A few weeks before I left America, I had someone at church come up to me and ask me about the race and where I was going. I told her my route and when I mentioned that I was going to Ghana, she got so excited. Her daughter had gone there before for missions work too. She went on about how beautiful it is there and what her daughter did but before she finished, she warned me. “ You are going to go to Ghana and you are going to fall in love.” After she left, I just laughed to myself.
Fall in love… What am I exactly going to fall in love with? Or who am I going to fall in love with? Why am I going to fall in love? I’ve been in love before and that’s not what I want right now.
And now here I am, in Ghana and so in love. As crazy as it sounds, I fell in love within the first 24 hours of being here.
I fell in love with God’s children.
First there’s Pastor Calvary, our ministry host that we have the honor of working alongside this month. He runs his own church and nursery-6th grade bible school that he is very passionate about. Our first morning here, we had the opportunity to sit down with him and talk about what ministry is going to look like, which left several of my teammates, myself included, in tears because we’re all so happy about this month. Over the past two and a half weeks, he has become more of a father figure than a ministry host.
There’s also our living host, Joop. When we found out that we would not be able to live at the church like we had prepared for, he came in to “save the day” as he said. He opened up his guesthouse for us to stay in for the month. While getting to know him, we found out that he moved to Ghana as a missionary years ago to live among the Ghanaians because he loved the simple lives lived here and the hearts of the people here. The humility that he has is unlike anything I have ever seen before.
And then there are also my little babies. This month, I get the chance to teach kindergarten at the bible school. This means starting out my day walking into the classroom and having 37 little precious angels run up to me, tackle me with hugs, all while yelling “Auntie Des, Auntie Des! Good morning!” I get to teach them everything from math and environmental studies to writing and art. Getting to see these children get the hang of what is being taught makes me smile from ear to ear.
Every single person that we have come in contact with since we’ve been here has been so welcoming and happy to have us be here.
I fell in love with God’s creation.
Being placed where we are this month, I can’t imagine a more perfect representation of God’s beautiful creation. The area that we are staying at is located at the base of a mountain (well the Ghanaians call it a hill but it’s definitely a mountain) so everything we do at around the house or church/school has the backdrop of the mountains. If we look away from the mountains, we get to see the open countryside where there are little houses, connected by paths of African red dirt. And there’s also the ocean within a short driving distance. My favorite part about the ocean is that even though I’m on the other side of the world than home, when I put my feet in the water, it’s the same water that we have on the east coast, the Atlantic.
Getting to take in these different aspects of landscapes everyday has made me step back and really appreciate that God loves us so much that he wanted to create a beautiful place for his beautiful children to live in.
I fell in love with God as my creator and heavenly father.
This month I fell more in love with God not only because he hand crafted each person I met this month and every view that I’ve taken in, but because he also hand crafted me. He gave me a certain set of characteristics that makes me unlike anyone else and then called me to live my life traveling around the world and serving him because I bring something unique to the table. When I feel like there is something that I’m not good at or don’t even feel like I can do at all, he reminds me that he has already given me everything that I need to do this.
Now I think back to that conversation I had with that woman from church and instead of laughing at it, I smile because I did fall in love and I don’t remember the last time I felt this good.
