Poor



Being in Africa brings our obscene Western decadence and blatant disregard for the poor into inescapable focus.

Knowing that we could do so much more, but choose not to because of our inability to set limitations on our own inexhaustible wants, is scary. Even scarier, is the thought that we have received our consolation.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation."
Luke 6:20...24

Ouch. We've received our consolation?

While browsing the net for a Phillip Yancey quote, I came upon these words from other bloggers, on this subject:

"The hope that Jesus extends to the poor is a scandalous one. It is the poor who will inherit the Kingdom of God. Normally in our world, it is the children of the already rich who receive the large inheritances. The poor seldom are mentioned in wills or receive estates. However, Christ proclaims that it is the poor who receive the inheritance of the Kingdom--all the Kingdom of God becomes theirs.

In the strange calculus of grace, recognizing and admitting our poverty is the prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of God. We are trained throughout our lives to hide the awareness of our own inadequacy from ourselves and from others. To enter the Kingdom, we must come out of hiding, and admit before God and others who we are."

On the Culture Crafstman's blog, he writes:

"So what can we do? We need to learn from the poor. I don't have a commentary to back me up on this.But another way to read "the poor in spirit" is to be like the poor.To take on those attributes of the poor that make them more susceptible to the Kingdom of God.
It is learning to think and act like you are poor.

Monika Hellwig, lists the following "advantages" to being poor that I think we would do well to imitate.

1. The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption. We need to be like the poor in our desperation for God's help.

2. The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their interdependence with one another.

3.The poor rest their security not on things but on people.

4.The poor need other people. Intimacy is created when we are met by others in our time of need. We need to be like the poor in this respect. Relying on each other.

5. The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance. We know a woman from back home who used to live a very humble life. Then she decided to run for state congresswoman.

6. The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries. I have a very difficult time with this. One of the reasons my generation can have a difficult time living inside their means

7. The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience.

8. When the poor have the gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or scolding."

Bono would be proud

If only Bono knew that Village Chiefs are now sporting his campaign t-shirts.

Still catching up on pictures from the trip...


Little girl carrying her sister in a village called Chehoille, near Tamale.

So, how do you get to Daboya village?

First you drive on a paved road for about half an hour.


This is our driver and friend, Paw. He's a great guy and drove us just about everywhere while we were in Tamale.


...Then you drive for what feels like a million hours on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Believe it or not, lots and lots of people are also walking and driving on this road to nowhere. (It's like when you are occasionally up and driving at 4am and you think, 'hey, what the heck are all these people doing up and on the road so early? I thought we'd be the only ones out at this ungodly hour!)


...Then you take a wooden canoe across a river because the bridge was washed away in the devastating floods earlier this year.


(Incidentally, you should know, that if need be, you can also easily transport your moped across the river in a canoe. No problem.)


Two lovers, very happy to be crossing the river safely since it contains all manner of foul creatures.


...Then you walk a good distance, noticing a tree whose root structure is completely exposed since floods washed the supporting soil away. It's only a matter of time until this baby's a gonner.


When you arrive at Daboya (or any rural African village for that matter), the first thing you do, is go to 'greet' the Village Chief. If you neglect to do this, you risk offending him. Once you've made your greeting, on the other hand, you are under his protection and anyone who touches you, touches the Chief. The picture above was taken in the Daboya Chief's meeting place and the guys you see sitting here are his elders. After welcoming remarks from the village Chief and self-appointed Chief on our side, we presented him with customary gifts; in this case it was a black One.org t-shirt and 20GH-Ghana Cedi's (the local currency.)








Johnson and Michael are pictured here in front of a mosque in the village. Since the population in the Northern part of Ghana is 95% Muslim, mosques are everywhere. In fact, there is no need to set an alarm clock when you are in this region, since you will be awoken each and every morning by a loudspeaker piping prayer songs from your closest mosque, through a loudspeaker; the prayer, in Arabic, sings 'Get out of bed; prayer is better than sleep.' Seriously.



An already extremely poor village, Daboya was especially hard-hit when floods took out all of its' crops and most livestock. For many people, crops and livestock are the only bank accounts they have.


Village children


Weavers dyeing yarn




Then, the yarn is woven into cloth.



Man looking out his window


This is the village restaurant. Interesting, isn't it? No matter where you are, there will always be people who, for one reason or another, cannot or will not cook for themselves.


Look what's on the menu... (hey, they like it)


(BIIIIG Parenthesis: Meanwhile, Audrey is back in the room eating Annie's organic mac-n-cheese with GG...)


Elderly lady in Orange, Daboya


This was taken in another village, closer to Tamale, called Chehoilly




This was taken at a village school; the poorly constructed wall fell as a result of the flooding.


As Paw says, 'Kids are kids, everywhere.'
You should have seen them literally ripping candy out of our hands anytime we pulled a container of sweets out.


Isn't this girl, sweet?


Proud bike rider.

Jet lag.

Notice the time of this post? Sometimes you just have to barrel through and sometimes you have to do it incrementally. Last night we went to bed around 9pm, Audrey at 7. We are all dead awake at 1am but there's no way we can make it through the day this way. So, we're up having fruit and tea and why not wash a load of laundry or two? There are only about 16 loads left.

The pictures below were taken in Ghana....


Audrey eats her first bite of high-cocoa content chocolate. Interesting note: Ghana is one of the top cocoa bean producers in the world, but the actual chocolate made there is awful. It has such a high wax-content to accommodate product stability in the high temperatures and humidity. Unfortunately, unlike other countries where cocoa is grown, Ghanaians do not use cocoa in their cuisine. (Think Mexico and molé). As such, this Ritter Sport was purchased at a grocery store in Accra that mainly targets Westerners (think imports and ultra-high prices.)


Our friend Ruth took Audrey, Gail and I through the market in Tamale. Audrey was getting offers of adoption and marriage every where we went. Seriously.



These pictures below show what an open-air market looks like in Ghana. I'm kind of cheating, though, because this is Kaneshie Market in Accra.


At these open-air markets you can buy anything from fresh produce to meats and snails.

Home



Aaaahhhhh, home. We don't think that we have EVER enjoyed returning home, than now. This trip was a long one...a very difficult one. One that has shown itself to have different purposes than originally intended. We've been stretched and tested...and now we are tired and looking forward, immensely, to celebrating Christmas here at home. How fantabulous to return to our home, already decorated with a tree and everything. M's mom made it extra festive with fresh roses, fruit and a stocked-fridge. We are so blessed...

Thank you for praying for us. What a gift that, besides colds, we all remained healthy! We've got lots and lots of pictures to catch up on. But working backwards, this was the journey home...

Left the guesthouse where we stayed the last 2 days in Accra, heading to the airport at 8am. Got there in time to have some breakfast:



You probably won't appreciate how much we actually enjoyed this meal; yes, even though it included baked beans. very UK. Real espresso made up for alot.


We subsidized the meal with the real butter, cheddar and raspberry jam that we'd lugged around the country with us in a small cooler. (It's the little things...)


GG and Audrey enjoy breakfast at the airport.

Code

Motives matter. In charity, in murder.
Rhythm heals. Especially frantic African dancing. And watching your hilarious, adorable baby rocking out to it like the natives.

P.S. Audrey took her first real steps in Ghana. She is heralded as a local hero here and everyone in the area knows and loves her. She's seriously kind of famous. When GG and her walk down the street, people shout her name, 'Hi Audrey!' and 'Hey Audrey'. She has received several offers of adoption and marriage. Today in a small village church, a teenage girl grabbed her out of my arms and took her over to where the local kids were singing and dancing. I am seriously afraid of her being kidnapped.

Sunday

Apologies for not posting more frequently...the past few days have flown by in a flash. And it seems that every time I finally have time to post, the connection is slow, or down. But to re-cap the past few days....

Friday
...morning Mike flew down to Accra to pick the Destiny team up in the evening. During the day he took care of some errands and had a very sad discovery when he went to visit one of his good Ghanaian friends, also named Michael. M was calling out his friends name in the courtyard where he lived, only to be greeted instead by Michael's brother who told that he had recently died. The sudden death was caused by some sort of pancreatic cancer; apparently he passed within a day of receiving the news. We are very saddened about this news and mourn the loss of Michael's life, together with his family.


Here's a picture of the 2 Mike's, and Mike's daughter, Olivia (then nearly 3) on our last visit.

The Destiny team arrived at around 10pm and M took them back to the SIM Guesthouse for the night.

Meanwhile, I continued consulting with our client and several of his staff members about how we can improve the businesses (their Social Enterprises), which support numerous human service ministries here in the Northern Region.

In case it hasn't been mentioned before now, this part of the country is especially poor. Whereas a monthly income in the southern region might be $150-$300 a month, here it is anywhere from $50-$100/month. The population here is 95% Muslim.

Our client, has a passion to show love-in-action for his neighbors by finding ways to meet their concrete needs and is very entrepreneurial in sustaining the programs which include: Micro Finance for women , Goats projects (where a child is given a goat to raise, breed, and in turn pay for his own schooling), sanitation and health services, a sewing school, shea-butter production (a project resulting from the recommendation of our last visit 3 years ago), and many, many other incredible ministries. We are privileged to be used by God in this work.

Saturday
M and Destiny team (to be introduced specifically very soon) toured Accra and dined at Ryans. Meanwhile, we 3-musketeers remained in Tamale, visited the local open-air market (not the smells of the Monrovia Farmer's Market, I can assure you) and ate more plantains.

Sunday
This morning, Pastor Asare and I went to pick up M and the team from the airport and, after breakfast, we all went to the church service here at the Radach Centre. If you've never attended an African worship let me just explain it this way: irrespective of denomination--yes, even the Southern Baptists dance during the singing here. We are talking conga lines here.

Release with Hope

"The Prayer of Relinquishment is a bona fide letting go, but it is a release with hope. We have no fatalistic resignation. We are buoyed up by a confident trust in the character of God.

Even when all we see are the tangled threads on the backside of life's tapestry, we know that God is good and is out to do us good always.

That gives us hope to believe that we are the winners, regardless of what we are being called upon to relinquish."
--(from David Foster's 'Prayer')

How true this is, but how difficult, in reality to truly believe that God is good and is always out to do us good in every situation. I don't know about you, but despite God's longstanding and well-proven goodness, I still struggle with relinquishing all to Him and constantly wait 'for the other shoe to drop.' In fact, the more I am blessed, the more just the thought of suffering turns my stomach and incites fear to avoid it at all cost.

I am not proud of this. And it struck me yesterday, during a very poignant moment with God, that this is exactly why the rich young ruler, who so longed to follow Jesus, ended up walking away from him sad. That he was so blessed but simply could not bear the thought of laying those blessings down.

It is easy to abandon your life when there is nothing compelling to live for. Living with an open hand is much easier said than done. How to receive with joy the gifts God provides and still bless His name when he takes them away?

Blessed are the poor in spirit because they smile authentically and hugely, despite the fact that their babies are malnourished. While me, I stew anxiously at the thought of any part of my world being diminished. For my expectations are high and I have much to lose.

"...but he went sadly away." I always wondered how could he be that foolish, despite his passion. Yes, now I understand.

Slowly but surely

We have tons of pictures to share, but they still aren't uploading properly, so here are just a few...


Believe it or not, this muddy water is the only option many people now have, since floods devastated the region several months ago.


This woman and her smile are gorgeous, but the scene is not as idyllic as it may appear. This baby, which appeared to me to be about 5 months old is actually 2 years. Malnutrition and disease are the reason.


Peanut rings made by rural villagers...


Gail samples...mmmm, tastes very much like a peanut butter cookie, only not sweet...and very spicy!


Visiting the Ostrich Project


Don't mess with an ostrich when it comes to food.


A visit to a local public school


Lydia takes Gail's measurements for a few dresses she's having made