It isn’t easy leaving the comforts of your home to live in a foreign country. There are no Chipotles, Targets, or cheese dip in Africa. You can’t hop in your car, turn on your music and drive to your friend’s house. Instead you squeeze into a taxi, listen to foreign music, and go to random places in cities you have never heard of. You wake up in the mornings to new sounds and new friends. You work with different people each month and each country you learn new things. It can be a challenge. Some mornings can be hard and some evenings can be long.
You get used to certain things, too. Over the past month, I have gotten used to the dogs howling at night, the roosters LOUDLY waking us up in the mornings, cold showers, walking to school, children calling me auntie and buying your food from stands in the neighborhood.
But there is one thing I will not get used to in Ghana: generosity and sacrifice.
We had to take a 15-hour bus ride through the countryside of Cote d’Ivoire and parts of Ghana to get to the place where we are doing ministry this month. All 52 of us travelled together, but we were all splitting up to go to our different cities. Some teams are 2 hours away while others are 12 hours away. It was a long but easy ride on the bus. About an hour outside of where we are doing ministry, a smiling man came on our bus. We found out that his name was Calvary and he was the man my team would be partnering with this month to do ministry. I was in the back of the bus, whispers of this man travelled down the rows of seats. “He is thrilled to have you guys this month!”, “He hasn’t stopped smiling!”, “He is the sweetest man I have ever met!” These were just a few things that people from other teams were saying about the man we would be spending a month with and I was getting extremely excited.
An hour after the smiling man named Pastor Calvary came on our bus, we pulled onto a small dirt road. There were a few street lights but not many. We were officially out of the main city and into the rural area of Accra. We bumped up and down along the dirt road for what seemed like hours (it was realistically probably ten minutes) till we stopped in front of where I would be spending a month: Gracelife Ministries.
It was pitch black outside and quiet except for the loud humming of the charter bus’s engine. I tried to look around to see where we would be staying but it was useless. It was way too dark. My team and another team set our tents up in a large room in part of the building, crawled into bed, and feel into a deep sleep.
I woke up the next morning to the sound of little voices outside our window. I heard little feet and I saw little eyes peeking through our window. I looked around the room where we slept and I noticed dividers with big block letters, numbers and pictures on it. It clicked: we were in a classroom. I stretched, got out of the tent, opened the big doors and was greeted by so many smiling, laughing faces. I woke up just in time for the morning assembly. I sat on the steps and looked out at the children singing their country’s national anthem and quietly cried. I was already in love with this place and it had been less than 30 minutes since I had woken up. I still do not know why I cried and I do not know what made me quickly fall in love but the feeling never left from that morning.
I wake up two weeks later with the same feelings. Ghana is a beautiful place. We are in a valley with beautiful mountains around us and our home looks like out of a book. The stars are blinding at night and remind me of when I would watch them with my dad as a kid. The neighbors smile at us each morning and say “God bless you for coming.” The afternoon rains put you in a trance and sooths you. The kids in my classroom’s laughter and quirks remind me of my students back in the states. But honestly this is just a small reason why Ghana will always be a place that I love and remember.
All of these things have helped me fall in love with this place but there is one family that makes this place extra special. Our pastor and his family have really taken us in and helped make us feel like we are at home. They cook us typically two meals a day. They work long hours and come home to serve us. Pastor is in love with his country (who wouldn’t be) and insists on showing us his amazing country. This family has been so generous this entire month and has really sacrificed a lot for us.
I think when I initially thought of the World Race I thought of tents, no showers, and eating really odd food. I have been pleasantly surprised that the World Race is much more than that. It is the normal day-to-day life mixed in with the adventures of being in a new country and culture. It is learning children’s names after being with them for a few weeks. It’s going to the same store every day and meeting people like Rosemary who just wants us to talk with her because she finds our voice “interesting” and she notices something “free about us that is different from other people.” Sometimes the World Race is sitting around a dinner table laughing with people you just met but you’ll never forget. I know that this month is a month for me to learn what it looks like to serve with a massive smile on your face like Pastor. His family genuinely finds pleasure in making sure that we are happy and comfortable. It is something that I think Americans do not understand all the time. He expects nothing in return and constantly pour out to us.
Sure, we will have adventures like jumping off cliffs, petting elephants and going to different countries. But years from now I will think less of the adrenaline adventures that I had and more of the people and faces that I met around the world. God has brought me 5,000 miles away from my home but there is no doubt that he has brought my team to Pastor’s doorsteps to find rest and learn what it looks like to serve humbly. My DREAM and prayer is to come back to this beautiful country and serve alongside this family again.
Please continue to pray for my team and for this ministry we are working with. Gracelife is doing great big things.
