“Wake up! We’ve slept through our alarm!” one of the team members (who shall remain anonymous) said to me. “It is 5:30 a.m. instead of 5:00 a.m. and there is no water.” In true missionary form, I jumped out of bed and immediately began searching for a solution to our dilemma. I washed my hair with bottled water and quickly got dressed waking the others. “I don’t even feel like I slept at all,” I replied.
I asked her to check the clock in the kitchen. She was mistaken. It was 1:30 a.m. Ghana time. The reason I didn’t feel like I had slept at all was because we’d only been asleep about 1 hour. We put our pajamas back on and fell back into our beds, so thankful to have more hours to rest. We woke up at the proper time, had a delicious breakfast with our host, Kathy, and we were off to Kumasi.
We stopped briefly to visit Dr. Cam Gonworth to pick up a package for Kumasi. While we were there Anna asked us if she could ride with us to Kumasi. In true Ghanaian form we replied, “You are welcome!” She is a beautiful Ghanaian woman who blessed us with singing along the way. She taught us the song, Da Na Say. She sang it over and over until we learned it. It was beautiful.
From Accra to Kumasi is normally a 4 ½ hour drive; however, with 7 Abroni (white) women, it took longer because of all of the bathroom stops. Everyone needed a bathroom and none was around. We stopped the van and took them into the bush for a real Ghanaian experience. The ladies deemed this the Ghana BP…..Bush Potty! You could hear Margaret and Kellie reeling with laughter all the way back to the van. The prissy ways are gone. These women are now true missionaries!
From there we arrived in Kumasi to trade our money at the bank and head to the Cultural Center for lunch. It was a much needed break. The ladies have become huge fans of the pineapple Fanta drinks. After being refreshed from lunch, we walked through the Cultural Center to do some shopping and visiting. I was so blessed to see some old friends I haven’t seen for over three years. It was a sweet reunion. Eddie, our driver, looked at me and said, “Oh, Maame, what have you done to me, bringing me all the women. Shopping, shopping….all the time.” Then he declared this to be his #1 team of all time, which is a huge honor because Eddie has driven for some amazing teams.
Tonight we are staying with Pastor Joseph Otsin at his Rjotida Mission Guest House, named after his children [Emmanuel, Esther, Joshua, Timothy, and Daniel]. The rooms are so nice. When we arrived for dinner, I had yet another surprise. Grace was cooking for us. She was my first female Ghanaian friend. I met her in 2003 and haven’t seen her for 3 years. I had the pleasure of meeting her youngest son, Benjamin.
We have seen the Lord work is so many amazing ways today. When we tried to recall them all tonight, we lost count.
Tomorrow we will head to the first ladies retreat. We will minister to over 200 ladies. We are very excited to bring them a message of hope and blessing. Thanks to so many of you, we will give them a banquet lunch.
One quote from our devotion spoke to our hearts and what we are experiencing here so far. “Little faith will bring your souls to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your souls.” As you pray for us in the days ahead, pray for great faith because we want to see heaven come down to us and all we minister to during our stay in Ghana.
It is late and we are all tired. Please pray for good health for our team. The transition is working on our systems a little. As Michael Mozley would say, “Welcome to Ghana.” We understand it is normal, but we have much to do and don’t want to be held back from all God called us to here.
Until next time, may the Lord watch over all of you and all of us.