Last Tuesday, January 16, my squad left the comforts of Holiday Inn in Atlanta at 12:30 am and headed to the airport to embark on the journey of a lifetime. Arriving at the airport in the middle of the night was an experience in and of itself. The 31 of us along with our 5 alumni squad leaders rolled into the ticket counter lobby loaded down with gear around 1:00 and proceeded to play guitar and kick around a hacky sack until the airline agents arrived for the morning.
Once we were checked in, we boarded our first flight to Washington D.C. and from there caught a 14 hour flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. When we left the US, it was easily 40 degrees outside and we were all layered up. Ethiopia was probably 85 when we stepped out of the plane. Praise God for warm weather! Our final flight into Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire was about 6 hours. When we finally landed in country, we were greeted by our ministry hosts Jonas and Monica!!! They made a sign and everything. It was delightful. At this point, almost everyone had cankles, so as a group we laid on the ground in the airport holding our feet in the air. Actually, they were so bad that we renamed them thankles (thigh-ankles) because our calves were almost non-distinguishable as well. *memorable quote: I’m having a going away party for my cankles.* After making our way through customs and getting local SIM cards, we were escorted to a ministry training center to rest for the night before splitting off into our teams to go to our ministry locations throughout the country. We spent a final night together as a squad and we were blessed with the most amazing meal on behalf of the training center.
Thursday morning, my team (Haven) was the first to leave the training center. 2 taxis arrived at 5 am to take us to the local bus station so we could make our way to the western region of Man. Our bus ride was just over 8 hours, and we were blessed with bone chilling air conditioner the entire way. Looking back, I should have been more appreciative then. In Africa, I don’t think there are any traffic laws (or none that I’ve observed), so I chose to close my eyes and trust the bus driver. It is also customary to honk at EVERY car, bus, motorcycle, or pedestrian that you pass, so essentially it was an 8 hour honking contest.
Upon arriving in Man, we were immediately taken to the local church where we were greeted and spent about 2 hours talking to the members of the church and answering countless questions about our ministry and life in America. The people here are so interested in learning about how we received Christ and our testimonies. When we left the church, we took another taxi into our first ministry village called Fagnampleu (fah-nyam-plew) and went directly to their church. We were greeted with an African dance party that lasted several hours and endless pictures. I think despite the exhaustion we all felt a little bit like movie stars because there were cameras everywhere we turned. We were unexpectedly thrust into ministry when the pastor announced that we would be singing them a song. I am SO proud of Krista and Margaret because they just grabbed mics and started leading one. We sang Power in the Name of Jesus and danced some more with the kids.
Each day in Fagnampleu was slightly different but packed with ministry. Every morning, 3 women came to bring us breakfast. They stayed with us all week and treated us so well. The hospitality here is incredible. After eating, Eric and Phillip, our security guards, would escort us during our half mile walk to church. Let me tell you, this was not an ordinary stroll. We had a full procession ahead of and behind us. 3 different ladies came every morning with cowbells and tambourines and shook them from the time we woke up until the time we got the the church. As we walked, a guy on a motorcycle rode in front of us and held down the horn the whole way. This summoned all the kids who were SO eager to hold our hands and carry our things. I don’t think I carried my own backpack or water bottle the entire time we were in that village.
Something to adjust to culturally is the formality of everything here. There are speeches and ceremonies for everything so our days are very long. We leave the house early each morning and usually don’t finish until sometime between 9 & 11 pm. Each day we give “programs” in the church and speak to the women, children, elders, or another group of people. Each of us has had the opportunity to speak many times and it has been a blessing to hear my teammates pour into the people here. Our theme this month is evangelism training so most of our talks are on how to effectively evangelize and win people for Christ.
* real moment * I feel extremely uncomfortable with evangelism. It is so far beyond my comfort zone. I much prefer one on one conversation and building a relationship to speaking to someone once. The first week of the world race has pushed me hard and challenged my perspective on so many things. Coming into an eastern world view has been difficult on so many levels because their priorities are so far from what Americans value. I feel truly blessed to have the opportunity to experience Jesus through someone else’s eyes.
I was trying to come up with some way to eloquently describe the last week of my life, but there has been so much that its hard to put to words. I thought maybe a song would do this experience more justice, but honestly the only song that I think really is accurate is Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus. I know that may be strange, but before leaving America, my prayer was that God would totally wreck me and rebuild me on a foundation in Him alone. I know there is more work and wreckage to come, but He has definitely started the demolition process. It hurts to have layers of protection that you’ve put up peeled away from you, but its also so freeing.
So far, the world race has been challenging – emotionally, spiritually, and physically – and it has been amazing. I have experienced more joy here than I have at home in a long time. Life is simple. People are kind. They don’t worry about anything in relation to us. In the end, its all cowbells and cankles.
