Isaiah 58:6-9

I forgot to add this to the last blog post, so I'll add it now.  These verses have been challenging me and the guys in Bible study recently.
⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: 
to loose the chains of injustice 
   and untie the cords of the yoke, 
to set the oppressed free 
   and break every yoke? 
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry 
   and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— 
when you see the naked, to clothe them, 
   and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn, 
   and your healing will quickly appear; 
then your righteousness^[a] will go before you, 
   and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 
⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; 
   you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

Do you feel like your light is not shining in the darkness? Do you feel like your prayers aren't being heard?  Well these verses share some very practical advice from the mouth of God to the prophet Isaiah.  SHARE your food with the hungry.  It doesn't say give, it says share.  Its not just about giving out of your abundance, but sharing what you think you need and have.  Provide the poor wanderer with shelter.  How many of us have space to spare and have money to spare?  How often do we use that space and money for ourselves instead of helping out and ministering to those that have less than us?  Clothing the naked.  There are so many people that are in need, and so often we ignore it!  "Not to turn away from your own flesh and blood."  Do you realize that you are the SAME as those who have nothing and are in need......God loves them and you the same!!  So why do we only love the lovely?  And only look to help people that will give us something back in return?

Do you want your light to shine?  Your prayers to be answered?  Than love the loveless and serve those who can't give you anything in return.  Yes, it may be uncomfortable for you to go up and help someone who looks like they haven't taken a shower in 3 weeks, but in the end do you think it was better to use that 2 dollars on them, or on buying that milkshake from McDonald's on the way home?  I just think we really need to question what our priorities are. Are we really concerned about the people God created and loved, or do we just want to give a few dollars that don't hurt us at all in order to feel good about ourselves.  My challenge (to myself and to you) is to give time and money in loving those that Christ so often bent down to help!  Didn't Jesus always seem to help those that so many people wouldn't even touch?  Lepers? The adulterous woman?

Think about it!

Soccer, Togo, Bode Falls, and ministry.....what could be better?

Sorry for the EXTREMELY long delay in writing a blog post!  Not much of an excuse, just have not gotten to it.  Needless to say, the last month and a half has been quite busy!!  I can’t believe it is mid-November already!

Since my last blog update we have had 3 soccer games!  We have also had about 60 bajillion people skip practice and many more ineligible! But we press on!  On Saturday, October 8^th we had a match against Jack and Jill.  Yes the school’s name is Jack and Jill, you are reading that correctly.  The Jack and Jill match was a high stress match!  We scored first, then they scored, then we scored, then they scored, then we scored, then they scored, they we scored, then they scored, then we scored, then they scored, then we scored!  Final score 6-5 with AIS coming out on top!  Needless to say the defense was subpar on both sides, but it was great to come out with a victory!  The next match was on Friday, the 21^st of October.  This match was against the children and teenagers from the neighborhood around the school.  Needless to say they play a lot more and a lot better than us.  The final score does not reflect how much more skilled than us they were basically because we were a lot bigger than them and could over power them for the ball.  They passed and moved so well, while we basically stood and watched in amazement.  The final score was 3-1 and could have easily been worse!  The third game we have had since the last blog update was today, November 12^th.  We had a match against Agape.  This team was also a lot smaller than us, but displayed so much more skill and knowledge of how to play the game of soccer.  At one point they made 18 passes without us touching the ball (I counted as us coaches watched in frustration at how much we try to get our players to understand how to play this way).  After making those 18 passes they were able to manufacture a wide open shot, but could not connect.  We were able to scratch out 2 goals, but ended up on the short end of the scoreboard at 5-2.  Our season goes through the end of November.  Hopefully we will be able to have a few more matches and learn more and more how to play the game.

Before each of these matches Christy and I have had to line the field.  It has been a fun time of trying to make straight lines and not spill the lime powder everywhere where it is not supposed to be.  By the end of lining the field yesterday, my left hand and arm were as white as the powder and it almost looked like I had a glove on!

Teaching our right back how to make a legal throw in

Shows you how good of a coach I am!! haha

On Friday the 14^th of October we had a day off of school.  So naturally we decided to travel via tro-tro to Togo!  We got up and were on a tro-tro by 5:30 in the morning.  When we arrived at the station where we were to find the tro-tro to Aflao (city right on the border of Togo where we could cross), we had no idea where to find the correct tro-tro.  So we asked and were pointed in one direction.  We walked in that direction and then asked another person.  This time we were pointed in the opposite direction!  So we were quite confused, but eventually after walking towards the light pole we were directed to walk to, we hopped onto the correct tro-tro (at least we hoped!).  After waiting for about an hour for the tro-tro to fill up we departed for our trip to Togo!  The trip turned out to be a lot longer than we had expected!  Our sources had told us the trip took around 2 and half to 3 hours.  It took 4 and half, but we made it to Aflao!  We asked the tro-tro driver where the border was, and headed there.  The border security was not exactly up to the standards of the states, but we needed to follow procedures in order to get our passports stamped and updated for Ghana.  At the embassy for Ghana the worker realized that all of our visas had expired the week before, so each of us had to pay 40 cedis to update the visa.  The school reimburses us for our visa, because we don’t have our work visas yet.  After figuring out all of the stuff in Ghana, we headed for Togo!  Little did we know the next experience we were about to have.  We had been told that you did not need a visa to get into Togo, but evidently those laws had been changed!  When we arrived at the border, we were told that we needed a visa and that we could only get one back in Accra.  We told the border guards that we had been told that we did not need a visa, and also told them that we were only going into Togo for a few hours.  Then the guard told us that we could get a visa for “much money.”  We continued to pester them and kept asking them how much money.  Eventually they told us that we could each get a visa for 15,000 CEFA (around $30).  We counted all of the CEFA we had and it ended up being 42,000 CEFA.  We needed 3,000 more!  They again told us to go back to Accra, and we asked if we could call someone over to exchange some money.  They told us they would call someone over, but forgot amid all the confusion of giving other people their visas.  So we had to ask them again, and finally they called someone over and we exchanged the money.  We paid for our visas and then had to wait even more!  The process for giving a visa is not electronic in Togo like it is in the States.  Each time he gave a visa he had to stamp about 10 different things into your passport and also put how much you paid for the visa.  He did this for several other people while we were standing there waiting, and the process was still not done.  The border official then had to walk (taking his grand ole’ time) across the road into a building and show them all the paper work.  Finally, he came back and handed us our passports (after stamping a few more things in them), and told us we could walk into Togo.  By this time it was 1:30 and we had spent around 2 hours at the border of Togo and Ghana!

Don’t worry though, the fun was only just beginning!  Since it was already 1:30, we decided we would just walk a little ways and see what we could do for a couple hours.  After walking about a quarter mile we came up to what we thought would be a good place to get something to drink and eat.  Once we got closer, we realized we were mistaken.  For another quarter mile, we walked on the sidewalk next to a huge beer festival!  There were stages set up for concerts and TONS of beer trucks with beer being unloaded everywhere.  Realizing that there wasn’t a whole lot to do other than go on the beach, we decided to walk down towards the water.  When we made down to the water, there were some port-o-potties set up for the beer festival.  I figured I would use one, since it was there, and discovered that it was a really clean port-o-potty!  So we all changed and swam in the very salty Togo water!  The beach was nice, although the sand was a lot of little rocks down by the water.  When we arrived down by the water, there were a few people around just sitting or standing on the beach.  By the time we were done swimming, there were at least 20 people either swimming with us or standing around watching the “yovo” (white people).  That’s not all! While we were swimming, all of our stuff was hit by a big wave and was soaking wet and covered in sand!  You know that feeling you have after being on the beach and having sand on you, well we had that for the rest of the trip!  Nothing important was destroyed by the water, but the fun was not over!  While we were standing there assessing the damage to our stuff and deciding what to do next, 3 or 4 guys came up and were talking to us about why we were here etc.  While we were talking to them, one of them managed to steal Kim’s camera and phone!  We have no idea when, or how he did it, as Kim said she was watching the stuff pretty closely. 

By this time it was around 4:30.  We walked back the half mile to the Ghanaian border and picked up some bread on the way.  The bread turned out to be lunch and dinner, as we had not eaten anything all day.  Getting back into Ghana was much easier than getting into Togo and only took us a total of 30 minutes.  We then started to walk back to the tro-tro station to find a ride back to Accra.  While walking there we were hassled by many taxi drivers wanting us to take their taxis back to Accra.  We told them we were going to Accra, but were taking a tro-tro.  Right after saying that, a man grabbed my arm and asked “tro-tro to Accra?”  I said, “Yes, we have 3 people!”  He said, “Yes, yes you will be last 3.”  He pulled me all the way through the crowd to the tro-tro and told us to get on.  While I was walking to get onto the tro-tro a man came up and gave me a big hug!  I have no idea who he was or why he was giving me a hug, but I guess he was excited to have us along on the trip back to Accra!  On the ride back to Accra I sat in a row with a bigger man to my left, and 2 bigger ladies to my right.  Needless to say, it was not the most comfortable I have ever been in my life, but it only added to the experience of our trip to Togo.  Every adventure we have I learn more and more about the people and the culture of Western Africa.

Sunset from the tro-tro

Before I get to the next adventure (Maybe I should call them Adventures with Kim, Christy, and Josiah.  No one else ever seems to want to join us on our adventures.  I am not sure why! Haha), let me share a few more normal events from the past month and a half. 

On Friday, October 28^th a bunch of other teachers and I went out to eat and then came back and had icecream cake in celebration of all the October birthdays.  (I can’t believe I am 23 now!)  The next night we celebrated Halloween!  This was no ordinary Halloween celebration.  Instead of carving pumpkins, we carved watermelons and had popcorn and watermelon for food to eat.

Me and Katie carving our watermelon!

On Friday, November 4^th the elementary students had parties and character day in celebration of all the minutes they read during reading month!  I decided to dress up as Huckleberry Finn so I could use the awesome hat I found in the storage closet for PE equipment!  It was a great day full of lots of students laughing at me and asking me why I was eating grass! 

 Now for the next adventure!  This past Monday we had the day off of school so we went to Bode Falls in eastern Ghana.  This time we left around 8 a.m. and rode with Gideon, who is the Ghanaian husband of one of the other American teachers, part of the way there.  He showed us around his hometown for a few minutes and then brought us to the tro-tro station where we could get a tro-tro to Bode Falls.  While waiting for the tro-tro to have enough passengers to leave, the driver of our tro-tro asked Kim to marry him.  Also, a little Ghanaian boy (probably around a year and a half old) was crying and yelling because he was scared of us (the white people!).  So naturally, when we hopped into the tro-tro his mom placed the boy on Kim’s lap!  He immediately became quiet and sat there peacefully looking at us with that confused look only kids can make.  His mom sat on the bench seat in front of Kim, and never took him out of Kim’s lap.  He sat in her lap the entire hour and a half we were traveling to Bode Falls and even fell asleep for a little bit.  We decided to take his picture, and after taking the picture showed it to him.  As soon as he saw the picture he smacked my camera as hard as he could!  Luckily Kim caught it before it could go anywhere, but it was a big surprise!  Most kids love seeing their picture, but evidently he did not.  This was not the only time he smacked something that had his picture on it.  His mom decided to take his picture on her phone, and when she showed him the picture he smacked her phone too!  The mom then put the picture as the background to her phone! Haha

We arrived at Bode Falls around 11:30 and decided to take the hike to the mushroom rock before going down the steps to see the falls.  The hike wasn’t very long, but was quite steep at some points, but it was definitely worth the hike.  When we got up to the mushroom rock there was a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside.  We stayed up at the rock for a few minutes taking pictures and relaxing, and then headed back down to the falls.  The falls were also really beautiful!  There were two falls coming from the same river, and it created a great view.  After watching the falls for a few minutes we walked back up the stairs and ate our lunch under a pavilion.  Then it was time to head back to find a tro-tro.  We decided to start walking back the road we came on until a tro-tro could pick us up.  Well it didn’t end up being that simple!  Nothing ever seems to! Haha  We walked for an hour and fifteen minutes while about 10 tro-tros passed us without picking us up.  While we were walking we kept asking ourselves if we had gone too far, or had missed our turn, but we were sure we were going the correct way!  3 men at this one village we were passing asked us where we were going.  We told them, and they said that we were going the wrong direction!  We had missed our turn and had walked too far!  They told us they would walk us to where we needed to go, but before we could get there they were able to get us on a tro-tro.  We had thought for sure that the turn we had to make was onto a paved road, but it ended up being a dirt road.  That’s why we missed our turn and walked too far!  The tro-tro took us back to Gideon’s hometown where he was taking a baptism course in the afternoon.  He picked us up at the tro-tro station and we headed back to Accra.  The trip to Bode falls was a little less adventurous than our trip to Togo, but adventure never seems to make our trips easy!  It has actually been really fun to experience the different parts of Ghana even if they weren’t all planned!

 Now for some ministry updates.  Remember last blog update when I talked about that 4 year old boy who can only make sounds and cannot pronounce words?  Well I have had several interactions with him since then!  I have learned that his name is Koby and he has an older brother names Kwaku.  Him and his brother walked with me all the way home one Tuesday afternoon.  Continue to pray for Koby and that God would loosen his tongue so that he might speak.  Koby is constantly hitting the people around him to try to get his point across.  Even with his brother it seems like he is always angry and fighting.  It is so hard to see him struggle to get other people to understand what he wants!

Kid’s club every other Tuesday afternoon has been going great!  One week we only had a few kids and decided to draw on their faces! They loved it!

Another ministry that I have recently been involved with is the “Onion boys.”  A man named Gomer who goes to the same church as me has a ministry with them.  The “Onion boys” are a group of about 15 or 20 17-25 year old boys from Niger (pronounced neegair).  He basically started the ministry by talking to them out on the street where they sell onions.  Over time he has gained their trust and now they just come to his house almost every day.  They come, eat, drink water, and shower.  Gomer is also helping them try to learn to read and write in English.  This will allow them to get better paying jobs.  Christy and I are hoping to be able to regularly go and help teach them English while they are over at Gomer’s house.  So pray for these “Onion boys” as most of them are still Muslims and live in great poverty.

One more note of exciting news!  If everything goes according to plan, 4 of us teachers will be traveling to a village in western Ghana over Thanksgiving break.  We will be bringing supplies for the students there and their school.  We will also be working with the students and helping out the village in any way we can.  I will give a whole blog probably about that trip in a few weeks!

Thank you so much to those of you that continue to pray and think of me as I am over here in Ghana.  Thank you so much to those of you that have sent packages and letters! It means so much!  Feel free to send me a message on Facebook or send me an email any time.  I can’t promise I’ll respond right away, but I will do my best! Continue praying for Koby.  Pray for the “Onion boys” and our time with them. Also pray for the upcoming trip to the village over Thanksgiving break!  I am really looking forward to that opportunity!  Continue to pray that the many unsaved students at AIS will be open to the gospel.