-If you have a birthday in the first week, the sweet ladies that cook your food will continue to call you Birthday Girl for the next three weeks. As in, “Birthday Girl! Your lunch is ready.”
-Stores in Ghana enjoy names like “Anointed Hands Cake Decorating”, “Ask the Lord Beauty Shop”, “Jesus Lives Radiator Shop” and my personal favorite, “God Heals Fast Food”.
-In Ghana, you greet everyone by shaking hands. And by everyone, I mean everyone. The small child going to pre-school, the man that sells phone minutes, the lady that runs the small store on the side of the road, the mother carrying her baby on her back and her laundry on her head, you get the picture. Five minute walks easily become 45 minute walks.
-You no longer think about weekend plans or your to-do list in the shower. Instead, you write sermon outlines in your head.
-The week-long convention on the Holy Spirit you’ve been advertising for weeks turns out to be your convention. You find out this fun fact two hours before the first meeting.
-You now smuggle drinks and snacks into all-night prayer on Friday night rather than the movie theatre. In fact, the closest you’ve come to a movie theatre is showing the Passion of the Christ in a dusty parking lot on a projector. (I stole this from Amy, it made me laugh).
-The receptionist at the malaria clinic knows most of your team by name. She is also convinced that Tyson has been withholding anti-malaria medication from the women on his team. We tried to explain that we all have our own, but she wasn’t having it.
-When your malaria test is negative, the receptionist asks why you would assume you have malaria just because you’re sick. When you come back two days later and the test is positive, she asks why you haven’t taken any medicine for it yet.
-The chief of a village you’re visiting points and smiles at you and makes the hand motions for sleep. Your squad leader kindly explains to you that he isn’t inviting you to take a nap. However, you’re not all that excited about being the fourth wife of a fifty year old Ghanaian villager.
-You spend anywhere from 1 to 4 hours navigating public transport, which involves cramming into three of four different fifteen-passenger vans, in order to reach your ministry destination. It’s all worth it though because, well, first of all, you’re doing ministry and gladly put up with a few inconveniences, of course, but also because you can buy ice cream on the side of the road while your van is stuck in traffic for thirty-five cents.
– In fact, you can buy almost anything on the side of the road from the comfort of your vehicle. Snacks, water, soccer balls, super glue, phone minutes, blow up toys, kitchen utensils, lamps, steering wheels, pretty much anything you might need.
