But When Did We Give You a Cup of Water?

"And I will say to them, What you did for the least of these, my brothers, you have done it to me?"
So when is the last time you had ice in your drink? What do you think it would be like to have never had ice in your drink? Now, Africa is changing some and advances in the last 5 years like electricity and refrigeration have made cold drinks available, yet still expensive. Imagine 15-20 years ago, as a little kid playing outside all day what you would really want more than anything.

Meet Felix. He was such a blessing to get to know this summer. He is 23 years old, the same as me, and had just finished nursing school. We got the chance to talk about length several times about the reality of growing up in Africa, the problems facing Africa now, and how we can both give our lives however separately to accomplishing the same thing.

Felix was just like every other kid in Nalerigu. His father died at a young age, when Felix was only 9, and his mother was forced to work hours away in a mine because she had no education. During all this, Felix like most of the kids in town would spend time hanging around the missionaries' houses, playing soccer on the only open areas of grass, etc. One thing that stuck out in Felix's mind was how much it impacted his life to simply go to the missionaries' house because they had cold water. Not only did they have cold water, they had open hearts. They had children's songs that teach the truth, the had bible stories that built a foundation. Felix's story is like so many children's-he was exposed to the Gospel as a child through songs and storytime, but grew up in a hostile family. For Felix, his father was dead which had it's own set of problems, but did give him the freedom to decide for himself. So often children growing up in different family traditions, can make decisions about what they believe when they get away for secondary school or university.

Felix has gone on to overcome unbelievable circumstances, financial and health problems, to finish nursing school. Now he has turned down more lucrative jobs because he believes his own village, his people, need him. Felix is standing at brink of an incredible generation about to bring some changes in Africa and he loves Jesus like crazy. Because of some cups of water and kids songs, countless children have stepped from darkness into light. Because of open hands and willing feet people have been loved, and that love will last forever.

So, know anyone who is thirsty?

Don't Waste Your Life

Before I ever left for Ghana, I saw this picture of a man named Tommy Harrison on the BMC blog site. He had a genuine smile on his face and dirt houses in the background and I thought to myself "That guy is loving life, I can't wait to meet him." When I got to Ghana, my first day I traveled with Tommy out to a more remote village for church on Sunday morning. In all my time with Tommy I was never disappointed. He is loving life, I am so glad to have met him.



Tommy is a retired man from Alabama. A good ol' boy who used to be a mechanic, farmed for fun and had little to no theological training apart from years of laymen service. Over the course of his life, he and his wife traveled to Ghana with the IMB for short term projects of 3-6 months at a time doing various maintenance tasks and what not. Sadly, ten years ago, Tommy's wife died of cancer. Rather than spend his life drowning in front of a television and mediocre time fillers he moved to Ghana full time with a whole new sense of purpose and direction.

These days Tommy simply lives in Nalerigu. Locals describe him as "Ghanian" and he can speak Mampruli with anybody. Tommy lives in a decent house with some comforts of home, but spends most of his nights on the roof open to the starry night and Malaria ridden mosquitoes. He spends his days working on several acres of farm land using his John Deere tractor to greatly enhance the food production for anyone that is willing to help. He travels back and forth to the Bible college a few hours away and helps with training native pastors and evangelists. He travels out to about 8-10 remote villages leading church services under the trees, counseling people, giving rides in his truck, delivering food. All this on the retirement that might not be enough here in the States.

Right or wrong is for your heart to tell. You want to know the absolutely happiest retired person I have ever met, well here is your answer. You want to know the safest, well don't talk to Tommy about how many times he gets Malaria every year. We aren't finding any better ways to save our lives here in America, we simply find new ways to die-Cancer, stroke, heart disease. Death is coming for us all. But Jesus promised a life that is truly life. A life found in loving him, that holds life in proper perspective and loves people while we still have the chance to do anything that will truly last. You want to understand the Gospel in a whole new light? Talk with Tommy for 10 minutes. You want all the answers, well keep looking. The answers to everything are not made in nice little packages. Each person is endowed by God with incredible ways to press into Him and trust as we step out into the darkness of uncertainty that following requires. When it comes down to it, what would you rather present to God with the last 20 years of your life-a sweet golf handicap, or hundreds of people that would have had NO other opportunity to hear the Gospel? Simple question with a million God-glorifying applications in between...

Keep pushin' Tommy.

Some stories need to be told

I am so thankful, and quite shocked, at all the people who have told me that they have read this blog over the summer. I have been home now for three weeks, started school, and found life running at a 100 miles per hour and trying to find some way to live all this in light of my experiences this summer.

To finish the blog out, I feel that there are just a few stories that need to be told. Stories that may be funny, many serious, things to make you think and hopefully put faces to cliches that we hear all the time pertaining to developing countries. Thank you so much for finding your way here, again or for the first time.

Rainbow Garden Village

So after our extremely long day riding in our trusty bush taxi we get to Kumasi, a city in central Accra. I had booked us a cool little hostel thanks to hostelworld.com thinking it was somewhere close to the city since that is what the website says. Turns out, it is an hour and half outside the city in the middle of nowhere, even for Africa. So here we are late are night in a city that we know no one and we are being driven out to the middle of nowhere because people keep giving our driver directions in a language we don't understand. I was trying to act like I knew what we were doing, Josh was just hungry, and Leah was on the verge of tears as we rode in this huge van incredibly off road. We pulled up to this guesthouse place and we think it is the most sketch place in the world. We are the only visitors to come in a week and the huge picture of Bob Marley makes us wonder a little bit about what is going on.We go to sleep and laugh off the adventures of the day. When I woke up I quickly realized that it was all worth it. What we couldn't see in the pitch black dark was that there was a huge lake and beautiful little mountains all around. We were in the middle of a tropical paradise and didn't even know it. Turns out this was Lake Botsowomu (or something like that) the youngest crater lake in the world.


There were fishermen out on the lake paddling long pieces of wood like kayaks. It was just flat out beautiful. That morning we had a great little breakfast with some Tracy Chapman playing in the background and just got a great chance to be quiet and soak in life for a while.


Rainbow Garden Village was a great place to be still and just know that God is God. In light of all the events of this summer, it was a much welcomed time of rest. Too bad it only lasted for a morning. Of course the taxi that took 4 hours to actually come and pick us up forced us to have some extra quality time at RGV but hey, "it's Africa."

Now to the back again

It is good to be back home. It has been quite a week, traveling non-stop, first on the ultimate Ghanian road trip and then surviving 6 flights and three different airlines to try and get home.
I am going to try and keep updating the blog with pictures and stories, thoughts and reflections. Stay tuned if you would like.

So...we left the BMC on Wednesday the 11th of July, to travel from the northeastern corner of Ghana to the far southwestern corner and then back to the east to Accra the capital. Sounds like fun. Too bad we were riding in these things:

Imagine a the oldest 15 passenger van you have ever ridden in with 22 people crammed into it. Nothing leaves on schedule either. Basically you just show up, pay, and then sit and wait for the bus to fill up. That is only half the adventure. Once the bus gets going there is really no hope for a bathroom break. You basically just sit with your knees pressed against the seat in front of you and try to appreciate the fact that you are being pretty "african." It is nice when the van breaks down and you can get out to stretch your legs. Of course then you see it drive away with all your stuff in it, not entirely sure if you will ever see it again.

The best way to forget how little feeling you still have in your legs is to look outside and see the wonder of the world passing by at 60 km/hr. Mile after mile and village after village, it is all the same. Dirt houses here, trash over there, little stores with embarrassing Christian names (e.g. Pentecostal Fire Aluminum and Metal Works), and people everwhere. People that are people. Not just random faces, but people. Folks that have loved ones, wives, husbands, children. People that are known and loved by God, ordained from before the foundation of the world to play some part in the story of redemptive history.

Life just keeps on going and sometimes we pass by without even knowing. It is good to take the times to soak it in every once and while.

I probably should have done this sooner

Just in case you care, here is a picture of the entrance to the hospital. It doesn't really give you the proper perspective of the size and capabilities of the hospital, but maybe you can imagine the rest until I get home.

Go Tigers

If any of you were an MS1 this year, you might have learned who I was because I was that guy in the orange scrubs. Well for all you Tiger fans out there, I rocked the orange scrubs proudly for two months during Anatomy, but now I think they have found a new home. Chini, better known as "Hallelujah" works on the compound. He is quite a character, yelling "Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!, Amen" at any given moment. Man, he is just fun. He prays for Dr. Faile and his wife every morning, only problem is he does it in a mixture of Mamprulli, Kukomba, and English with nothing actually resembling real sentences. Good thing God doesn't really care I imagine. He always ends with "and the Power, name of Jesus, Spirit, something something, Amen, Uh-huh!" He was very excited about the scrubs. He gave me a big hug (which we do often) but this time he gave me a kiss on the cheek (which we do not do so often). I can just hear the Tiger Rag now...C-L-E-M-S-O-N!!!