually brought myself to eat it...and I ate 4 of them! I was so proud! It kinda tasted like a fish stick, only much crispier and fish-shaped. lol. So not really at all. 

Friday night we began our debriefing sharing time, which went until 1 am and not even half our group had shared!! There is a lot to discuss. Good thing we had more time later! 

I actually am about to go to bed now…we are staying the night in Cape Coast tonight and have a big day ahead of us tomorrow so I need to get some sleep! In the morning we get to tour the Cape Coast castle, which was a huge place for slave trade back in the day. :-/  I think we are also going on this canopy walk thing through the jungle which sounds awesome!  Then we’ll head back to Accra and to the airport for our flight that leaves late tomorrow night. (around 10 ish I think)  I won’t have internet again after tonight, so I’ll have to post about the rest of our trip after I return to Denver on Thursday morning.  Thank you all for being so faithful in reading and praying!! J  Please continue to pray for safety and quick & easy access through the airport tomorrow!

There is power in Jesus' name!!

Hello friends!

Let me jump back to where I left off…last Wednesday, I got to teach again! This time just Sandra and I went to the Shalom Baptist school, which was in the same building as Pastor Christian’s church that John, Sarah, and I had attended the Sunday before.  It had been raining the whole morning so it was a bit muddy out. Luckily, this school is in a building with a tin roof so we stayed dry. I really enjoyed teaching at Shalom!  We brought in our clocks again, and had kids pulled over to the side for small group instruction on telling time. Sandra and I each took 2 clocks and each had a Ghanaian interpreter with us to help. The guy that I taught with (wish I could remember his name, but it was really long and complicated!) was actually a teacher at the school, and he ended up doing most of the teaching. He was so good at it! He had some really good ways of teaching the abstract concept.  I just sat there and watched, impressed…I hope to use some of the stuff I learned from him someday!  This Ghanaian teacher and I taught 4 different groups of kids probably ages 5-10 in about 1 ½ hours. Then I got to teach my own group with the other interpreter cuz the teacher I was working with had to go help with lunch duty. It was really  neat because I got to use the language and tactics I had just observed to teach it to a different group…and they were really getting it! Yay J They seemed to understand me better when I used that vocabulary.

Around 12:30, the van came to pick us up.  John, Nick, Keith, and Pastor Christian had been out doing some tests on the land and viewing the flooding condition at the current children’s home.  When we got in the van, John had been crying and said we were gathering the team together back at the hotel to pray for the children.  When they were at the home, there had been a very dark presence there. Trash was being dumped literally in the street leading to the home, and then they saw a crazy man (most likely demon-possessed) right outside the gate of the home screaming at them.  John really felt the Holy Spirit telling him to gather and pray for the children, and laid Psalm 70 on his heart to pray for the situation as well.

Back at our hotel, we gathered as a team and prayed together before eating our lunch. It was one of the most powerful experiences of prayer I think I’ve ever experienced.  It wasn’t that I felt anything different, but it was more that I realized I don’t have to feel it for it to be real. Instead of just being an emotional experience, I really felt the power of God through His truth and His presence that is always there. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, but it was really good.  Everyone just prayed out what the Spirit laid on their heart, and we also spoke out names of God, because there is so much power in his name alone!  We prayed protection over the children and it was really a big realization for me that this battle is not against flesh and blood!  It’s so easy in America to get distracted and forget what we’re really fighting against because it is not nearly so obvious. But we have all the power through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen! Hallelujah. J

Wednesday afternoon, a few of us went back to the Children’s Home. Bob, one of our eMi staff, was initially planning on doing his illusion show/gospel message, but he had another meeting come up, so we went instead to just sing songs with the kids, with me leading. J  It was so encouraging to sing songs about Jesus with them and to see the hope they can have within even though they are in such a seemingly hopeless situation!  I think this moment was especially powerful for me after we had prayed so much for the children earlier that day, and just for their protection physically as well as spiritually!  We also read them the story about Jesus calming the sea and bringing peace in the Jesus Storybook Bible.  It was neat, because we just passed the book down the line and each read a page.

When we went to leave the children’s home, Constancia, one of the 12 year old girls that I had met the first day, came and brought me a letter.  I read it as we were leaving the home.  It’s pretty heavy stuff.  It’s 2 pages long! The first page is about how much she loves me, and about her love for Jesus as well. (which is awesome!)  The second page is basically a list of things she needs or wants, such as spectacles, a backpack, shoes for school, etc.  It is so hard because the kids are supposed to be learning to not ask for things, but to just be happy with what they have, but you know they want so much more.  One of the things she really wants is a family. It is so hard knowing that I can’t provide her with this…but I can pray for her and I know that Jesus is ultimately the only one who can satisfy.  It’s still really sad and hard though.

Mama Rejoice (Pastor Christian’s wife) cooked us chicken Wednesday night. It was pretty good, and I tried to not be as picky about eating meat off the bone. Haha.  We also started the first stages of working on the model of the site Wednesday night, which we built as a surprise for Chris & Tammy and the Jesse Brooks Foundation.

Quick Update...the end is near :-/

Hello all!

Sorry it has been so long since a post! We have been really busy, and only had limited internet.  Before I jump back to where I left off (cuz that in depth of a post will take me a while), just wanted to give a few brief updates. Our team traveled back to Accra, the capital city of Ghana, on Saturday afternoon.  Last night (Sunday), all of our team except for 4 (me, John, Nick, and Randi) left to fly back to the States. It was really sad to see everyone go, and feels weird being here without them! It has been good though. The four of us will be here through Wednesday night.  We have had the opportunity to meet up with some future eMi contacts today, and tomorrow we get to check out the Christian university campus where John will be doing his next project here in Ghana this fall.  It is going to be a very busy day tomorrow, but we get to go east to Cape Coast, which is in the jungle and sounds like it will be very beautiful!! I am so excited!! We will be staying the night there tomorrow night, and then will head back to Accra sometime on Wednesday before our flight.

That is actually all I have time to post right now….I am exhausted and need to get some sleep before our busy day tomorrow!  We have to leave bright and early at 7:15 am!

Here are some things you can be praying for:

*For the rest of our team that just arrived back in the States: pray for continued processing and growth, and for God to really show Him what He wants them to change back at home.

*For safe travels to the future university site and Cape Coast tomorrow-we will be doing a lot of driving, and we’re taking a detour because of road construction (but we don’t quite know the conditions of the road we’ll be taking)

*For unity among the 4 of us-to be loving still as we experience some loneliness from missing the rest of our team.

*Safe travels back to Accra and on our flight back to the States on Wednesday.

My God is so BIG!!

                Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Hello friends!  Here I am again for another Ghana update. Monday ended up being a pretty chill day. The whole day we thought we were going to be going to the children’s home, but we had to wait for the van, which most of the team had taken out to do some random things around town.  Turns out their trip took way longer than expected and by the time they got back it was nearly dinner time. That was okay though…I went to the architect meeting in the morning, and then I had a lot of quality bonding time with Randi (and some with Sarah too) in the afternoon.  We had a lot of awesome deep conversations. J 

I talked to them about how in the architect meeting stuff really hit me and I just felt like crying. The master plan for this children’s home includes a school with 24 classrooms…that means 24 teachers. I know they are looking for quality Christian teachers as well.  This just made me so sad because there are so many great teachers being laid off in the US…or people like me still looking for a job…and they are in so need of teachers here! So many places still don’t even have schools for their kids! I just kept asking myself, how can I go back and substitute teach without feeling guilty every day, knowing that there is such a need here (and so many other places I’m sure) that I could be filling?  Randi had some really good advice on this…just to keep pursuing God and He will show me the direction He wants me to go. He wants me to follow Him and glorify Him in everything, which may just mean bringing Him more glory through subbing in the States.  No matter what His will is, I can’t miss it…He’ll guide me to it, shutting doors if necessary.  It was really neat cuz she talked to me about the analogy of the Lord as our shepherd in Psalm 23: “His rod and his staff, they comfort me.”  A shepherd doesn’t have a rod/staff for a walking stick! It’s to direct the sheep on the correct path.  In the same way, God directs us down the path He wants us to take-which may or may not be the road we try to take.  (This also ties into Prov. 3:6, which I shared about in church on Sunday! “In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.”)  I love how David says His rod and staff comfort  me.  It is such a great comfort to know that God is directing my path, and not me.  Sarah also used the analogy of God’s Word being a lamp at our feet.  A lamp doesn’t show the path, it only shows a small area around your feet-only enough for you to take your next step.  Randi also reminded me it does no good to worry about these problems that are way bigger than me.  She reminded me that God always keeps His promises…and one of those promises is to provide. He will follow through. It’s hard to see it all and wonder how the world can be so lop-sided, but it is so encouraging and refreshing to remember our God is bigger, greater, and incomprehensible.  That’s definitely something I have seen just from being here in Africa! When I am back home, my world is very small, and I tend to put God in a box- a Greeley, Colorado box, or maybe occasionally an American box.  But to see other believers on fire for God all the way in Africa…to hear how He has provided for them, and how present He is in their lives, and to know that it is the same in every country of the world, my God is so big!! How could I ever begin to even comprehend that?!?  These conversations and many more provided for a very encouraging day.

Monday night at dinner, we also had a conversation with Pastor Sampson about the same topic, which was great.  He actually brought it up, which was even crazier! It was so neat…He even quoted Robert Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled.”

After dinner, I practiced worship songs with Nick because we agreed to lead worship during morning devotions.  While we practiced, Marilyn and Sandra were helping me out by making clock manipulatives for teaching in the school!!  (Tammy wanted me to teach the kids how to tell time when we observed the other day that even some of the older kids don’t know how) I helped them out when I was done…we had to get super creative with the materials we had. (all due to Marilyn’s ideas…she is the domestic engineer!) We cut circles out of some EMI folders (nothing else was sturdy enough lol), pasted white clock faces on, cut hour/minute hands out of the EMI folders, and cut makeshift “brads” out of the inside clasps from the folders. Praise the Lord for EMI folders! ;-)  It ended up being so difficult to get it all to work that we could only make 4 clocks, but it was so awesome to have something hands-on for the kids!

Tuesday morning, we left our hotel around 8:30 to go to the school at the children’s home.  I was pretty terrified and prayed the whole way there…I did not know the first thing about how to walk into a school in Africa and just teach something! God came through and provided me courage as well as wonderful helpers. (especially Sandra and George!) We went into the “school” (it’s just outside under a roof divided by chalkboards), and Pastor Christian and George helped to try to explain to one of the teachers what we wanted to do. Thanks to George, they were finally able to understand that we just wanted to pull over small groups of kids to do the teaching. I really wanted them all to be able to have a turn actually using the clocks.  We collected some kids from the “2” classrooms at the far end of the room (I think they were probably around 6-8 years old) who were finished with their exams, but by the time I started teaching the concepts, I had a crowd of about 15 kids gathered around. Haha so much for a small group ;-)  We ended up splitting into two groups-Sandra took some and I kept the others, with 2 clocks for each group.  (John and George helped with the kids finishing up their exams at the same time)  It was quite an experience, trying to teach such an abstract concept as time, with the cultural differences and everything. It was really fun though! The kids were great and so excited to learn! We just taught o’clock and “thirty,” doing lots of repetition in the small group. Then I got the whole class back together at their desks and stood at the front, showing a time on a clock and having the students raise their hands to say what time it was.  They were so cute, raising their hand and saying, “Madame! Madame! Madame!” until I called on them. J  After reviewing for a little while, we looked around for the teacher but had no idea who it was or where they went.  George informed us that the teacher just left since we were there.  So we were left entertaining the class for the rest of the time til their 1^st break at 10:00.  We sang some songs with them (taught them “My God is So Big”), and then Tammy came by and I had the kids show her how they could tell time now. J It was really fun. I just love teaching!

We were only at the school until 10:30ish, then came home for lunch and stuff.  I got to sit in on another architect meeting, then hung out with Pastor Osmond for a while in our team meeting room.  Everyone else was busy so we just sat and talked. We started out talking about the difficulties that come upon Christianity in both Africa and back in America.  He was telling me that it is very hard to be a Christian in Africa because you have to learn to live with very little, and sometimes having to go without food. I told him in America it is hard because we have so much and it is easy to not be thankful, or to think we don’t need God because we have everything.  It’s hard for us to see that it’s still God who provides it all.  After we talked about this for a little bit, I asked him to share his testimony with me. It was really neat to hear how God came into His life, saving him from drinking addictions-all through a dream that he had.  He then asked me to share my story with him.  It was an amazing experience to have that common bond of joy in Christ and seeing how He has worked through two different lives in two different cultures. Our God is so big!!!

Later on yesterday afternoon, we got to go with Pastor Osmond, Samuel, and Pastor Christian to the market to buy fabric! Pastor Osmond is going to make us all traditional outfits. I am SO excited!!! J  Hopefully he will even have them done by the celebration on Friday so I can wear it!  I picked out a really pretty purple and turquoise fabric, and am having him make me a matching tunic and skirt!

For dinner last night, we had fish…fresh tilapia! Yum!!!! This was quite an exciting experience, because it was my first time eating a whole fish.  They literally caught the fish, fried it, cut it in half, and then served it to us.  I took the back half…not quite brave enough to eat the head! ;-)  It weirded me out a little bit at first to see the skin and tail, and to have to pick around the ribs, but the meat was SO good and worth it!! (except for when I accidentally got a bone that poked into my gum…they’re sharp!)  Sarah was actually brave enough to eat the head (supposedly that’s the best meat!). And Nick actually ate her fish’s eyeball! Wow! Apparently it didn’t taste like much….

Here is a picture of Sarah’s fish head:

After dinner, Bob, Marilyn, Nick, Randi, and I played our nightly card game of 7 Up.  My luck has not been so great lately..but it was still fun!

I will try to post a little later on about my day today, but this is already really long so I’ll leave it here for now! Here are some things you can be praying for…

*Team Unity- When there is such a strong effort to do God’s work, the devil tries to get any foothold he can to tear us apart and ruin our mission. Please pray that this would not be the case on our team and that any dispute present would disappear!

*The ability to get all the work done: The architects especially have a lot of planning and designing to do by Friday morning, so please pray for them to have strength and focus.

*The children to grow in the love and knowledge of Christ through our presence.  Lord willing, Bob and Marilyn are giving their magic trick show with the gospel this afternoon at the Children’s Home (around 3:00 our time, which is just about an hour from now). Please pray for God to work mightily in their hearts through the message they here.

*Pray for the spiritual warfare. We are seeing it more and more as we are here. Please pray for a hedge of protection around the children, the team, and all of the believers here in Aflao.

Thank you all so much for your prayers!! God is doing mighty things here in Aflao, and around the world for His glory!

Hangin in Aflao

Hello there from Aflao, Ghana! Aflao is a town of about 10,000, right on the Togo border. We can literally see Lome', the capital of Togo, from our balcony, as well as the Atlantic Ocean! (Below is a view of Aflao from our roof...the tall buildings in the distance are in Lome', the capital of Togo)

Sorry I was not able to post in a while...turns out we do not have wireless here in Aflao, but luckily John has a USB motem so that we can get internet once in a while, but we have to take turns using it.  (And pay for the time that we’re on) We arrived here Thursday afternoon after about a 3 hour drive. The roads were actually not that bad! We checked into our hotel, the Hotel Liberte', which is actually very nice considering the location.  Shortly after that, we had to go meet the king of Aflao. It was very interesting to see many of the traditional aspects of their culture here.  We also got to check out the construction site of the king's new palace, which the engineers of course were very interested in. ;-)

We then went to the children's home to see the conditions of where they are living now and meet the kids.  As we drove in, what we saw brought tears to our eyes. There is a huge dump outside the home, with pigs and even children digging through the trash and mud.  It really opened our eyes to the terrible reality of what happens when this site floods...and why it made so many of the children get sick!  

When the gate opened and we saw the children's faces, it was so exciting! They all had such joy to see us and were crowding around the van.  We got to stay for a little bit, hanging out and getting to know them better.  I got to hold baby Princess for a while, and also met 3 girls (ages 12, 12, and 14) who invited me to sit next to them on the bench. It was fun to get to know them and talk to them a little bit about school and Jesus. Even though they speak English, the language barrier was difficult still sometimes with their broken dialect. (Their native language here is called Ewe, but they also learn English and French in school)  But they are my new friends and I am excited to see them every time we go back to the home :-)

Thursday night after the children's home, we also got to share testimonies with the team which was awesome! It's so great to hear everyone's story about how God has worked in their lives and how they got to this place.

Friday morning, we got to go out and explore the new site for the Children's Home.  It is going to be so wonderful!! We all just want to get them moved over there as soon as possible!

Yesterday afternoon was difficult for me. God was definitely working on some humility in my heart. All of the engineer teams were working on their stuff, and I had nothing to do. I felt so helpless and was really feeling like I had no idea why I was even here. I ended up going into the architect meeting and hearing more about the new site, which was actually really interesting and made me more excited about the project. All I had wanted to do was go see the kids, but God had other plans for me which in the end I am glad for.

Yesterday (Saturday) was wonderful. I got to go back to the children’s home in both the morning and afternoon with two different groups. It was so wonderful! In the morning, I went with Tammy, Pastor Osmond (one of the Ghanaian pastors), and the two wives from our team.  I brought the Jesus Storybook Bible, and we also brought a few games.  The kids sang “Father Abraham” for us, and then I taught them “The Jesus Chant,” that I sang with my kids at Kids Club last summer.  The kids loved it!! J Pastor Osmond helped me to read one of the Bible stories to the children (it was kinda hard for them to understand me sometimes cuz I talk too fast haha), and then I asked questions at the end for the kids to get candy prizes for answering correctly.  We then told them that if they could quote any Bible verses from memory, the rest of them could get candy. It was so wonderful to see every single one of the children come forward to quote a verse or passage. Three of them even quoted Psalm 23 in its entirety, which was so encouraging! J

When we got out the soccer ball and other games, the kids’ eyes lit up.  They have been playing “football” with just a small hackey-sack ball.  It is such a privilege for them to now have a real soccer ball.  Pastor Osmond was so grateful that he took the soccer ball and prayed over it before we played. I am just so amazed to see their gratitude and joy over just the smallest things here!  I got to play “football” with the kids. J  It was really fun even though I was drenched in sweat and they all just dribbled all around me. They are all so skilled!

In the afternoon, I went back to the children’s home with Keith, Josh, Jonathan, Nick, and Randi from the team.  For the first hour, we just hung out with the kids, reading Bible stories and chatting. I am amazed by these kids’ knowledge of the Bible! They LOVE the Jesus Storybook Bible. It’s like a treasure to them, and they were taking turns reading it as well as having us read to them.  I love the opportunities this book gives me to share the gospel even more with the kids, and just to start those conversations.  For the second hour while we were there, a bunch of us played “football” with the kids again. (Some didn’t last as long as others in the heat…haha!)

Last night, I got to go with a group to hear John speak on the Christian radio station in Aflao. It was a really neat experience! We all piled into the little radio studio (5 of us Americans and 4 Ghanaians), and then John gave a ½ hour long sermon with Pastor Christian interpreting into Ewe. It was really neat to just feel in the presence of God, with all the “Amens,” “Hallelujahs,” and “Praise the Lords.”  Some people called for prayer at the end of the message, and all of the Ghanaians in the room prayed out loud at the same time in Ewe. Such a neat experience!

This morning, we split our team of 14 up into 5 different groups to visit various churches.  I went with John and Sarah to Shalom Baptist Church.  It was a really cool experience. I loved seeing their joy as they praise the Lord through song however he leads. (And I love how they dance around!!) It was also really exciting when they sang a few songs we recognized, because most everything was in Ewe. Right before the sermon, they introduced us as “Sister Sarah” and “Sister Becca,” and asked us to share a few words of encouragement. I shared some thoughts on Proverbs 3:5-6 and what it means in my life.  It was my first time talking with an interpreter, which is a fun experience. I tried to use as simple of language as possible, and I guess the audience liked it cuz they kept saying “Amen” and nodding their heads. ;-)  John gave the sermon on a passage from Romans 8. The people really seemed to respond well! 

Below is a picture of Pastor Sampson and me on the balcony of our hotel after church!

This afternoon and evening we’ve just been hanging out and resting for our Sunday.  George, our team member from Accra, officially joined us this afternoon.  Tammy’s husband, Chris, arrived this afternoon from the States as well.  We are looking forward to hearing Tammy and Chris share more of their vision and the story behind their ministry, the Jesse Brooks Foundation, tonight after dinner. 

            Well, that’s all for now! Ha ha, sorry it’s so long!! Had a lot to catch up on J  I’ll try to post again in a few days!  Thank you all so much for your prayers while I am here!!

Team Bonding

Good morning from Accra! I am just hanging out here at the guest house before we leave for our bumpy drive to Aflao, so thought I'd post a quick update. :-)

Last night after my post, we had some fun team bonding time.  Randi, one of the EMI interns, and I decided to go for a little walk around the grounds outside. (We are fenced in with barbed wire around the top here! Interesting!)  There wasn't much to explore because of the fence, so we stopped in the yard out back to play frisbee.  It was nice because it was a little cooler out, but still very humid and sticky!  The yard was kinda like a swamp in some places so that provided some adventure in catching the frisbee when I'd run and my foot would suddenly get stuck! Randi and I played for about 45 minutes, then were joined by Nick (the other intern) and Jonathan (civil engineer volunteer).  Tyra, a cute little 2 year old Ghanaian girl (daughter of the family the owns the guest house I believe), joined them and we tried to teach her to throw the frisbee.  John and 2 other guys from our team ended up joining us too and we added in passing around the soccer ball ("football" here) at the same time as the frisbee. :-)  This was a fun time of bonding before dinner!

For dinner, we actually had a delicious, basically American meal, which was really a blessing for the first night! George, our Ghanaian engineer, and his wife, Joyce, joined us after dinner to share their testimonies with us and tell us a bit more about Ghana and the culture here.  Joyce was excited to tell us that Ghana is a safe and peaceful country, and they pray every day that war will not break out here as it has in every country surrounding us. It was good to hear their love of newcomers here, and was exciting to start to get to know some natives and hear how they came to Christ.  We also had an opportunity to share a little bit of our own stories with them as well.

Around 9:30, our last two team members, Wayne and Sandy, arrived from Canada.  We talked a little but basically showered and went to bed after that...we were all having a LOT of trouble keeping our eyes open!! ;-)  Sleep was wonderful. We are so blessed here at the guest house with running water for toilets and showers, fans in the rooms, and nice beds!  I feel so much better now that I am rested!

Breakfast was this morning at 7:30.  I got to sit next to Tammy and talk to her a little more about the Children's Home. She was excited to have me here as a teacher, and said the kids are so excited for our visit.(we are "highly expected," as they say!)  She told me that the kids will be in school during the day while we're out there. She told me about how they're trying to open their own school and wants to put me on the list to hire as their first teacher there! ;-) We will see what God has planned.

After breakfast, our team split up for a little bit.  John, and Greg (an architect from our team) went with George to talk on one of the only Christian radio stations here in Accra.  We got to listen to them on the radio in the kitchen as they shared about EMI and our mission here.  Another group then left with Tammy and Samuel (our police escort) to go to the market to buy a guitar! I wish I could've gone with them, but they didn't want too large of a group.  Once they get back, we'll take off for Aflao.

Well, now that I've summarized a bit of our experience so far, I want to share some Bible passages that have spoken to me so far on this trip.

On May 31st, the day we left, I read Psalm 31, both at home before leaving for the airport, as well as on the plane.  There was so much in this passage that really spoke to me and I'd like to share some verses that encouraged me at the beginning of this trip:
-"For the sake of Your name lead and guide me."
-"Into Your hands I commit my spirit, redeem me, LORD."
-"My times are in Your hands."
-"In the shelter of Your presence You hide me."
-"Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.

This morning in Ezekiel 39, I also read a verse that really seems to apply to my time here: "I will no longer let my holy name be profaned, and the nations will know that I the LORD am the Holy One in Israel." I hope and pray that we can be a part in making known His holy name to the nations!

Another passage that keeps coming to my mind already on this trip that is my prayer for myself during this time is Philippians 2:3-4: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."

Akwaaba to Accra, Ghana!

Akwaaba (welcome) from Accra!

We landed safely here at about 11 am this morning, Ghanaian time, which is 5 am CO time.  Yesterday consisted of lots of traveling, as well as some good team bonding! I can already tell our team is a neat group of people. :-) John and I met up with 6 other members of our team at DIA in the morning, and we all flew together to Atlanta.  We enjoyed a nice 3 hour layover there, chatting, eating some "dinner," playing cards, and meeting up with 3 more members of our team!  We left Atlanta at 7:55 pm to begin our long flight to Ghana! It was my longest flight ever....10 1/2 hours. I did manage to sleep about 5 hours, but only in 30 min to 1 hour increments. Ha! It is difficult to really get comfortable on an airplane, for sure!

The food provided on the plane was...interesting.  John says it was a mix between American and Ghanaian food...which is quite odd.  I am not too keen on their choice of seasonings and am really wishing now that I was not so picky! Please pray for God to give me grace to eat the food and maybe not taste it too much? Or change my taste buds? Ha something! I realized that I really have a "problem" of wanting to know exactly what I'm eating....I guess sometimes it's better to not think about it and just eat!

I took lots of pictures of the view as we were flying into Accra...just seemed so surreal that I was really landing in Africa!! A place up till now that I've only been able to imagine.  It is definitely VERY humid and sticky here. Guess I just need to get used to being sweaty! We got straight off the plane outside onto the runway and got to walk into the tiny airport under the large sign that said "Akwaaba....Welcome to Ghana!" Wish I could've gotten a picture of it, but I was too busy carrying my bags!

We had to wait in line for quite a while to get our visas checked, and get a mug shot and fingerprints taken.  I didn't know my picture was being taken so I'm sure I looked really goofy! ;-)  Then we were met by Tammy, the mom who started the "Jesse Brooks Foundation" that runs the orphanage. She is really sweet and has a cute southern accent.  We also met Samuel, who is a Ghanaian police officer! Having him with us definitely helped us to go through customs quicker!!  We went to collect our bags off the conveyor belt thing and I got yelled at by a Ghanaian airport worker... "No, no, no!" I was having a lot of difficulty pushing the little baggage cart...turns out because I wasn't pushing down on the handle so it was wearing on the breaks! He had to show me how to do it....Yes, I would be the typical American who doesn't know what the heck is going on! Ha ha.  It was all so overwhelming, and was kinda difficult to take it all in while doing what I'm supposed to with all the people bustling around!

Once out of the airport (oh and after meeting our Ghanaian electrical engineer), we loaded all our baggage onto one van and our whole team piled into another, and we began our 20 minute drive to the guest house that's probably about a mile away.  Haha.  Driving is a little crazy out here! I'm just glad I wasn't the one at the wheel! As we drove, I enjoyed watching all of the people walking by and carrying everything on their heads!

We finally arrived at the guest house, where we are now.  We're just kind of hanging out till dinner.  It's about quarter til 2 here right now.  I am in a bedroom with 2 other girls from our team.  Marilyn, one of the wives on our team, went to exchange everyone's money for them.  I think we are going to have a meeting at some point, but I think we're waiting to really get started until we have our whole team.  Wayne and Sandra, a couple from Canada, are flying in tonight around 7.  Tomorrow we will make the drive to the village of Aflao, where the orphanage is located and where we'll be staying the rest of our trip.  Tammy informed us that the drive is a "free body massage."  Haha oh boy I'm excited!

I am feeling a bit dizzy from the plane, but I am so excited to be here!!  I'm gonna go hang out with the team downstairs some more now....just wanted to share about the adventure so far!

Hope you all are doing well!