Ghana

Last week we returned from our two week trip to Ghana. In all, it was a very good trip, and as you can see above, it's a beautiful country. For the first week, we were joined by Jay and three men from a church in Clarkesville, TN. T.K. was in one village named Nomassom (sp?) with two of the men, and Jay and I were with another man in a village named Nagboo. The second week, T.K. and I were in our respective villages by ourselves continuing the ministry that we had begun the first. That was a difficult week, to be alone where you can't communicate very well and most around you are completely lost, but it was a good time of relying on intimacy with and strength from the Lord. While in the villages we stayed with host families who provided us a place to stay and cooked for us. This is the family I stayed with; the man to my right is the head of household, and the three women holding babies are his wives. For the record, Africans do not always look this depressed. They were laughing and smiling right before this picture. They think that they should look serious and respectable in photos, and smiling is childish in their minds.











But if you give the kids a chance in front of the camera, they act a fool for you- usually striking a karate pose...























unless their teachers yell at them and tell them to look serious.













The village of Nagboo is really more of a town. Within the church, there are only two believing men, which breaks my heart. This is the building where the church meets. These men are trying, but they are not very learned in the faith and suffer persecution in the form of ridicule often. Nagboo is a very Muslim entrenched village, so when we went out to share the Gospel with people, our time often turned into answering questions about Christianity. Often it seemed like a game of let's stump the Christians. Most of these Muslims don't know anything about the Koran, and even if they did, we have nothing to fear. Nonetheless, I pray that we were able to bring to light the truth of the Gospel and put thoughts in peoples heads that the Holy Spirit will stir up. The Lord did seem to really be working in the hearts of two brothers who we gave Bibles and who saw the Jesus film. I know they have been reading and hopefully they will be pierced by the heart to receive the mercy of God in Christ. There was another man who seemed to be very interested in the message of Jesus. Please pray for all of these men, especially in light of the social and family pressures of Islam.










On a funny note, if you know me at all you know that I'm not a fan of spiders. Well, the room I stayed in while in Ghana was quite infested with them, making it quite a memorable stay. Now you may look at the photo and say, "They just look like daddy-long-legs," but the photo doesn't do them justice- they were big. The other photo is of a delicacy I was feg I believe on two occassions while in Ghana- tongue (probably of a goat or sheep).






















Last, this video shows what I experienced one evening before dinner as I was sitting quietly by myself reading in my family's compound. It was the end of Ramadan, and evidently that means girls will got from house to house singing and dancing, followed by a stampede of children. I was cornered pretty rapidly and just sat in my seat to observe until it was over.