It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write… sorry for the big time lapse! What I’d really like to do with the time I’ve got is to give you all a better picture of what I’m doing over here and what life is like at the base/here in Ghana in general.
GHANA : Although Ghana is a third world nation, it’s doing relatively well in comparison to its fellow African countries. It’s politically stable, and the economy is doing better than most in the continent, although you can still see poverty everywhere. There will be a beautiful house right across the street from a dilapidated shack, and landrovers driving down dirt roads past women frying plantains and kids selling pouches of water or candy or whatever else. There is a definite gap between the rich and the poor. Tema, the city where our base is located, is a port city at the southern end of the country on the Atlantic (I look at the ocean and I’m looking SOUTH. It’s strange).
Ghana has a great deal of the modern mixed in with the traditional. If any of you think that all the people here run around scantily clad from mud hut to mud hut, you’ve got a very different picture from what Ghana is actually like! Everyone wears normal clothing, and they really deck themselves out in beautiful, more traditional dresses for church every week and for special occasions. Everyone also belongs to a tribe… don’t let that word make your imagination run too wild… it’s basically just their heritage and oftentimes determines which dialect(s) they speak. They might be Ashanti, Fante, Ewe, Ga, etc. Ashanti’s speak Twi, and each of the other’s languages are the same name as the tribe. But everyone speaks Twi overall, as it’s the common tongue.
MORE ON LANGUAGE: Everyone (or almost everyone) in the country speaks English (everyone that I’VE met speaks it, thankfully). It’s the official language of the country, however, the most widely spoken language is actually Twi (pronounced sort of like “ch-ree”). I’ve been learning some bits and pieces of it… enough to make people turn and stare at the random obruni (white person) speaking their language! I get a lot of smiles and laughs for it, so it’s worth the effort of learning it.
You might also find it interesting that I’ve been learning some FRENCH while I’ve been here! Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Cote Divoire are all bordering countries with Ghana, and they’re all francophone (they all speak French). So some of my classmates have been helping me to learn (one of them barely spoke any English when he came and now speaks a lot more.. we’ve helped each other quite a bit!).
THE DTS CLASS: As for my DTS class, all but 5 of us are West Africans! I only recently realized that most people think that my class is full of people from the States and Europe and etc., but there are only three other Americans and one Canadian, and then we have 46 or 47 other students who are from Ghana , Nigeria , Benin , Togo , or Sierra Leone . And I absolutely love them! It’s very true that Ghana is one of the friendliest countries in Africa . The society is very relationship oriented, as opposed to our Western culture where time and efficiency often takes priority. They are community minded, which means that what’s mine is yours AND what’s yours is mine! It can be hard to get used to at first, but it’s a huge blessing once you’ve had the time to adjust. After all, that’s what the Early Church was like (see Acts chapter 2:42-47 and 4:32-37).
Before my DTS started, a friend of mine gave me some wonderful advice: ask the Lord to guide you to the people you are meant to get closer with. It’s great to be friendly with everyone and to get to know everyone, but as far as deeper friendships go, it’s wise to seek God’s guidance. There is a small group of such people that have really come to mean a lot to me… my fellow obruni’s—Shelby, Amber, Tom, and Claire—are all wonderful and they can be such a breath of fresh air when I’m in African-culture-overload! My closest African friends include Linda (a sweet, initially soft-spoken 20 year old Ghanaian girl who is just hilarious…such a rascal once you get to know her!), Kalu (or “Udochukwu, his first name meaning “God’s peace”…my 22 year old Nigerian friend who has been in Ghana for the past 2 years at a Bible School in Accra… the Lord has really taught me a lot through our friendship), Yannick (my crazy French-speaking friend from Togo), Joké & Josephine (30 and 34 years old I believe, my current roommates who are a complete blast!), and Julius, Imran, Beauty, & Kizzi (four more wonderful Nigerians who never fail to make me smile). I could go on and on about every person in the class, but that would take another hour so I’ll have to hold off…
This might be surprising, given the title Youth With A Mission, but most of the people in my class are over 25 years old. The age range in our class is 18-53! So I’m in the lower end of the scale and am a young one by comparison, but it’s great having so much wisdom and life experience crammed into one classroom, haha!
SCHEDULE: Together we all get up between 4:00AM and 5:00AM, depending on our work duties which shuffle from week to week, and have breakfast at 6:45 and quiet hour from 7:15 to 8:15. Then we have either worship or small groups or whatever else, followed by two lectures, lunch, and a third lecture. Then we’re normally ORDERED to go take a nap before our afternoon work duties. After that we have dinner, a bit of free time, then library or whatever else in the classroom. Finally, we all have a nightly prayer walk for one hour. The girls are split into two groups, one praying from 9-10 and one from 10-11, while the poor guys have to alternate hour-long shifts each week running from 11-12 to 4-5AM.
PERSONAL NOTES: The topics we’ve covered in class have been amazing and I’ve learned so much throughout each one… they include everything from Prayer and Fear of God to The Holy Spirit to Clean Conscience to Worry to Guy/Girl Relationships to Knowing God and so so much more. I’ve seen a steady change in my character… I’m trusting God to continue the work He’s started in me and to give me the Faith, Wisdom, Humility, and Love I need in order to crucify myself with Christ every day so that it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. I’ve also gotten a lot of vision into my future… I’m in an extended period of training and God is beginning to put together the puzzle pieces of my future ministry… my culminating life’s purpose.
Okay, I’m already running late so I’d better get out of here!
Thanks again for all the prayers and love… I’m praying for everybody back home and I hope you’re all doing well and finding joy in the Lord every day.
