Bumpy Roads and Blessings

Mary Kay writes...

I just got back this morning from Wa in the far north-western corner of the country. It was a great trip and a wonderful time of fellowship and ministry, followed by a gruesome 16 hour bus ride.

Charlie and I drove to Wenchi last week (about an 8-hour drive) to participate in the dedication of the new Agricultural campus for the University. It was a wonderful ceremony, and a great chance for us to realize just how many people we have gotten to know here! While we were in Wenchi, we went by and presented a monetary gift from the Mission Society missionaries to the Wenchi bishop, whose parsonage burned to the ground last month! He had been studying simplicity, and has a great attitude about the whole thing - that God really wanted him to get this message about "stuff". Fortunately, he and his wife were out of the house at the time, so there were no injuries, etc.

Charlie and I also learned about cashews. We are all familiar with the nut. But the yellow fruit of the cashew is edible too. It is shaped like a small bell pepper, but very sweet and juicy.

John Russell, another of our missionary team, picked me up in Wenchi and drove me to his home in Wa, another 5 hours north of Wenchi. There I stayed with their family, including their 7 year old son and 3 year old daughter. It was a lot of fun and good fellowship - especially for Bess to have another adult to talk to, but it made me appreciate how grown up my boys are now! I did enjoy reading Dr. Seuss again, though.

Sunday, we went to worship in the village of Kongu - under one of the trees, as their church building is not yet complete. This is a village church that John and Bess planted about 5 months ago, and it is thriving! They only have the Gospel of Luke in their language of Dagare right now, though the Catholics are finishing up some other books which will be released soon. It was great to see how hungry they were for the Gospel and for worship!

Monday, John, his assistant, and I drove to Lawra, about 2 hours north of Wa in the very northwestern corner of Ghana, to visit the Methodist Integrated Health Project there. They have a nutrition center, clinic, orphanage, and HIV/Aids center - and not enough water, which is why I went. After looking over the situation and talking to leaders in the town, I think we will be able to put a new borehole on their campus to alleviate their chronic water shortages. Some of their buildings are on the town's water system, but there just isn't enough water for all their needs, especially the vegetable and moringa plot for nutrition supplementation. I am really excited about being able to help, and I think this will be a good first project.

We returned to Wa on Monday afternoon to find that the Wa pastor's wife, Gifty, who I had met on Saturday, had been admitted to the hospital on Sunday evening with severe burns on her arms, lower legs, and to a lesser degree on her face. She had been cooking in a gas oven and the flame went out. When she went to relight the oven, the built-up gas flared and burned her badly. To make matters worse, this is the week that her husband is being installed as the Superintending minister (a little like a DS) in Wa, with festivities and lots of visitors, family, etc. coming to town. Of course Gifty hates that she will miss it all - but the women of the church are stepping up to take over her hostess duties. She should be released from the hospital today or tomorrow, but of course, the healing will take a long time. Please pray that she heals rapidly and that infection does not set in!

Tuesday, I was supposed to return to Accra, but on Monday, we had heard that the American Ambassador was coming to Wa on Wednesday to meet with Pastor Amos (Gifty's husband) about a water project for one of his village churches. We decided it would be a good idea for me to stay for this, so my bus ticket was changed to Thursday. Then we found out that the visit was delayed until at least Friday...by which time it was too late to catch the Tuesday bus (service is only on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday). Oh well, it really was great to spend additional time with the Russells. I was also able to bring some letters and other items back to Accra for Marjorie, the Lawra clinic manager, which gave us more opportunity to build our new relationship. And it gave me a day to shop for a smock for Charlie (Wa is known for this type of weaving), as well as some down time.

So that brings us to Thursday and my big bus adventure. There is a song from one of the kids' favorite cartoons (Arnold) about "Riding on the Crazy Bus" - well now I've done it!! The bus was supposed to be an air-conditioned motorcoach (greyhound type), and was rumored to show movies (Nigerian soap opera type) for most of the trip. Well - it was a bus, but that was about all the similarities! The usual bus needed repairs, so we got an un-airconditioned, no frills bus, similar in comfort level to a typical city bus - except that the shocks were really bad, so it felt more like you were riding in a school bus. Fortunately, the children on the bus were all very quiet - there was the real potential for screaming babies on this one. The only noisy person was the guy sitting across the aisle and one row behind me, who decided he had to "entertain" the only foreigner on the bus. He started by telling me not to think that all of Ghana was like this, as we were bumping over the three-hour section of dirt road. I told him I knew it wasn't because I lived here, and that I was used to the bumpy roads. So then he decided he had to give me language lessons - not in Twi, since I already know some, but in Ga and Ewe at the same time. Finally a couple of the other passengers got him to leave me alone, so the rest of the trip was pretty quiet. But every hour or so, the bus would just quit working - kind of stall out. So I just kept praying that each time it would start again - and it did. Whew! So we left Wa at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon and arrived here in Accra at 5:45 this morning! What an adventure! Our driver picked me up at the station (where he had been waiting for me since 3 am when the bus was supposed to arrive), and we got home just in time to send the boys off to school.

Walk In The Light

Chip writes:

At New Year's, the Elim Youth Group went on a three day retreat at the beach. The first night our speaker was talking about breaking the chains that keep us away from God. She used the parable of the wheat seed found in John 12:24-25:

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Only when the seed is broken can it grow into a plant and produce abundant fruit.

Afterwards, I was praying with God about letting go of my chains, and He gave me this vision:

When God made us in our mother’s womb, just like Adam we are just a corpse that can’t do anything until God breathes life into us. In doing so, He puts a ball of light inside us that is His spirit. We try to fill up the emptiness between our outer shell and the light with earthly things and lies that the Devil tells us about ourselves. Those things are like dirt that forms a crust around the ball of light. But, when we have even just a mustard seed of faith and we throw it at the crust, it cracks the crust so God’s light can shine through. This light then consumes all of the dirt inside of us and consumes us until it begins to flow through every orifice in our body and then out our very pores. This light then encourages others to take that step of faith and become more like Christ.

Christmas in Ghana

Mary Kay writes:

I am struck by the things that are the same about Christmas, amid the many differences.

The first thing we've noticed is the weather. While temperatures are dropping in Georgia, and days get shorter and shorter, here in Ghana it is actually getting warmer, with our highs in the 90s. The air is full of dust as the winds blow south from the Sahara, bringing harmattan. And the days are the same length year round, as we are on the equator.

But the stores are full of Christmas goodies - toys for the children, electronics for dad, jewelry and perfume for mom. Christmas ornaments, gift wrap and garlands of tinsel in every color imaginable are available amid the vegetable stalls in my local market. Christmas carols play on the radio and in the stores. The boys had a holiday concert at the school last night, and we will go to a service of Lessons and Carols at our local Methodist church next Sunday.

The church is decked out in purple altar cloth for Advent, but there is no Advent wreath to be lit, no Advent hymns that we have sung as yet. I find I miss the thoughtful strains of "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel".

Many of our family traditions remain the same. We still light our Advent wreath, which had been carefully packed in tissue and bubble wrap to make the move, each evening and read a Christmas story as a family. We no longer sit by the fireplace, sipping hot chocolate, but that seems to be OK. Treasures ornaments made by little hands in numerous preschool and Sunday School classes still adorn our tree. We won't be able to drive up to Lake Lanier on Christmas Night for the Christmas lights, but we will have the chance to go explore a new part of Ghana during the break between Christmas and New Year's when Charlie's classes are out and the boys are on winter break. And my mother has sent us a jigsaw puzzle - a family tradition to set out and work over the holidays. We just will be watching soccer matches instead of bowl games while we work it. And the biggest difference is that Gramma and Grampa won't be here (this year, at least!) to work it with us.

Our nativity scene, which we have put out on the bookshelf where we hung our stockings (no mantel here!), was carved here in Ghana of local mahogany. The characters of the traditional story take on a new meaning for us, as we see the Wise Men are carrying the traditional symbols of an Ashanti king - a staff for the spokesman for the king, a machete for the body guard, and a calabash for the water bearer. And the shepherds look like Ghanaian goatherds from the north of the country. But the baby Jesus lying in the manger, is the same Jesus we wait for in the US.

So is Christmas different here in Ghana? Yes....but No. For at its heart, Christmas is about celebrating God's incredible gift to us in the birth of His son, Jesus. And that is why we are here in Ghana.

Bits and Pieces from December

Charlie writes...

Mary Kay has joined Andrew Jernighan on a trip out to the Lake house that he is preparing for their arrival. They have a bore hole there, but no pump. And before you order a pump, you have to discover the "recharge rate" of the hole. While the state Water and Sanitation agency that drilled the well is supposed to be able to tell you that, we're not taking chances, as the Jernighans have two little kids, and Mary Kay wants them to have reliable water. The Lake is south of Kumasi, and was formed in the crater left by a prehistoric meteorite impact. It is the largest natural lake in the country, with a good fisheries industry on it, although as Andrew says, "we are two hours from anywhere." Mary Kay took Ken along, so it is just me and Chip holding the home fort. He has been busy working on his IB Junior Project - where he is drawing plans of our house here and then speculating on the features and why they are different than in houses in the states, to be followed by interviews with Ghanaians who know something of architecture to validate his inferences. He's really enjoyed the drafting - reminds me of my drafting class at Westfield High.

The music director at the college died in early October, and Mary Kay and I went to the funeral, our first one in Ghana. We had the boys stay home, and then had Jasper take them over for youth group in East Legon, then on to the Mozleys until we could come pick them up. The staff got to ride in the new MUCG 15-passenger bus, and the students rode in the GET-Fund big bus. The service went on and on, and as the only white people present, the usher made sure that we were seated prominently near the front (which was pretty embarrassing, as I did not really know the man, and was going as a support to the University and to see a funeral). We went out to the gravesite and then after singing some hymns, adjourned to one of four different receptions - this one at the MUCG Registrar's home, which is also in Winneba. He had been the registrar at Winneba's school of Education before retiring and then joining MUCG. He has a very nice home, and again we were treated like royalty - one of the few times since I've been here that we had time to converse with the principal. I think it also was the first time we had met his wife.

My exam is scheduled for January 15 - the evening class will have to come in to take it at the same time as the day class - exam security is a big deal in Ghana. The paper has had "Wall of Shame" photos of people who obtained admission to Legon, the state University that we are working under, under false pretenses and were now being publicly shamed and banished from university here for two years. There are also seasons where exam cheaters are expelled with similar publicity. Rather sobering...

Lincoln had a nice Christmas program with multiple choirs and music ensembles. Chip played African drums and the American drum set, and Ken played clarinet, and they both sang. The music people did a great job of pulling it off, since they had kids from pre-school all the way through high school in one program!

The college had a "Lessons and Carols" service last Wednesday - ad- vertised to begin at 5 p.m., so we were there to an empty house at 5:05, thinking we would be late! Shortly after, we started to see some of the choristers coming for their rehearsal, and things began to happen at 6:15. Program began at 6:30, continued until 9:30, and since we had not yet had dinner, we were starved. They did the usual readings - from Genesis, Prophets, and Gospels, and there were four different choirs there - "Mass choir" which is open to all at the University, the University Chorus which provides music at the Wed. morning worship services, the Mt. Olivet Methodist Church choir, and the Dansoman Youth Choir, some of which have members in common. Of course, it turned into what Chip would have called "Battle of the Bands" - but we did hear music ranging from calypso to Handel's Messiah excerpts, local African music, and Methodist hymns. There were even Methodist Christmas Hymns that I had never heard, out of the British tradition, I suppose.

Notes from November 06

Charlie writes...

We are keeping busy with the logistics of life here. Traffic is horrendous, as the roads are in poor condition, and cars, taxis and tro-tros (15-20 passenger vans that function as an unofficial bus service) frequently block each other and cause gridlock. This and the lack of restaurants in our part of town are our biggest complaints. So, really we don’t have it so bad. We are doing pretty well in our language lessons. We can make simple sentences describing activities or a picture, and hold some basic conversations. I get more practice with the women in the market than Charlie does at the university.

The boys have plugged right in to their school. Chip is in the school play this next week, with two smaller roles in Oedipus Rex. He is also enjoying playing goalie for the JV soccer team. Ken is his usual carefree self, and enjoying after school activities like karate and chess. They both had good reports on their mid-semester report cards, some room for improvement, but that’s to be expected!

Charlie is teaching two sections of Freshman Math for IT students, a Discrete Math course. He has a day session with about 40 true freshman, and an evening session with 9 “mature” students. He really is enjoying it, especially when he sees that they understand what he is teaching or when they get engaged enough to really start asking him questions. Please pray for him and his students as they will be having mid-term exams this week and next, and Charlie has to prepare his final in the next couple of weeks as well. One of the other things that we are really enjoying is the Wednesday morning worship service at the University, which we both attend. The chaplain draws from a wide variety of speakers, both on and off campus, and the choir is terrific!

I have had two meetings with the Methodist Church Ghana, starting the groundwork for future water projects. I am looking forward to getting to know the Ghanaian civil engineer that they have hired as a consultant. He will be a great resource for me as I try to learn about the practice of engineering in Ghana. I will participate in a Dry Farming workshop on November 21^st. We want to educate farmers to work together to put in wells near their fields so that they can irrigate crops and increase their yields. We will be sharing a number of technologies with them that day, including a treadle pump and clay pot water filters for drinking water. I will also attend a conference on Rural Water and Sanitation that is being held in Accra the last week in November. So keep me in your prayers as my schedule picks up.

We’ve started to look for a vehicle to purchase. Right now we are borrowing a car from friends on furlough, but they will come back after Christmas. This seems to be a very complicated process here. We found one used Pathfinder that seemed like a pretty reasonable deal, but then were advised by several friends not to buy a used car in Africa, as you never know what you are getting and vehicles are often poorly maintained here. So we will start looking at new cars next week, but of course that has budget issues. We have been blessed to find a terrific driver, Jasper, who helps with getting the boys to and from school. He worked at one time for a German organization that was involved in water projects, so he is knowledgeable in that area, too. He has been a big help to Charlie as they have looked for a car together.

We’re attending church at Mt. Olivet Methodist Society, here in Dansoman. It is a truly Ghanaian church, probably about the size of DUMC. It has an English service at 7:30 am, that we attend for the boys’ sake. Several other lecturers from the university are members there, as well. It has an interesting mix of traditional and contemporary worship in the services, which last 2 to 2-1/2 hours each.

MUIT 101 Daytime, MUCG Prayer Service, Trip to the Post Office

Charlie writes...

It was a busy day today. I joined the boys and Jasper as they left this morning for school, and they dropped me at the college. Ken was greeted by his namesake and Jasper's brother, who is now watchman/guard on the campus. Kennedy had been our night watchman at the house when we first arrived, and introduced us to Jasper. I spent some time reading Romans in "The Message" before some of the IT freshmen came by to ask about where MUIT 101 was to be taught. Together, we scoped out a room on the ground floor that seemed about the right size. There are about 40 freshmen in the IT group, eight of whom are female. The evening students are older, and numbered 9, all male.

The day students are mostly fresh graduates of the SSS (senior secondary schools, comparable to a high school in the US), and seemed alert and ready, even though the class ran from 8:30 to 10:30, which would have been VERY early and long for me as an undergraduate. I outlined the differences between what freshman IT majors would learn in their math class and what the other majors would be studying. The polynomials, equations of lines, trigonometry, and exponentials/logarithms of the rest of the school are replaced with "discrete math" which includes topics like Number Theory, propositions and proofs (via induction, cases, contradiction), Trees, Networks, Graphs, Counting, and Recursion.

After class, I chatted with the master groundskeeper/landscape architect on the campus, who was supervising a crew of 6 men hacking away at the elephant grass lining the main dirt road leading to the campus. The principal had requested that bermuda grass be planted for a more finished look, but the landscaper again commented on the very tight budget he must work within. He also indicated that water for irrigation may be a problem, since the water pressure on campus is not great. Perhaps Mary Kay will have a water project in our own backyard!

The chaplain's office had put up flyers announcing the first weekly worship service on campus, and Mary Kay came over to join me. We sat in the front with the other lecturers and academic officers. A lecturer in psychology who is a Prebyterian minister gave the homily, and lead the congregation in a prayer session following. Using texts ranging from Genesis to Jeremiah, he tried to impress upon everyone that we should be confident in pursuing our goals which honor God, and not be afraid or distracted. There were several hymns sung from a book excerpted from the MHB (Methodist Hymn Book), most of which we were familiar with, even using the tunes we remembered from the US. It seems that almost half of the hymns we sing at Mt. Olivet Methodist are familiar words but sung to different tunes than we are used to.

The college receptionist gave us a notice from the Ghana Post Office that reported the arrival of a package from my sister two weeks ago. We checked at our local PO, but they directed us to the Accra Central PO for pickup. Jasper stayed with the car, while I queued at the main window. The clerk there told me I was at the wrong place, and so we ended up circling the block to park inside the main post office courtyard. We were then directed to walk around the outside again to another entrance. We saw a long line of people queued for outbound shipments, but then a number of windows for pickup. Our form had a red '7' marked on the top, which we then found out indicated the window which we were to use in claiming the Parcel Post. We had been instructed to present ID in the form of a Ghanaian passport and driver's license, so I had brought along a scan of my US passport and the International Driver's Permit and my Georgia license. The clerk joked that people from the US have too many IDs. She took the passport copy and made note of my Georgia license number on her paperwork, then went behind to fetch the parcel. Then the customs lady had us open the parcel in front of her, then announced that based on the contents, I would have to pay 47 thousand cedis duty. Being familiar with the habit here of quoting a price down to the cedi and then collecting much more without returning change, I had brought along smaller bills. I paid 47 thousand with two twenties, a five, and two fresh one thousand bills. This made quite an impresson on both of them, as they assume that an obruni (white man) will pay with big bills, and they can pocket the change. Then I was asked questions about what I was doing in Ghana, and once they found out I was teaching at Methodist University College, the customs lady said she had a relative she wanted to get into college, and the post lady said she had a ward who she wanted to get into the Wesley Grammar School on the opposite side of the property. I had to beg off, saying I didn't know the folks at Wesley Grammar. All in all, a rather complicated exercise. Upon exiting, the gate keeper asked Jasper to pop the back trunk for an inspection, which seemed a bit gratuitous. Having packages delivered is obviously much more complicated than flats, which seem to make it more easily, although still at a cost of nearly $20 each.

7th Grade First Day

Ken writes...

7th Grade First Day


Fall of 2006 has come.
I feel my left leg going numb.
It's my first day at this school.
This makes me feel like a fool.
2nd period....
time for French.
My mother said,
"It's a cinch!"
What's that? I don't understand.
I feel like I'm in a foreign land.
It's time for lunch!
Munch! Munch! Munch!
Next stop Math!
There's no path
Between the 10th graders.
I slip,
I trip,
I do a flip
In the giant crowd!
I want to sleep in the shade
On the first day of 7th grade.

Support Raising as Deep Change

Charlie writes...

I just read the book "Deep Change" by Robert E. Quinn, which had the following comments which I thought relevant to the process of support raising (pages 84-86):

Deep change works in a similar way. Once we have our sense of direction, we need to get organized, pack our gear, get motivated, and move on out. This process introduces new information and allows us to make choices and progress and grow our way forward. The process also transmits signals to others, and they are attracted by our courage and motivation.

I am often reminded of Gandhi, early in his career, in South Africa. He had developed a vision and was working toward it. One day, a man arrived from another country and volunteered to join Gandhi. The man asked, "Aren't you surprised that I've shown up like this?" "No," Gandhi replied. He pointed out that when one discovers what is right and begins to pursue it, the necessary people and resources seem to turn up.

Trusting in our vision enough to start our journey into the chasm of uncertainty, believing that the resources will appear, can be very difficult. The fact that we have enough trust and belief in ourselves to pursue our vision is what signals to others that the vision is worth investing in. Our message is filled with integrity and good intentions. However, it is usually our actions, not our words, that send the message.

Acting on a vision that exceeds our resources is a test of our vision, faith, and integrity. Once C. K. Prahalad and I ran a strategic planning workshop for forty-two business school deans and their associates. They were a tough audience. They had little patience for our "theories." They wanted to get their strategic plans done.

We let them prepare their strategic plans and then provided some feedback. C.K. reviewed what he saw going on in many of the planning groups. They reviewed their resources, clarified their objectives, and then budgeted their resources for the upcoming period.

C.K. promised them that if all went well, they would be, at best, mediocre. Why? Because they were letting their present resources determine their future. They had plans, not visions. A vision would lead them toward a plan that exceeded their present resources.

His comments made the deans furious. Their level of denial and rejection soared. They accused us of being unrealistic and specified numerous constraints that made it unrealistic to think in the way that C.K. was suggesting. We listened for a long time. Finally, I asked if there were any business schools in the last ten years that had been transformed. They listed several. We chose one and analyzed the initial impossible situation it was in. We evaluated the strange and risky things that were undertaken by the dean of that particular school. Gradually, the complaints stopped, and the group began to show some interest in trying to understand what C.K. was saying.

Caught in a similar situation, most of us will react in exactly the same way. It is much easier and safer for us to stay within the zone of certainty, particularly if we are mired in the slow death dilemma and suffering. The challenges arise as we contemplate deep change. We must reach a point of ultimate despair and frustration before we seriously think about initiating deep change.

Tackling deep change and facing a new future, we must be willing to get lost with confidence. This confidence, along with tenacity, will guide our actions as we begin to build the bridge toward our vision. It is only when we experience deep change that the new vision comes into view. When we can actually "see" our vision, we must be willing to put it into action.