God is good.

This morning I woke up rejoicing. I have been learning some things. Big time. I have been humbled and shaped and grown and refined. I have been hurting and lost and confused and unsure what the heck im doing in this land that I dreamed of forever but now, somehow, feel so displaced in. Ive prayed and screamed and cried and laughed out loud and beaten my head against a wall trying to figure out what I was thinking coming here, leaving behind everything I knew and loved, all the people that God had put in my life, that I had loved and prayed for and poured into. All the people that might be gone when I get home...

But guess what? My God is Alive. My God is powerful. My God is soveriegn, and my God is everywhere. Which is awsome, and gives me so much hope, and true, true life. Sometimes I like to assume I know what I'm doing-- but I don't. I start to rely on my own hands, I get proud or begin to think that I'm the only one who can get stuff done, get frustrated by other people, get frustrated by situations, get bitter and angry and stop believing that there is something, or someone, greater than me that I am living for.

But I believe that when we get out of those situations, our comfort zone, where we know what we are doing and think we have everything under control, we realize how very little we really know about living, about our own insecurities and failing and missunderstanding. We start to see that maybe there is something bigger here. Maybe its not all about me, and my experience, and my plans, after all.

Luther said that Discipleship is not limited to what you comprehension- it must trancend all comprehension. He said that Bewilderment is the true comprehension, Not to know where you are going is the True Knowledge.

I think thats because then we leave room for God to lead us- for God to go before us, and pick up our rear guard. To lean not on our own understanding but to lean on HIM.

That is the most beautiful and best thing that could ever be. That dispite everything that I think I know- God is there to blow my mind and show me something BIGGER. That when I think things are hard and horrible- that HE uses that time to grow us and refine us- so that through perseverence he can truely build Character- a Character that is based so fully on his love, his joy, his freedom. Jesus came to set us free- but when Im living for myself, im not living in that Freedom.

Thank GOD hes there to catch us. Thank God that he has saved us- that only by his hands this world can witness miracles- and oh, it does. I have- and I can't wait for what he'll show me next.

Widows and Orphans

James 1;27- Religion that God our Father accept as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneslef from being polluted by the world..

Last night I went to bed, tired, and just prayed one simple prayer: "God, please show me how I can reach out to the widows and orphans here" -- In Canada, Ive thought of "orphans' as young people who lack solid family structures and need supportive relationships and a lot of love. I don't really know any widows, and just try to love people wherever I can. Here, where extended families make up a complex social safety net and poverty runs deep into the fabric of society, I suspect things are deffined a bit different, and widows and orphans exist in different ways with different needs.

This morning I came down early for breakfast- so I could read that verse in James and spend some quiet time sipping nescafe and journaling. My homestay Grandma came out to join me and I said "Grandma, what are you doing today?" "oh" she says. "I am a widow, and two of my friends who are also widows started an NGO to reach out to some widows and orphans in a nearby villiage. We are teaching the widows to sew and farm so they can sustain themselves, and are sending the children to school. Today we have a meeting for that."

God is so good. Sometimes I am shocked and awed by how amazingly well he answers our prayers.

Tonight God gave us the stars in the sky and in the sand..

This weekend I went to the place where the Volta river met the ocean. We sailed in canoes up the river stood at the estuary and marveled at how incredible the world is. In the evening the sand shimmered like a trillion stars and got caught in the waves which crashed over us, causing our skin to sparkle and pulling us heart mind and body into the sea.

The next day I climbed up Krobo mountain. Two kids lead us up- scampering up an almost vertical rock wall and leading us through bushes until we got to the top and looked over the vallies, and maveled at how incredible this world is.

When we got down there was a church service going on, in a little palm-leaf hut in the sun, filled with people who had started singing, lifting their hands to the heavens, before we even begun our accent. It was the best thing I have ever seen.

Today I sat at my desk listening to history and development and wondering when lunch was. Sometimes I don't believe these things exist in the same world.

:)

dinner conversation

Right now my roomate and our Ghanain friend, Jon, are having a heated debate about Polygamy and concubines, both in english, but they can barely understand eachother. This is hilarious.

Fun with the fam

Yesterday, I asked my little brother Larry if he liked to draw, he told me he liked to draw cars and prodeeded to show me his drawings. He's wicked good at sketching, but I almost lost it when he showed me a picture of a car called 'sexi ride'

Later, when I was asking my older sister what was the purpose of women wearing scarves over there heads she said "oh, that is just for ugly people, there hair is not nice like this, its all disorganized, so they wear a scarf because they are ugly. Why, did you want one?" She is bringing me home some tomorrow to try on.

Then at church, I was made to stand up as the pastor told the congregation that he would like to welcome the white girls that are here today

The little baby in my family has only smiled twice when she sees me. Usually she cries and hides behind her mother, but im working on it! (hard)

I found out my Ghanain name is Yaa (people here are named after days of the week) This is the least attractive sounding of all the names for the days of the week.

Now, observe.

I often forget I am living in a third world country. So when I remember, it sometimes slaps me in the face. I suppose its because I was always so delicately deffensive of Africa, and Ghana in particular. So many people I knew would tell me to be careful, that "Africa" was a dangerous place, or underdeveloped, or poverty stricken, or that I would instantly get some crazy desease. I also just nodded politely but secretely thought I knew better and that this was nieve. that Africa was beautiful, and diverse, in her own way a lovely place where lovely things happend. Disease and death and hurt came mostly from our lack of understanding, our colonizing history and our ineffective aid that seems to do more damage than good.



That is how I thought of it anyways, I told people Accra was just like any other city, like Toronto, just different. It turns out it is very different. In lots of places there is no running water, and most things seem run down. Lots of children don't go to school- and even in my (very lovely) community, kids wake up at 5 in the morning to set up stalls to sell things like phone cards and peanuts. I don't know what to do with all of this, there are so many things that are different and changing and I can't quite wrap my head around, and so I often feel imobile. I don't understand very much yet.


I am LOVING being in school right now. Its giving me a chance to go from understanding very little, to understanding maybe a little bit more, and I don't have to deal face to face every day with some of these challenges, I can take them one by one, and learn about them academically, but also in my living situation.

You see, I HATE being an observer. Tourists are observers, and I am not a tourist. Tourists like to look at culture from a distance and say "thats nice" or "thats sad" but don't really engage. Sometimes tourists go home and tell their friends of all the crazy, wonderful, or horrible things they observed, but still they just observe. Sometimes im a tourist in my own life, and I hate it. It means that im just testing the water without ever jumping in. It means im avoiding real issues that are immediately effecting me or the world around me. But most of all, it means that Im avoiding God's call to fight for justice, care for the widows and orphans, and give freely, as I have been so freely given.

Im reading exodus right now. Moses was an observer, when we was living in the palace in Egypt, until he saw and realized his own people were being opressed. When he understood what was happening, he ended up killing an Egyptian (we all make mistakes) who was beating an Isrealite, running away, meeting God and leading his people in a historic treck to freedom. Moses was a man of weaker speach, and didnt always know what he was doing, but he trusted God for strength and had faith that HE would do something greater than Moses himself, could ever do.

Sometimes though its tempting to remain a tourist. Its tempting to plug in your ipod and put on your sunglasses and look around like you are looking at life through a tv. screen rather than your own eyes. Its tempting when im uncomfortable with things, or when im just too plain tierd to do anything else. School gives me a chance to observe without being an observer, so bit by bit, as I begin to understand the world around me, and continue to have faith, that God will do something in my time greater than I could ever do.

Footballs and poverty

Last night I went to a world cup qualifier soccer match. I will try to put up pictures eventually. The stadium was crazy- fully of people pushing eachother every which way, screaming and shouting and jumping around. Fans were sitting everywhere, it was impossible to find my seat. I ended up wedged tight between two Ghanains, sharing half a seat with one and having the other one prop me up. The match was exillerating, and Ghana one, which was on the front page of the paper I read this morning at the University.
Afterwards fans spilled out of the stadium and we were thrown into the midst of children kicking cardboard boxes, vendors frying kabobs and selling drinks and candy and phone cards from large bins balanced on their heads. Alot of people sell things like that here, like when you’re in traffick and open a window and throw out a few peswas (cents) for a chocolate bar or passport carrying case or any other assortment of things.
We took a cab ride home, and saw a little boy strewn amoung the traffick asking for change. We met eyes and he came to my window. He didnt say a word but put out his hands. I don’t know why I was shaking my head no, why I said I didnt have anything. I suppose it was out of habbit, or all the books and documentries I read warning me about such things. “you can’t help everyone” people say- or “its a scam, they don’t really get the money and if you give them some it will make their situation worse”. Maybe this is true, but when you look into the face of a little boys poverty, its hard to justify those things. There is something about that his that will haunt me.
Somedays I find it hard to be here, other days it is such a Joy. I know that it takes time to adjust to a place, but its hard to think of the amazing things I left behind and know that all my friends and family are still living in that joy and I have to struggle with learning this culture and figuring out my place in this crazy, crazy world, where really we know nothing.
I know my God is faithful though and leads us through such things. This is a verse I have found encouraging lately, it has helped me through trials before and has been an encouragement to me.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverence. Perseverence must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. “
James 1:2-3

Beatiful.

I live in a beautiful place. The roads are red- my favorite colour red to paint with at home, that deep, dark colour that you want to dive into, the colour that covers everything it touches with richness. I am studying on campus- right now learning the local language and starting classes next week. I am staying about a 40 minute walk away with a beautiful family full of love and joy and amazing food. There are 8 kids living with me, two women one baby and a grandma that is packed full of the most love you have ever met. When I was late comming home, she danced when she saw my roomate and I, and covers us with hugs whenever we enter the room.

Last night I sat on the balcony with my roomate, Andy, and we talked late into the night under the beautiful sky.

In the morning our neighbor charles walks us to the cab stand, where we climb in crowded tiny taxis to go to schoo- for 40 cents- in the crowded market place with stalls and fires and cars and people stuffed everywhere.

Sometimes I stop and think THIS IS WHERE PEOPLE LIVE!!! wow.

Home.

It is interesting to be in a place that I am to call home but is not yet home. I suppose every time you come to a new place in life, a new season, it takes time to close old doors and fall in love with new things, new beginnings and new people. Life is so different on another continent, but is also it is very much the same.

I talked with a Ghanain friend yesterday who asked me why I was interested in the orphanage he often visited. I told him that I wanted to learn how to love people better. He asked me what it was like in Canada, to have orphans. I told him people are orphaned in very different ways. That in Canada, maybe people do not have very much, but they have lots of things still, and have access to food and healthcare. In Canada when people are orphaned it is because they do not have very much love. They don’t have parents to support them, or older people to tell them what is good for them and what is not, so there are many young people who make choices that are bad for them, and are left alone in the world, weather they are orphaned physically or not.

Here, it is very different. Maybe people have nothing, but they still have love. They have communities to care for them and take them in, even if there is not enough food to go around, there are people to tell them what is good for them, and what is not, and in the midst of homelessness, there is a home.