Saturday, November 2, 2013

Ghana Update: Monday & Tuesday, Days 0 and 1.

Our team has just survived our first week in Ghana, Africa. Each day Janae Horst and I have been writing updates to keep the churches, families, friends, and prayer warriors informed. That includes you, dear readers. In order to preserve these emailed updates (which have been fraught with snafus), I am posting them here. The internet is egregiously slow here so I will not be sharing photos until I return.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers! Please continue to pray for our team. Pray for health and strength and God's joy to shine through us.


P.S. Janae and I created pseudonyms for the updates to create an air of mystery, but our cover was blown in the first email due to some miscommunication about our desire for anonymity. Janae is "The Scribe", and I am "The Scribe's Proofreader".

 
Day 1

Well we’re in Africa that’s for sure! And what a trip it was too. We started off weighing bags and saying goodbyes at Robert’s. With a last sending prayer we were on the way to South Bend to begin our journey. The flights were long and there were a few hic-cups along the way, but God is good and we all survived.*

 Once we got to the airport in Accra, we were whisked through customs without so much as one bag being rummaged through. Probably in part to the fact that we said we were missionaries but I suspect they also just wanted 22 untamed weary travelers out of their hair.

With that blessing behind us we headed out into the dark night to the vehicles with many a friendly native offering to “assist us” with our bags and many totes. A few of the girls learned quickly to be more rude than they were accustomed to as they were approached by the Ghanaian men.  While we were collecting our bags we realized that one tote was missing. A claim was made so that when it does come through it will be sent to Crusades for Christ. Thank the Lord it wasn’t the tote with the giant horn of cheese in it! After we loaded up and arrived at Leon’s house. Reuniting with Leon’s and Jon’s was a very happy moment. Barb had prepared a delicious snack for us all and by the time we all crawled into our beds it was well after midnight. I think I speak for all of us when I say we are relieved to be done with traveling for a while.

Well, we are ready to begin our first day so I will sign off and give you a full report tonight!

The Scribe

*The last 45 minutes of the flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was fraught with “bumpy air”, which is the new phrase for turbulence. (Think “Fertilizer” vs “Manure”). It was enough to make some of the passengers revisit their lunches (or have their lunches revisit them?).  Our group fared well in comparison, but it was still an unpleasant ride.  I asked several team members “What was the turbulence like?”

“It felt like getting car-sick. I’ve never dropped like that on an airplane.” –Luetta Borkholder

“It was VERY rough. You could feel the wind as it hit the plane and as we circled, it was doing extremely strange things to my stomach.” –Carolyn Nisley

“It was turbulent.” –Travis Jenkins

“I don’t know. I was asleep the whole time.” –Dan Borntreger

The pilots put us down safely on the tarmac but that wasn’t quite the end of our troubles. We had to wait for our gate to clear, and as we parked in the holding lot, the wind rocked the airplane and made it feel like our very own Jonah in the Whale adventure.

Truly, God watched over us as we traveled.  We all arrived in one piece, and I’m excited to see what God has in store for our team.

-The Scribe’s Proofreader


This was written in the morning on Monday since we were too exhausted on Sunday to write the update. Therefore, we also wrote an update Monday evening, which I will include here.

Day 1 (the real official first day)
At the start of each day over these next two weeks our schedule will begin with two important essentials: group devotions and breakfast. On this particular day, Leon fed us with some spiritual truth which was followed by Barb feeding us a delicious meal of baked oatmeal and pineapple (the best pineapple anyone has ever tasted by the way).
Next on the agenda was a crash course in Ghanaian culture led by Jon Sauder. We learned or were reminded of a few important things.
-Ghanaians love to dress well and look nice. Therefore we will do the same as we minister.
-Don’t use your left hand to give out tracts or interact. It’s considered the bathroom hand and it’s offensive to extend it towards someone.
-Don’t drink the water. You’ll regret it. Enough said.
-Ladies be warned…you will receive multiple marriage proposals. Say no. (At this point Jon also informed us that Carissa is thinking about printing shirts that say, “My dad says no!”
-Ghanaians are very friendly and when they see you they will most certainly want to talk to you or sell you their wares. To get your attention they will hiss at you.
After being fully educated, we headed to the giant market in Accra to hand out tracts. Most people were pretty eager to take a tract and some even helped us distribute when they saw what we were giving out. Marion shared that when he went into the pharmacy to pick up more malaria pills, the owner asked if he could have a stack to hand out to his customers. Sure enough, when a man walked in to fill a prescription, he handed him a booklet and then went to fill the order. The customer had nothing else to do while he waited so he opened it up and began to read. After it was all said and done, it was estimated that around 4,000 scripture booklets had been handed out and there were a few stories to share from the experience as well.*
Supper was a treat and I think we all over-ate. We were treated by Jon at a restaurant called Marwakos. As we entered, we passed the chickens cooking slowly on multiple rotisseries. It was delicious. They served us half a chicken with either rice or chips (fries) in the biggest heaping portions we’d ever seen.
-The Scribe

*When you have a group of rambunctious missionaries running around crowded streets in central Accra, many different viewpoints emerge. I asked a few members to elaborate.

"How was the Central Market?" -The Scribe's Proofreader

“It smelled like a rose…in a dump.” –Rachel Bauman

“I got in a discussion with a group of Muslim Men, and it was a test of my own beliefs.  It was definitely a challenge.” –Jared Bontrager
“It was awesome to see how receptive the Ghanaians were to the tracts.  They would grab a few extra to pass to their friends and families.  After we ran out of tracts, I bought some spicy meat kebabs that really cleaned my sinus passages out.” –Shawn Graber
“We went into the market. I took some of the ladies with me to get food.  We lost one of them, but I don’t want to talk about it. J” –Barb Geigley

“I got proposed to twice while I was in the Market. I had been told to expect it, so it didn’t surprise me. I wanted to take all the little Ghana babies home with me, though.” –Brianna Eggleston

Okay! That concludes the first update sent out. We're putting the finishing touches on Day 5's update so stay tuned, I'll be uploading these to my blog as quickly as I can.

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