Two weeks in Ghana

Well these past few days have been filled with more dancing and singing and of course laughing than I have done in a long time. From teaching the kids at school “This little light of mine”, to dancing in front of church with tambourines while wearing our new African dresses, to dancing around in the halls of the hospital with one of the doctors and some of the other hospital workers during one of our rare slow moments (probably their efforts to teach me how to dance after seeing my lack of rhythm and coordination in church). The beginning of this week has certainly been filled with its fair share of pleasant, unexpected moments including spontaneously leading devotions at the clinic and sharing my shower with a lizard this morning. I am not sure if I would necessarily consider that last one pleasant, although I would much rather find a lizard than a spider any day. Audrey and I also attempted to cook here for the first time this week we figured we would start simple and prepare one of the packs of instant muffin mix that we brought along with us (the ones where you just add water and bake). Unfortunately after an unsuccessful two hours went by we gave up and ended up just eating the batter by lantern light in our kitchen. Fortunately a couple of days later we had much more success when we borrowed a friends oven, had some help learning how to light it, and remembered the conversion equations between Fahrenheit and Celsius (never would have thought when we learned those in chemistry that they would actually come in handy some day thank you Dr. Arnett J).  I feel like I have been so blessed by the people we have met here, I am learning so much from them, and not only things like how to light ovens and wash our clothes. They have been a daily reminder to me of God’s greatness. The last day of work this week was more hectic than normal, one of those days where things kind of seem like they are going downhill from the start. Patients seemed to just keep crowding into the waiting room as the day went on and I could feel myself getting frustrated that I couldn’t do more for them, frustrated that people were waiting, frustrated that people were sick, frustrated that everyone at the hospital works so very hard and sometimes it still doesn’t always seems like enough. As I stood there holding a little boy who seemed to be content to sit there and look at me and feel my skin, one of my friends who works in the hospital turned to me and said “Isn’t our God wonderful”. I have to admit it caught me off guard I thought of our surroundings and in the midst of all of it he asked isn’t our God wonderful and it stopped me in my tracks. He had been watching me holding the little boy who was so entertained by the color of my skin, and despite everything else going on around us right then in that moment he was reminded of the awesomeness of God, the creator and sustainer of each and every one of us. It was something so simple and so obvious, the different colors of our skin, but in our uniqueness he saw the hand of our creator, and in it he saw the display of God’s power. I long for a faith like this that sees God in the ordinary, and in the hard places, places other people might not even want to look, like in a crowded hospital waiting room. I want to see God in all these places and to never stop being amazed by Him. I am so grateful for my brothers and sisters in Christ here who every morning remind me “God has given us each a new day aren’t we blessed.”  Psalm 139:1-18, Colossians 3:15-17, Ephesians 1:15-23