My team has this thing that we say all the time, TC. It means Total confusion. We say it to each other when we are completely lost and when weird things happen, and weird things happen a lot on the world race. Let me share a couple with you:
When the prophet of the village, pulls my teammate into a dark hut for an hour and we don’t know what’s happening. TC. (She was okay, he was prophesying over her).
When you are eating dinner and the prophets ‘disciples’ aka 10 women serenade you by headlamp light. TC.
When your host tells the team to be ready at 8 am to travel to another village for ministry. At noon you are still sitting around, by 5 pm you are told the car is on the way, and finally at 8 pm told you are not leaving that day but instead finally leave at 10 am the next day. TC.
When you are in an African church, and women come up to you and ‘dab’ your face with their fabric. (Repeatedly hit your face hard to get rid of the sweat). And when they put their arms around you and ‘baptize’ you while standing in the middle of the dance worship floor. TC.
When you are on your way to church, and the prophets wife pulls you and the team into her house, strips you of your clothes, wraps you in African fabric and then you are paraded through the church. TC.
When it’s adventure day, and your host tells you that the bus stop to get to the national park, is “not far” from where you are dropped off at. The team walks to this “not far” station 3 miles later, uphill, in the heat of the day. Once we arrive at the station, get on the bus it drives around the city 3 times, and past the stop you were originally dropped off at. TC.
When it’s Christmas Eve, and the teams sits down for dinner and the women bring you out a plate of French fries. Then they come back 5 minutes later with another plate, thinking it’s the rest of the meal or main course, but no it’s more French fries. So you have a huge plate full of French fries for Christmas Eve dinner. TC.
On the first day of ministry in Ghana, we were sent to town to find lunch, and then be ready for ministry at 3 pm. We tried 5 different restaurant before we finally got lunch. The first restaurant was not open yet at 12 pm for lunch. The second restaurant we found on google maps, did not exist in real life. The third restaurant, we sat down ordered food, and then 20 minutes later the waiter said the chef had left. The fourth restaurant said it was not serving food. And finally the fifth restaurant we went to gave us menus to order. Then after we about to order said they were only serving chicken and rice, and nothing on the menus they had given us. We finally got our chicken and rice almost 2 hours later. Needless to say, we were late to ministry on the first day. TC.
This whole month of Ghana so far has been full of TC moments. Time is not a concern here.
But through all these moments, where we have literally no idea what is happening, we have came up with another saying that has changed my perspective. TC but TC. Total Confusion but Trust Christ. The Lord is taking me to a place where I cannot do anything else but solely rely on Him. So in every situation where I am completely lost, I have to trust Christ.I have to believe that He has a plan and a purpose. I have to trust that He knows what is happening, and that His will is so much better than everything happening around me. As much as I would love to be in control, and know what is happening or what will happen. I have to let my control freak take a break. I have learned to love these TC moments, because it has taught me so much, and has given our team a lot of laughs.
So I want to encourage each of you today. When situations in life leave you in total confusion, trust Christ and know he has a plan.
Ministry update:
Ghana is amazing. The people, the culture, the food, everything is great. This month we have the incredible opportunity to be working with a little bit of every kind of Ministry. Our days are long and packed full, but Ministry has been one of my favorites so far.
We are partnering with an organization called Hoops Care International. This basketball program, helps people all over the community. They hold practice everyday during the week where they teach the younger children the basic basketball skill, to the older men and women where they just improve their game and skill. But the cool part of the Ministry is that during every practice they take time to teach the children about the word of God. During our time here, we are split into 5 groups and get to do devotionals with the kids, and answer questions they have about God, the Bible, or anything really. We also get to preach to the older ones once a week, and lead them in church. This organization is doing a lot of good in the community, and is giving people not only the word of God but also a positive hobby to participate in. They are doing so many other cool things, you can check out their website if you want to learn more: http://hoopscare.org
We are also doing a lot of evangelism. Twice a week we go out to different villages and parts of town to do door to door evangelism. I have found that I absolutely love doing it. It has been incredible to see God move in people’s lives, and see the joy on their face when they learn about Jesus for the first time.
The other big part of our ministry is teaching in a local school. Twice a week we are in the school, and teach anything we want. I am in a kindergarten class full of adorable 3 and 4 year olds. I absolutely love them, and the joy that they have.
Finally, on Sundays we do two kids programs. One for the church we are partnering with for Sunday’s school, and other with 10-16 year olds at our compound. Kids come from all over the town to our home. We get to play games, sing songs, and teach them about Jesus.
