[As the title suggests, I wanted to write 11 blogs summarising my 11 months of The World Race, one by one. I want to be able to look back in a few years time and remember every detail, but I also want you to be able to live the memories with me. Each week I am going to share a blog post about a country, and also my top ten photos from that month (on my social media). I hope it gives you more of a look into what our lives have looked like this year. This is a look into Month 2.]
We started off our month in Ghana in Accra, one of the largest cities. We had Month 1 debrief there where our Squad Mentor and Coaches flew in from the States to spend 5 days with us and we spent time as a whole squad back together again.
Team Haven noticed pretty quickly that no-one seemed quite as traumatised as we did. We relayed stories, thinking that probably everyones month one had been as crazy as ours, however we quickly learnt that that was not the case! My sweet now-fellow-squad-leader Breier told us the first night we were all together again about how one night he got locked in his bedroom but the worst part was that he was so cold with the air conditioning on. Needless to say, we were less than impressed lol.
We spent those days debriefing, relaxing, recovering, and getting ready for month two, which was all squad month! Following debrief, the thirty of us headed to Sunyani.
In Sunyani we worked for a church called Elim City Church. It was a fairly large church and we were able to take on all roles; from videographer, worship, photographer, sound tech and announcement giver. Our main role however, was evangelising in the local areas. We split into our teams and every day we would go to our area of the community and form relationships with the people there.
We became best friends with Rita (the local hair stylist), we bought fabric and had clothes made from Charles (the local dressmaker), we sat under mango trees and gave out free lemonade, we helped a Mamma cook her food while we held her babies to give her a little while off, we sat with a man who was drunk who came and asked us why life sometimes can be really unfair, we asked the local shopkeeper everyday if her school grades had come in yet, we helped Grace hand wash clothes outside her house. We invited each and every one of them to church or Bible study, but we loved and helped them whatever way we could regardless of their response. If they said yes, we said we were so excited to see them again, if they said no, we prayed with them and said maybe next time, then hugged them and left.
Sunyani was a sweet place to be, and it was also a month I learnt a lot. It was a month we were all together and so multiple nights per week we would come together as a squad and worship and learn from one another. It was a month we ate a whole lot of peanut soup, rice and plantains.
The month went by pretty normally, until the last week. As we did manual labour one day, in the absolute middle of nowhere, I fell and immediately could hear my left ankle snap. I lay on the ground crying in agony as my squadmates gathered around me, before being taken to hospital. An hour later in the back of a car, on the bumpiest roads known to man, with my Marge holding my almost certainly broken ankle in place so it wouldn’t bounce around, we arrived at a hospital. We waited for approximately 30 minutes as my ankle became completely swollen and bruised, to then be told this hospital did not have an x-ray machine lol. They splinted my ankle with a piece of cardboard ripped off the side of a box, and off we went to the next hospital. By that night, I had a brand new cast, a definitely broken ankle and a very bruised spirit.
Recovery was long and hard, but that will come into my Month 3 blog, as approximately 5 days after it happened we began the 4 day travel day to Cambodia.
Ghana was a month of restoration after month one. It showed Team Haven that The World Race was not quite as crazy as we had been shown the first month. It showed us how to speak to people about God, how to love people regardless of circumstance, how to plug into a really great church community, and how to celebrate each other every single day. Ghana was a month of healing emotionally, and breaking physically for me. What a contradiction! I walked into the Race with unresolved pain in my life, and Ghana allowed me to walk through a lot of it and put some weary parts of my soul back together again.
Team Haven were my rock this month, especially after breaking my ankle;
Emily – thank you for showing me what it looks like to go above and beyond and seek ministry anywhere you go, to take your ‘off days’ and go visit orphanages and break your heart over the children.
Margaret – thank you for showing me what it looks like to conquer all of your fears and sing loudly, because nothing else matters other than worshipping the Lord even when it scares you.
Prisca – thank you for seeing my need even before I did, thank you for looking after me every second when I could no longer walk, and for picking pencils out of the inside of my cast when I have jammed them in to scratch my itchy foot LOL.
Amanda – thank you for showing me what it means to pray, and I mean PRAY. Thank you for allowing us into your healing, and inviting us into the journey for ourselves.
Rebs – thank you for modelling vulnerability everyday, for showing us what it means to walk through really hard things and allow the people around you into what you are going through and what you need.
Love,
Chloe xo
