I have about four unfinished blogs saved on my computer about Ghana. There are so many stories that I’ve tried to tell, but something always stops me. I don’t know if it is the Lord, or just the fact that in less than three months I have set foot in five countries in less than three months, adjusted to three different languages, and adapted to three very different diets. Sometimes it’s hard to sit still long enough to have a coherent thought. We just finished a debrief in Nepal and I finally had time to sit and reflect on my first two months of the race.
I realized that one of the reasons I was struggling to write about Ghana was because I knew somewhere deep inside that my story was not finished there. I fell hard and fast for the family we got to work with, and I loved what they were doing in the community of Keta. Ghanaian culture is very different from what I’ve experienced in the past, but it felt familiar in some strange way. The people in Keta were incredibly hospitable. Everywhere we went people said, “You are welcome!” Most of the time we didn’t even know them, yet they still welcomed us with open arms.
I was honored to be able to help organize a back to school conference for local girls of the community. We got to show them that their true worth lies in their identity in Christ. We got to do crafts with them and eat some treats together and worship our Savior in community.
I got to see how entrenched some of the community was in idol worship. My eyes bared witness to the devastation and heartache that the local shrines cause. I saw the physical scars that idol worship had left on the community, but I also felt the emotional scars they caused. One girl wasn’t allowed to go to school because she couldn’t wear the required uniform. This was a mandate given by the shrine that basically owned her until her family payed the shrine a certain amount of money.
My heart was filled by the sweet community we were surrounded by. I lived in a house with about nineteen people in it at one time. (I’m a little unsure on the number because it was consistently changing.) We lived downstairs with some of the kids and I annoyed them everyday, mainly by asking what they had learned that day in school. They taught me random words in the five different languages spoken in the house, and they even taught me how to pose like an African for pictures. I was able to hear about their dreams and even loose miserably at cards with them.
I know that I am still connected to the town of Keta through the relationships my team and I were able to build. I know that when it comes to Ghana, I have some unfinished business.
