I killed my dance partner last night.

Ha!  I knew I’d get your attention!  Yes, the humor is starting to revive – thank you for all your prayers. :)

So who is my dance partner?  I actually have many.  Let me explain.

One of the other missionaries here has likened the road to church to that of the surface of the moon.  Lots and lots of craters!  The drivers are going to do everything possible to avoid the potholes, even if that means driving in the other ‘lane’ of traffic (as if they have lanes).  Or it could mean driving where the pedestrians are walking.  But, despite their best efforts the taxi drivers have dubbed the ride on this road as the ‘Ghanaian dance’.  Your whole body feels a lot like one of those bobble head dolls as you rock from one crater to the next.  So my partners in this dance are the taxi drivers and other passengers!  Don’t worry, though.  I didn’t kill any of them.

My partner I did kill was totally unexpected.  Two nights ago I walked into my bathroom without turning on the light, and as I stood in front of the sink my uninvited partner step on my bare foot.  In fact, he ran across my foot, which caused me to do quite the jig!  I caught a glimpse of him as I looked down to see him scurrying under a piece of tile.  One really big cockroach!  Ok, for now on I’m turning on the light before I walk in there. 

So, last night he shows up again, but this time I’m ready with my can of ‘Birtox Parfume’, otherwise known as insecticide.  I’ve heard stories from other missionaries of these indestructible screaming roaches that you step on 20 times, their guts are hanging out and yet they’re still running away.  So I decided on a two-pronged attack: chemical then physical.  Once they’re disabled by the chemical, then I beat them into pieces until they quit moving.  The worst part is picking up the pieces.  Anyhow, I sprayed under the bathtub where I saw him hide, and this morning I started looking for his ugly little body.  But I didn’t see him anywhere on the floor.  Instead he’s floating in the bathtub where we keep water for dishes and laundry.  Good thing we add bleach!

The battle for my spirit.

 25/4/11

I’ve tried to write something for my blog this last week, but my mind just isn’t seeing the humor.  I realize humor is what helps deal with the frustrations – the vast different-ness of living in another culture.  I read I Corinthians 6:20 the other day, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, AND IN YOUR SPIRIT, which are God’s.”  Obviously, the emphasis is mine. However, as I read it the other day, the emphasis was that of the Holy Spirit’s. 

May I be perfectly honest with you?  Please understand that I want to serve God.  I want to please Him.  I want to be anywhere He wants me to be.  I desperately want to see His face some day and hear Him say that I pleased Him.  I want to tell people how to go to heaven and hear them say, “Thank you for coming all this way to tell me this.”  But my flesh!  It wants to be where I’m familiar with what’s going on around me – not where there’s a constant uneasiness as to how I should handle a situation.  My flesh wants to be where I can go to the store and buy what I’m looking for, for the same price others pay – not the price they charge the white man.  My flesh wants to be clean and comfortable – not hot, sticky and dirty from road dust and diesel as I walk or ride in a taxi wherever I’m going.  My flesh wants to go back to the mountains of Colorado and hike for hours on end, hearing and smelling nothing but nature and praising God for His beautiful creation – not seeing trash every where, smelling things that are rotting, or hearing rock and roll or reggae music blasting in my ears from churches and taxi speakers.  These are the things that wear away at my spirit and cause me to fight a battle each day to tell myself I can’t allow those thoughts of going back to what’s comfortable.  Not to a location, but to a place in time when my life was comfortable – when I had my dream job of flight nursing, was 20 minutes from the mountains, had the strength and vigor of youth, had my home church where I could attend every service and activity, and my best friends surrounded me.

But I’m bought with a price.  My body and my spirit are His.  It does no good to give Him my body by coming to Africa and submitting to all this, but then let my spirit drag around being miserable.  He purchased both.  I’m to glorify God with both. 

While I see this great failure in my life right now, I praise Him that, as He so often does, He has responded to this failure with gentleness and blessings.  He has given me missionary families that allowed me to come over and visit, who fed me a wonderful dinner and let me watch a DVD with their kids sitting around me on Easter Sunday.  He has given cooler temperatures with a little bit of rain, allowing me to sleep through the night.  He has brought visitors to church that I invited the day before.  He has allowed me to share the gospel and see one bow their head to trust Christ – the first person I’ve seen do that in Africa.  He has allowed me to download my pastor’s sermons, and sermons from other godly preachers.  He has allowed me to talk with a godly, older missionary couple that can no longer serve on a foreign field because of their health.  He has allowed me to keep up with my friends via skype and email.  He’s given me a pastor that would spend on hour talking with me, giving me counsel and just checking to see how I’m doing.  He’s given me a pastor’s wife that emails or calls to give me updates on my home church.  He has given me prayer partners around the world that not only pray but also send me notes to remind me they’re praying.  He has given me more than I could possibly comprehend!  And just reminding myself of these blessings makes me love Him more.

Forgive my transparency.  But as I tell the Lord often, I am not ‘big and strong’.  I’m made of the same human flesh as the worst of sinners.  My strength is in Him.  He is my refuge. 

Questions I ask myself

 So, do you think the IRS will have any problems with listing a machete as a deductible?  We are allowed to count lawn-mowing services, and the yard guy cuts the lawn with a machete. 

Should I be grossed out when 5 or 6 moths fly out from the cereal box I’ve been eating out of for a week?  Don’t worry, I’m eating more than cereal – and I don’t mean moths and cereal!

Should it bother me that on the beach where I’ve just been swimming (okay, splashing, since I swim like a rock!) I find a bunch of white shell-looking things, and when I ask what they are I’m told they’re sharks teeth?

Should I be suspicious when the police pull over the taxi driver I’m riding with, and his first reaction is to get out his money instead of his drivers license?

Should I be worried when I try to put on my seat belt in the taxi because the game of ‘chicken’ he seems to be playing is making me nervous, but when I look for where it should be it has been removed?  Only the driver has a seat belt.  Me, a former trauma nurse!  Me, who harps on all my passengers that they must wear a seat belt before I’ll start the ignition! 

There's a new sense of 'normal' in my life.

Shopping

 Shopping in Ghana can be interesting.  I know I’ve told you about the market, but now I want to tell you about the grocery stores. 

From what I’m told, even 5 years ago, most things Western were absent in the stores.  In fact, if I understand right, there really weren’t that many stores!  If you really want to find something Western (something you’d find in the States), you go to the Lebanese stores.  Makes sense doesn’t it – that the Lebanese sell American products.  Anyhow, I personally am thankful for these stores.  Of course, we all know you can find Coke and Pepsi products all over the world, in the remotest village, so that’s no big surprise.  But I thought I’d mention a few other items that have surprised me.

Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup – the mix is over $15 for a large box.

Johnson and Johnson baby products.

Kleenex toilet paper and facial tissue.

Cheerios – which I really like, but not at $9 a box.

Several Kellogg’s cereals – again rather expensive.

Colgate and Aquafresh toothpaste.

Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

Pringle’s potato chips – again rather expensive, but in general, chips are not popular.

Microwave popcorn – I buy a bag of the old fashioned stuff at the market for less than 70 cents, and I can make several servings on the stove!

Skittles, Mars bars, and Cadbury chocolate bars.

Pampers diapers.

Things that are very expensive are hair care products for white folks and sunscreen!  Yes, Tracey, I actually found some sunscreen yesterday.  SPF 15.  I sure appreciate the SPF 50 you sent!  You would have thought that I would have thought to bring that stuff coming to Africa, but it was winter in PA when I was packing.

When I say ‘store’ here, I am speaking of a small shop with about 4-7 short aisles, with every spot crammed full.  You have to scrutinize every square inch because otherwise you could miss something you’d really appreciate if you knew it was there.

What do I miss? 

Nuts.  You can get peanuts pretty cheap, but almonds, cashews, etc. are expensive and hard to find.  I found a 1kg (2.2 pounds) bag of almonds for 26 Ghana cedi, which is about $21.

Cheese.  Again, you can find mozzarella, cheddar, Gouda, Parmesan, and a few others, but you’ll pay a pretty penny for it.  Every one of those is over 20 Ghana cedi per kg.   

A variety of snack items.  As I say, you can find Pringle’s and pretzels, but I like all the selection in the States.  I do think I found some trail mix type of stuff, though, and it seems affordable.  I think it’s even organic!

There is a vanilla ice cream that is good and very affordable in single servings.  We can doctor it up with bananas and chocolate syrup.  Flavored ‘ice creams’ are more like flavored frozen ice, though.  Believe it or not, we found Ben and Jerry’s in the local Lebanese store.  I didn’t even look at the price though, for 2 reasons – I can only imagine the cost, and I wouldn’t support that company, not even in Africa! 

Musings

I have just finished reading a very challenging book written for missionaries.  I would, however, dare say it should be applied to all Christians.  The book is entitled, “Have We No Right?”, and it speaks of giving up what we would consider normal rights as missionaries [Christians]. 

Chapter titles are:

The right to what I consider a normal standard of living.

The right to the ordinary safeguards of good health.

The right to regulate my private affairs as I wish.

The right to privacy.

The right to my own time.

The right to a normal romance, if any.

The right to a normal home life.

The right to live with the people of my choice.

The right to feel superior.

The right to run things.

As you read these titles, is there anything in there about which you find yourself cringing?  There are a few areas that make me cringe, and that I am having to live through them right now.  I am such a weak Christian – weak in living for Christ, but strong in demanding my rights!

The final chapter is a poem that I would like to quote, but I wish to give all credit to the author, Mabel Williamson, who worked with China Inland Mission.  The book is published by Moody Press.

He Had No Rights

He had no rights:

            No right to a soft bed, and a well-laid table;

            No right to a home of His own, a place where His own pleasure might be sought;

            No right to choose pleasant, congenial companions, those who could understand Him and sympathize with Him;

            No right to shrink away from filth and sin, to pull His garments closer around Him and turn aside to walk in cleaner paths;

            No right to be understood and appreciated; no, not by those upon whom He had poured out a double portion of His love;

            No right even never to be forsaken by His Father, the One who meant more than all to Him.

            His only right was silently to endure shame, spitting, blows; to take His place as a sinner at the dock; to bear my sins in anguish on the cross.

            He had no rights.  And I?

            A right to the “comforts” of life?  No, but a right to the love of God for my pillow.

            A right to physical safety?  No, but a right to the security of being in His will.

            A right to love and sympathy from those around me?  No, but a right to the friendship of the One who understands me better than I do myself.

            A right to be a leader among men?  No, but the right to be led by the One to whom I have given my all, led as is a little child, with its hand in the hand of its father.

            A right to a home, and dear ones?  No, not necessarily; but a right to dwell in the heart of God.

            A right to myself?  No, but, oh, I have a right to Christ.

All that He takes I will give;

All that He gives I will take;

He, my only right!

He, the one right before which all other rights fade into nothingness.

I have full right to Him;

Oh, may He have full right to me!

Eating Ghanaian

  Yesterday, KM and I ate at the Luthers house.  We had a traditional Ghanaian meal of chicken boiled in a peanut/ pimento paste, which creates a soup type sauce.  Then you make giant rice balls and with your fingers, you break apart the rice and dip it in the sauce and chicken.  It was very good, but the idea of ‘eating’ a liquid with your fingers was a bit strange to me.  If you add enough rice, however, you eventually get all of it.  The chicken is cooked long enough that you can actually eat the bones, too.  Honestly, the bones weren’t bad.  But Julie did have to shame me into eating with my fingers instead of a spoon.  I think chopsticks are easier.

One of the things that troubles me here is how the name of the Lord is blasphemed.  In the States it happens, too, but that is usually with cursing or other foul language.  And I don’t like it there, either!  Here, it is in their superstitions.  Almost every shop or store has God’s name used in it.  For example, ‘God is Great Hair Salon’.  On the back of taxis it may say ‘Jesus is Lord’.  At first it seems nice to see the acknowledgment of God, but the reality is they are using His name expecting Him to bless them simply for using His name.  They’re not using His name as a cursing, like is done in the States, but to seek a blessing.  Both are vain uses of His holy, righteous name!  The Lord’s name was never meant as a lucky rabbit’s foot, that you rub and say a few magic words, and voila! – you have that which you asked.  It reminds me how God gets mixed into whatever traditions a culture has, with the idea that, “What we have is not bad, and neither is this Jesus, so let’s just mix Him in with what we already have.”  You know, like in the States. We like our rock music, so why not just add Jesus’ name to it, and He’ll bless it.  Or this idea of dressing and looking like the world in order to attract the world to us, then we’ll surprise them and tell them we’re Christians.  If they think they can keep living like they live and have Jesus, well then they’ll trust Christ.  A changed life doesn’t save a man, but when Christ moves in He should be allowed to set up house as He pleases!

Jesus said He is the ONLY way, not just one of many.  I want to be so careful to present Christ as Savior, not lucky charm.  I'll get off my soap box now.