november 20

Gosh…I’m two weeks behind on my blog! Here goes…

Week before last I worked on a couple video projects. Last Friday, November 10, I started taping myself… which was funny, for a four month update video the Orchard showed to Grow Zone…maybe Ri-Zoo? And thankfully it went through over e-mail in a 5mb file. Now for those who don’t get kb’s and mb’s in computer lingo (I say this because in truth I really just learned all this last week as I was trying to send my e-mail) 5mb isn’t a huge file, but it’s not small either. The thing is here in Ghana our cable that runs Internet isn’t very thick so even the fastest Internet service through DSL is SLOW compared to the States. …. What does that mean for video? It means you have to wait until Saturday when virtually no one is online and there’s enough space to send a file J but thankfully it went through. Not only was I working on my video for The Orchard, but also Michael Mozley had a tribute for a funeral we taped and sent via e-mail for a friend who died. So it was a HUGE praise the Internet worked for those two videos.

Last Sunday we worshiped at Medina West. The church close to my house. I know there are people, Christians, there who love the Lord. But again this Sunday challenged me so much in the judgment department.

This past Sunday during the worship service we broke for five minutes to talk about giving money. The church broke into ‘classes’ so they could write down how much money you were giving to Annual Harvest. Annual Harvest is a time where the church here focuses on giving money for future “projects.” We brought a guest, non-churchgoer, that morning. One of the reason’s he doesn’t go to church is because he feels they always talk about money. What happened that Sunday? We had four offerings, broke to meet in small groups to talk about money, talked about money in the sermon and then broke for five more minutes at the end to talk more about money. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Bible is clear that we are to have giving hearts and are blessed from giving. I also think there’s more to giving than money, and when we talk about the financial side of giving once the Spirit is moving in us we continue to ask for His guidance and there becomes an overflow that we want to give. It’s not something we do as a check mark… and hey I’ve given my 10% and I’m a good Christian. It’s the heart of realizing EVERYTHING is God’s and we’re to be faithful stewards. Anyway. I prayed the whole church service that if I was to say something to leadership about how confusing breaking in the middle of the service was to someone who was new. And what if it was their first time to church was this the best way to operate? I didn’t want to come across as just a white person trying to change things, but I think this is biblical and felt on my heart this was something worth talking about. After church I got to talk with the Assistant Preacher. Through some great conversation I learned they have small groups at the church that meet on Friday and Saturday, but the attendance isn’t up to par. The most people show up on Sunday, hence the reason to stop service and collect money. However the guy, David, and I had about a 15-minute conversation in which I learned cultural lessons and I think he started to understand how confusing it was for a first timer.

Anyway- I could go on forever about how there’s a whole lot of hierarchy in the Methodist Church here…so be in prayer that God continues to shape my heart and give me direction of where I’m supposed to go with the conviction and feelings inside my heart.

Now fast forward to this past week.

I’m reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. It’s GREAT.

I received a phone call Monday night around 7:30pm. Monday day was a great day. I was with Nicole and Kirk running errands and we rode the trotro home. My first trotro experience. There are about 15 people at any given time on the trotro. To catch it you stand at a bus stop and wait to hear the trotro mate screaming through the window from behind the passenger seat “Medina, Medina, Medina” or wherever the destination is of that particular trotro. It’s quite interesting and extremely cheap. So we waited at the stop and heard our destination route. Culturally you don’t talk on the trotro, but I didn’t really blend in that much anyway, so you know I had to ask some questions. I was dropped off at my language class at the University of Legon stop. The person I was asking questions to ended up being a student on campus and he and I walked together until we parted ways. The people here really are nice and help you whenever you need anything. I didn’t know what to do since it was my fist time and he took my under his wing.

Then I had language and I’m starting to hear more and more. Kirk, Eli, Aidian and Gifty came and picked me up from class and we went home and ate dinner.

I was reading Velvet Elvis when Lauri Korum called. She’s a nurse at the US Embassy. She is the one who helped me when I had that sinus infection for a month when I first moved here. She received a call from the Peace Corps and she called me. They needed someone to come and sit with a girl who they said was suicidal. When Laurie called me I agreed without thinking about it, hung up the phone and then thought to myself. Oh my gosh what did I just get myself into? I don’t know anything about suicidal people or how to be with them. Then I started praying Lord if you want me to do this then you’ll have to guide me. I of course can’t put into words the feeling of comfort and peace that came over me. Then Laurie called back around 10 minutes later. They wanted someone with medical experience. Whew! Off the hook. I figured God just wanted me to say yes even if He didn’t need me. But then at 9:30pm they called back and were coming to pick me up at 10:30pm. I called Marley, the prayer leader back home, and she sent e-mail to the prayer team and called my mom. My mom got some of the best prayer warriors in my family to start praying and I didn’t even know all of this until the next day. That night though I didn’t get too sleepy and stayed awake just incase “the girl” needed or wanted to talk. I only saw her once at midnight and then at 6am when she woke up to shower. She seemed to be really nice and I don’t know everything she’s going or has been through. I just told her I didn’t know and that I had been praying all night. We had some other conversations but besides that that was it.

The awesome part is that she had probably around 50+ people praying for her because God has set up a prayer team back home for events and reasons just like this. I left the Peace Corps office around 7:30am Tuesday heading home. I thought about a lot of things like what a great organization it is for humanitarian efforts. I actually once looked into the Peace Corps but it didn’t work out. That was really before I was following the Lord. I thought about how amazing it is to me that some volunteers don’t know Jesus and make it in terribly hard and depressing situations. I don’t know how they do it. I do remember what it feels like to think you can do things on your own and feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. Sometimes I still feel like that, but now I have Someone who knows more than I, who takes on my burdens, carries them and gives me peace. I got home around 8:45am because traffic was terrible and took my car straight to the mechanic shop. I was supposed to be there at 7am so I was two hours late. Thankfully he understood. I went with him to the “shop” to get my car’s a.c. fixed. This is funny because we met a man under a tree next to a gas station…that was the shop! My mechanic friend Kwasi, needed to keep the car so I took the trotro home…by myself this time.

It’s neat how God let me ride the first time on Monday because He knew the next day I would need to have transport and this way I wasn’t nervous at all. I love the steps He gives us at our needed pace of grace.

The trotro drop off point is about 1/2 mile from my house so I walked home. By this time I hadn’t slept in 28 hours so I was pretty tired. I stopped by a neighbors orange stand and bought an orange. As I walked down the road, tired, sweaty with orange in hand looking back at the night and morning I felt great. It was a moment I think I will remember forever. The feeling that I’m right where God wants me to be. Hard as it is especially with holidays coming up. And I walked a thankful thankful walk home. It was nice to be able to get around a place by yourself; feel needed and like you understood a little bit about the culture. I cherish that moment.

I slept from about 11am-4pm and got ready for our bible club meeting Tuesday night. There are five/six Ghanaian leaders, Nicole and me that meet once a week. We’re working on developing the club and last week Claire Mozley came and talked about ways to engage the kids and gave us tips from the collection of information she has from Ghanaians and having lived here 7 years. It was great…there’s some pics of the team doing activities!!!! We were trying them out for the kids’ sake J

Wednesday was language training and running errands. Thursday night Nicole’s family arrived for their three-week visit. So we went to the airport and picked them up around 7:30pm! It was so much fun to see grandchildren running to their grandparents! They have been so much fun since they’ve been here. Nicole’s mom has fibromyalgia the same thing my mom has. So be in prayer that this intense heat doesn’t get her down. It’s been EXTREMELY hot lately…we’re definitely in the dry hot season.

Saturday morning I went to my first Ghanaian funeral. It’s a very sad story. Foxy was 24 and died about a week ago after a tragic accident very close to his home. He was on a motorbike when someone clipped the back of him and slung him and his friend into a parked 18wheeler full of logs. He hit the logs with his head…head on. He worked with Sammy our electrician and has done a lot to our house. Pray for the guy who was on the back of the bike and Foxy’s family. It’s so hard to loose someone so young and to have seen the whole thing.

So then Saturday afternoon we celebrated Jimmy’s birthday with a game of bowling. Yes…I didn’t even know they had a bowling place here…seems non-African doesn’t it?

It was great fellowship and we were the only ones in the place so the Ghanaian guys were yelling with us and cheering us on!

Saturday was a day about life and death. Kind of surreal.

Sunday was another amazing day. We went to the Ga rural mission. That is an area where the people speak Ga. I am learning Twi, but there are I think like 50 something languages just in Ghana? I just asked Gifty and she couldn’t remember…but she said it’s probably more than that. Anyway- these are churches out in the bush. Jacob, who works with the Methodist church, took us to about five churches in the area. So we went to encourage them. It was a great experience to see the joy on these people’s faces, since there are not a whole lot of visitors. Quite inspiring. We left the house around 7:30am and got back around 4pm. It was a long day, but awesome…we only got to talk with really one church. After driving all the way out there, there was a funeral in the village so everyone was at the burial. But the fellowship was still great. I ate some sugar cane off the side of the road, like I used to behind my grandmothers house. Good memories.

That kind of brings things up to speed.

I still need y’all to pray for Gifty and her family. Lots of things going on there. Pray for Nicole’s parents…this heat is really bad right now. Pray for guidance I have a meeting with the Director of Communication for the Methodist Church this Wednesday to talk about videography. Pray for the holidays and my heart being away from family…selfish prayer, but I know I’ll need them cause It’s going to be hard…although…praise the Lord, my video camera is serving as a web cam and I can see my family!!!! So I’ll be able to see Brogan open presents on Christmas morn!!!!!

Love to all-
Margaret