Mighty to Save

     This past week has been a great one for me, and it isn't because something great happened.  It has simply been a great week because God is continuing to teach me his Word and his ways.  Throughout the majority of the week I've been singing out loud or in my mind the words, "Give me Jesus, Give me Jesus, You can have all this world, Give me Jesus."  Those words repeated throughout the day keep everything in perspective.  No matter what the world may say or do to me, all I want is Jesus!  It makes each day seem like an opportunity to worship Jesus and live in His glory.
     Another song which encouraged me this past week was "Mighty to Save."  While preparing to walk to the tro-tro stop to go see the onion boys the song came on my ipod.  While I was listening to the song it hit me (maybe for the first time relating to this song) that God is might to save even those that I can't see a way through.  Many times while talking and reading with the onion boys I wonder if it is really doing any good.  We can't share much with them relating to the Bible and Christ because they are Muslim.  Some of the boys have accepted Christ, but we don't even know which ones and are not allowed to know.  Us not knowing is for their benefit.  The village they come from does not allow their people to change from Islam to Christianity, so the boys could possibly be tortured or killed if word got out.  Therefore the ones who have accepted Christ have only told one or two people, and those people have to keep it secret.  Our purpose in being there is to, yes, help them and encourage them in learning English, but really we are there continuing to show each of them that Christians love them and care about them.  So even if we can't share Christ with them, we can share the love of Christ by being there and simply caring about them.  It hit me on Saturday afternoon before going to see them that God is "Might to Save."  He can work in their hearts even though I may not see the results until I get to heaven!
     So let me encourage each of you that no matter what you are doing for Christ, He can use it and is "Might to Save" even when, in our eyes, it seems impossible.  "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17.  So rejoice in the Lord that he is mighty to save and say to him and the world around you, "You can have all this world, GIVE ME JESUS!"

Country music, cow patties, and candy.....what better way to spend spring break?!

Alright, well country music wasn’t exactly a big part of my spring break, but it was a rather funny part!  On the first tro-tro I took on Good Friday (from Christian Center to the mall) I was surprised when the tro-tro driver started singing along to the country music he was playing on the radio.  This is the first time in all of my tro-tro rides I have ever heard anything sounding remotely like country music, let alone Josh Turner’s song “Your Man” (for your information I had to look up who sang the song since I had no idea!). The driver was tapping on the steering wheel and singing along and it just made me laugh and thank God for the random funny things he places in our lives!

God brought me safely on 3 tro-tro’s to City of Refuge just outside the small village of Doryumu.  The tro-tro rides were only the beginning to an amazing Spring Break!  When I arrived at the house everyone was making bracelets.  So naturally I joined in and made a couple of bracelets.  Stacy and Autumn (Stacy is the cofounder of City of Refuge along with her husband JohnBull, and Autumn is the principal of the school and has been working with the Omorefe’s for the past 2 years of so) make bracelets and other jewelry and use the money made to help support the various ministries CORM (City of Refuge Ministries) is involve in.  While I was making the bracelets Justice and Edwin kept jumping on me and grabbing me around my neck.  Immediately I knew that I would enjoy my time spent here, as there is nothing better than having young kids to hang out with all day!

Friday evening and Saturday were filled with basketball, volleyball, soccer, Uno, and a movie.  Saturday was a joyous day at CORM.  At around 3 in the afternoon there was yelling and dancing heard from the Omorofe household!  The power had finally been hooked up after 4 months of no power!!  Would I be willing to live with the very inconvenient problem of no power for 4 months just to live out God’s desire in my life?  I hope so!

Easter Sunday started with a time of worship to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who rose from the grave over 2,000 years ago!  It was great to be able to worship in the house with 40 or more people crowded into the living room!  John preached from I John 3:16-18 and reminded us of the great love Christ has for us which we are to share with the people around us! 

After church we had to prepare the Easter feast!  What is more natural than killing and roasting a goat for Easter?!  I was able to help prepare the feast by joining in on the plucking of the chickens!  The feast also included some Nigerian fufu and Ghanaian fufu.  I tried both, and I think I prefer the Nigerian version better!

After the Easter feast we hid Easter eggs and lollipops for the kids to find.  The kids had a great time finding the candy everywhere and then eating almost all of it before they even went inside!

Throughout the weekdays I spent at Faith Roots International Academy (the school began this year and is on the same land as CORM) I helped by teaching PE classes and helping Autumn with some work in preparing for exam week.  I also spent a few hours helping teach grades 5 and 6 some math.  It was great to be able to interact with the students and encourage them to work hard in their classes. 

I don’t think I can describe to you in words why I enjoyed this Spring Break so much, but I will try.  I don’t think there is any better word to describe it than love.  The entire time I spent at CORM I felt loved.  The kids and the family are so kind and gracious to those they meet, it makes you want to stay there forever.  I kept thinking to myself, “This would be a great place to spend the rest of my life serving Christ.”  The family and especially the kids made me want to stay and hang out with them for much longer than just one week.  I came into the week expecting to be worn out by the end of the week from interacting with kids all day long, but in reality I was so refreshed.  I couldn’t help but feel the love of Christ flowing from them.  I hope God will use my time spent there to encourage them just as much as they encouraged me.  In the week spent at CORM I was reminded how important it is to love and give of yourself for others.  Isn’t this the way Christ showed His love for us?

Before I share a few pictures from this past week I want to share a couple prayer requests:  1. Pray for AIS and the students as we head into the final month and half of school.  Pray that the Seniors and those leaving would establish a solid foundation trusting in Christ as the King.  2.  Pray for the school as the new building is coming along and the administration is busy hiring the new staff needed for next year.  3.  Pray that God would continue to teach me about His love and that He would give me His eyes for the people around me.

Getting ready for church on Easter....we had 40 people in the living room!

The Easter Goat!

Candy and Cow Patties

On your mark.....get set.......

At Faith Roots International School with 120 students in one room.
They are preparing to have their Bible Trivia competition.

You can also join with me in praying for City of Refuge and the many ministries they are involved in:  Pray for the school and the ministry it has to the village of Doryumu.  Pray for the orphans (and the building of the new houses for them) that the Omorefe’s will Lord willing be rescuing out of child slavery in the upcoming months.  Pray for the single mothers CORM is working with in Ghana.  There are many other prayer requests for them!  Check out their website at http://www.cityofrefugeoutreach.com/ for more information about them!

Same ole' same ole'

The past month or so has been much of the same, school, practice, kid’s club, onion boys and learning to love people like Christ loves me.  In each of these areas God is teaching me to see people like He sees them.  This upcoming week will bring some new challenges!  But I will share about those later.  First I want to share with you a few quotes from the book I have been reading by Philip Yancey called Soul Survivor.  In the book Yancey gives a history of 13 people and explains why they helped him “survive the church.”  So if you don't want to read a bunch of quotes from the book and other places, you can skip to the end, but the quotes will make you think!

                Yancey’s chapter on Dr. Paul Brand was very interesting to me.  Brand worked with leprosy patients and was the first to discover and prove that leprosy attacks the nerve cells.  Here are a few different quotes from this chapter: “Do you know about the ductus arteriosus?  A bypass vessel, it routes blood directly to a developing fetus’s extremities, instead of to the lungs.   At the moment of birth, suddenly all blood must pass through the lungs to receive oxygen because now the baby is breathing air.  In a flash, a flap descends like a curtain, deflecting the blood flow, and a muscle constricts the ductus arteriosus.  After performing that one act, the muscle gradually dissolves and gets absorbed by the rest of the body.  Without this split-second adjustment, the baby could never survive outside the womb.”

“Most people view pain as an enemy.  Yet, as my leprosy patients prove, it forces us to pay attention to threats against our bodies.  Without it, heart attacks, strokes, ruptured appendixes, and stomach ulcers would all occur without any warning.  Who would ever visit a doctor apart from pain’s warnings?  I noticed that the symptoms of illness my patients complained about were actually a display of bodily healing at work.  Virtually every response of our bodies that we view with irritation or disgust –blister, callus, swelling, fever, sneeze, cough, vomiting, and especially pain – demonstrates a reflex toward health.  In all these things normally considered enemies, we can find a reason to be grateful.”  “To the problem of pain itself….God gave no direct answer, only this challenge to Job: If I, as Creator, have produced such a marvelous world as this, which you can plainly observe, can you not trust me with those areas you cannot understand?”

Quote from Dr. Robert Coles in Soul Survivor: “There is a worldview which says that anxiety, pain, and fear are part of what life is meant to be, that God himself assumed such a life, that he lived under continual anxiety, pain, and fear, and ended up as a common criminal strung up on a cross and killed.  Now, if you take that kind of existence as a very important one and as a model of sorts, then you’re going to have a difficult time becoming as ‘successful’ as you may have been told you ought to be if you come from a middle-class family.  You have a moral dilemma.”

From the chapter on Tolstoy: “His (Tolstoy) futile striving helped convince me that my failures fully to realize the truth do not devalue the truth itself but instead point out my continuing need to cast myself on God’s mercy. An idea cannot be held responsible for those who profess to believe it.  With Tolstoy, I learned to say to critics, ‘…..attack me rather than the path I follow.’”

“In a world ruled by law, grace stands as a sign of contradiction.  We want fairness; the gospel gives us an innocent man nailed to a cross who cries out, ‘Father, forgive them.’  We want respectability; the gospel elevates tag collectors, prodigals, and Samaritans.  We want success; the gospel reverses the terms, moving the poor and downtrodden to the head of the line and the wealthy and famous to the rear.”

From the chapter on John Donne: “We often do not understand God’s methods or the reasons behind them.  The most important question though, is whether God is a trustworthy ‘physician.’”

From the chapter on Henri Nouwen: “Through Nouwen’s eyes, I saw a new way to look at such people: not as immoral and ungodly, but as thirsty – as people dying for love.  Like the Samaritan woman at the well, they had drunk their fill of water that did not satisfy…..Whenever I encountered someone whose behavior offended or revolted me, I would pray, ‘God, help me to see this person not as repulsive, but as thirsty.’”

“Nouwen was the first person I knew to use the phrase downward mobility.  In a 1981 article in Sojourners he wrote against the uncontrolled drive for prestige, power, and ambition – in other words, the upward mobility – characteristic of American culture.  ‘The great paradox which Scripture reveals to us is that real and total freedom can only be found through downward mobility.  The Word of God came down to us and lived among us as a slave.  The divine way is indeed the downward way.”

This quote isn’t from the book, but I think it relates to the others well: “You have never locked eyes with another human being who isn’t valuable to God.  When this fact grips you to the core of your being you’ll never be the same.  You will live in awe of the scope and depth and breadth of God’s love, and you’ll treat people differently.” –Bill Hybels and Mark Mettelber

                As you may have noticed, the majority of these quotes deal with understanding how much God really loves us and how contradictory that love is to our 21^st century culture.  I am learning more and more from God’s Word (and from other Christians) how different my life should be compared to the non-Christians I meet and know.  They should wonder why I love them and the people I meet without wanting anything in return!  Isn’t that exactly what Christ did for us!!  He loved us when we were in complete rebellion to Him and covered in sin!!  It all comes back to the fact that Jesus loves you and me and desires for us to love him because he first loved us.  Notice a theme here?  LOVE!  How do you love?  Read the Gospels and look at how Jesus loved, then go out and live it!  Also look at I Corinthians 13!

                Let me also add the fact that I am not even close to realizing and living out the love that God has given to me.  God is slowly teaching me to see other through his eyes and I am excited about where He is leading me and will lead me in the future!

                From the 6^th to the 15^th of April I will have the opportunity to travel to City of Refuge in the Volta Region to serve them and their ministries.  (This is the same place we went to the day after Thanksgiving)  Throughout the week I will be teaching some PE classes and training the teachers to have more structured outdoor time for the students.  Other than that I have no idea what I will be doing!  I’m sure there will be plenty of time spent playing and interacting with the 20 or so kids and orphans staying there!  I will update my blog again when I get back and tell you all how everything went!

                I want to say thank you to those of you who continue to pray for me and the people I get to interact with during my time here in Ghana!  Some updates on prayer requests before I show some pictures: 1. Pray for the students in the small groups we have on Friday during lunch!  Pray that they would develop a hunger for God’s Word and a desire to love God and others.  2.  Continue to pray for the Onion boys.  The past couple weeks I have noticed several of them doing their prayers for Islam.  Pray that the couple of boys who have accepted Christ would find a way to share, and that their witness and ours would not come back void! 3. Pray for City of Refuge and the many ministries they run in the Volta Region of Ghana. (Here is their website and a video about the child slaves they rescue: http://www.cityofrefugeoutreach.com/ http://vimeo.com/23274012 

The Limbo at the Fun Fair we had for neighborhood kids

Rafik's painted face after a Sunday afternoon full of soccer

Eddie painting my face!

The results! haha

Me and Kobby (deaf boy from the neighborhood) writing his name with chalk

Our baseball team!

Christy with one of the onion boys

The Onion boys' tree hang out by the side of the road

The other Onion boys' tree hang out and me helping Moro read  One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish  haha