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!