Operation World - A Heart for the Nations

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His splendor is above the earth and the heavens! – Psalm 148:13

It's been a while since my last post.  Forgive me.  Since returning from Ghana life has been a little busy!  There was much school work to catch up on . . . and I'm still not done.  But God is awesome and I felt led to forgo work for a few minutes and share some thoughts.

Only this morning God began to speak to me about the importance of mission here.  Many times we think of God working in the "there and then" rather than the "here and now."  Often we think of mission trips planned months in advance as the time when God will use us.  Or we wait for our church to organize something in order for us to share the Gospel and the love of Christ.  What I'm learning is that God moves much more in the here and now if you are open to His leading.  Don't be afraid to share what the Lord has done for you.  A simple story, even a short greeting could change a life forever.  In a sermon I heard this morning the pastor said, "If God has shown you mercy this week, tell someone!"

In addition to serving by living a life worthy of our calling each and every day in order to be witness of the love of God to those around us, we are also called to pray for those around the world.  Over the past couple weeks, and the past couple days in particular, God has really laid the nations on my heart.  I attended a course this past week on the history of missions around the world.  Part of this course involved presentations on the various regions of the world and the work of local missions within them. 

Some quick facts on missions around the world:  1/3 of the global population (2 billion people) are professing Christians, 1/3 (or 2 billion people) are non-Christians who have heard the Gospel, and 1/3 (2 billion people) are non-Christians who have never heard the Good News of Jesus!  When I heard these numbers I was astounded.  Here's more:  there are approximately 495,000 missionaries in the world.  Of those, approximately 2-3% of them are serving with un-reached people groups.

As I sat listening to all that God is doing and all that is still to be done, God led me to a book called Operation World.[1]  This book is incredible!  It includes information on every country in the world and then shares answered prayers and points for continued prayer.  While discussing these nations in class God put it on my heart to move through this book country by country and pray for them. 

The first country I'm focusing on is Afghanistan.  Let me share a few facts I've learned recently: 

• 46% of the population is under 15 years old
• Life expectancy is 43.6 years
• There is limited freedom to practice religions other than Wahhabist Islam and there appears to be "no freedom to propagate another faith or to covert from Islam."
• It is considered "the world's most dangerous place for a child to be born" due to high infant and maternal mortality rates.
• 78% do not have regular access to clean water.
• A recent BBC article indicated that this past May was the deadliest month for Afghanistan with almost 400 civilians killed in conflict-related incidents.

This is only a small portion of the information I've learned since reading about this country in Operation World.  Please join me in praying for genuine freedom, an improved quality of life, and a move of the Spirit within the Afghan people.  I don't just want to share the "down" stuff, but also want to share that compared to only a few decades ago when barely a couple dozen Christians could be found in the entire country, there are now a couple hundred believers!  God is already moving among the people, let us pray for those who are taking the Message to them and for the Christians there who are facing persecution as they attempt to spread the Gospel of Christ.

Our God is a God of the nations.  He loves every man, woman, and child on this earth no matter their ethnicity, nationality, income, health status, etc.  We, therefore, should share God's heart for the nations and pray for them.  Please join me in praying and believing for God to bring a great revival among the people of the world.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! – Psalm 150:6

---

[1] Mandryk, Jason. Operation World. 7^th ed. Colorado Springs, CO:  Biblica Publishing (2010).

Whatever my lot . . .

As I very slowly begin to process the events of my time in Ghana, West Africa, I feel led to share some of those revelations with you.  First of all, this experience has been such a humbling learning experience for me.  The people on my team were so incredibly anointed and used by God.  I learned so very much from each of them and am looking forward to another opportunity to use what I've learned and learn even more. 

Here are a few things I've taken note of since being back:

During our decent into Norfolk I suddenly thought of the idea of being able to brush my teeth using water from a faucet.  It may seem silly, but this brought tears to my eyes!  I still can't explain it entirely, but the idea that I can have confidence that the water I get from my house is clean and pure enough for me to swallow is a blessing.

The first night I was home, I had a difficult time falling asleep because it was too quiet.  There was no music outside my window, no goats, no chickens.  I just laid there thinking how blessed I was to have a bed, a roof, air conditioning, a blanket, and so many other things that we might consider minor.  I thought of the people I met over the two weeks who slept on concrete sidewalks next to their vending booths or in mud huts surrounded by mosquitoes.

When I got in my car to drive somewhere on Friday I was amazed at how smooth and quiet it was!  I didn't hit a single pot hole, didn't have to slow down halfway through acceleration to shift gears, and it was quiet.

During church services on Sunday, God spoke to me on several issues, two in particular.  First was the idea that though my body may grow weary, the Lord is my Strength and His Strength never runs out.  I got less sleep over the two weeks I was away than I would normally allow myself to get by with.  And although I was doing so much more physically than I was used, I never felt too tired to help someone or go the extra distance to offer assistance.

Finally, we sang a song during worship that I had heard many times before, but never understood in the way I do now.  One of the lines says, "Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, 'It is well, it is well with my soul . . . '"  In Ghana there is a Twi phrase "Gye Nyame" which means "But God."  Essentially, this phrase is saying no matter what situation I'm in, no matter what is going on, God is there.  He is my Sustainer, my Provider.  All this may be happening, but God!  After seeing the living situations of many of the people we met, I have a new understanding of the phrase "whatever my lot."  And despite what these people endure on a daily basis, they say, "It is well, it is well with my soul."  May we learn how to say this in our lives in the face of whatever the enemy attempts to use to bring us down.

We're Back!

Our flight was supposed to leave Accra on Thursday at 9:40am local time (5:40am EST), but due to a problem with the detection system we took off around 11:30am local time.  Overall the flight was good and we made up an hour in the air, landing at 6:20pm EST.  From there we each left to find our connecting flight.  Mine happened to be in another terminal so there was lots of running around for a while after customs to find the shuttle and get to the next gate.  When we arrived there it seemed like everyone was leaving from the same gate! 

Turns out there was bad weather earlier in the day which delayed a lot of flights.  Although we boarded the plane just before 9pm, we didn't take off until 2am!  After such a long flight before it and being pretty tired I was a little upset at how long we had to wait . . . until I met Betty.  I had purposefully chosen my seat for this flight so I would be near the back in a window seat, but when I boarded the plane someone was sitting there.  She asked if I could trade seats with her so she could sit with her husband.  How could I say no?  This put me a little further up on an aisle.  At that point I had been sitting in a window seat for the past 12 hours so that didn't bother me to much.  In the window seat sat an elderly lady that I later learned was Betty.  She was traveling from Kathmandu, Nepal where she lives.  I asked her how long it took to fly here.  As we counted up all her flights and layovers we discovered that she had been traveling for 40 hours already!  And when we got to Norfolk she still had to take a shuttle to Portsmouth!  This helped me put everything in perspective so that delay in our flight wasn't such a big deal anymore. 

We finally landed in Norfolk at 2:45am, gathered my bags, and headed home.  It's funny the things I've really noticed so far.  As we came in for landing I almost cried at the thought of being able to brush my teeth using water from my sink!  Silly, but it was such a blessing.  My car also seemed to run smoother on the roads after all the bumps and potholes in Ghana and the fact that most cars are stick shift.  And going to sleep was so hard . . . it was quiet!  I'm still not entirely adjusted to where I am.  Sometimes I forget where I was just a couple days ago while other times I have a hard time believing I'm back in the States now. 

Prayer Requests:
- Pray for the members of our team as we re-adjust to time zones and culture while processing all we've seen and done over the past couple weeks.

Praises:
- We made it home!  No one got sick on the trip and God surely met us there!

Village and Youth (Mon/Tues)

Monday morning was supposed to begin with a visit to a local mosque.  Tamale is the Muslim capital of Ghana so there are many mosques throughout the city.  Unfortunately there was a bit of miscommunication and the sheik was not expecting us. He and a local imam came onto the bus to greet us briefly before we continued on to one of the villages. 

At the village we saw where we would be spending the night.  :)  As we walked over to see some of what the women do during the day I acquired several children that attached themselves to my hands!  The women were filling large bowls with dirt and carried them on their heads to a new compound they were building.  Several of my team members joined in to try it, but I couldn't figure out a way to politely wiggle my hands free from the children.  One of my team members saw my dilemma and came over to take the childrens' hands while I tried carrying the pot on my head.  I was too nervous to take my hands away with the bowl full, but was pretty descent at it with the bowl empty!

Next we saw where they were cooking some bread and such.  It was pretty good.  The bread was really thick and almost had the consistency of potatoes.  From there we visited with some of the men of the village who were hanging out at the "butcher's."  We were able to present the Gospel to these men and then Dayna and I worked with the children.  We shared our testimonies and prayed with the kids before singing several songs with them . . . including teaching them the YMCA! ;)

We left the village for a while and went for lunch at the pastor's house.  There was another event scheduled for us at the church that night so we were able to rest at the pastor's house for a while.  The event that night was with the youth.  It was so great!  Several members of our team shared testimonies and then we heard some from of the youth.  We were quickly carted off along with some of the youth from the church to the village.  After setting up mosquito nets and mats, we attended a traditional ceremony of dancing in our honor.  Several members of our team, including myself, joined in the dancing! 

Afterward we were able to share the Gospel and pray with many of the people for healing.  Although there were several people we prayed for, one little girl sticks out in my memory.  She was maybe four years old and had a horrible fever.  As I held her in my arms I began to sweat from the heat coming off of her.  It was difficult to hear her raspy breathing and see the weakness in her.  We prayed earnestly for God to heal her and are believing for a full turnaround from whatever sickness she is suffering. 

Then it was time for sleep!  I was so tired, the hard floors didn't bother me that much.  I think what shocked me more than anything else was that although I was sleeping on the floor under a mosquito net in a village, I was also sleeping in a room with an electric light and fan and next to a tv and awesome stereo system!  Not every village is fortunate enough to have these luxuries, but it was quite a surprise for us.  Oh!  And the wake up call of goats who came into the courtyard to see who we were was also rather unexpected.  I was able to get a couple hours of sleep before we got up at 3:30am our time to begin the long journey back to Accra.  Praise the Lord we were able to stop off at the hotel we had stayed at before and take showers.  Then came goodbyes to Pastor Abraham, his wife Anafa, and several of the youth from the church. 

On the way back to Accra we once again stopped in at Nana Yo's house in Kumasi for an amazing lunch!  We arrived in Accra around 7:30pm and have spent the evening resting before enjoying our final day in Ghana tomorrow.

Prayer Requests:
- Continue to pray for everyone who has helped us along the way.  That the Lord would bless them.
- Pray for those we have been able to speak to and pray with while here.

Praises:
- Safe travel back to Accra!

Children, Worship, Goodbyes, and More (Sun)

Today began with two church services.  At the first, King's Christian Ministry, we were only able to stay for praise and worship.  Although we were only there for such a short amount of time, it was truly a blessing.  Worship was incredible!  Just listening and seeing the sincerity on people's faces was so great.  They weren't just standing there or singing words that meant nothing to them.  They sang and danced with all that was in them knowing that their Lord surely does live!  I had wanted to stay for the full service, but before we knew it, it was time to head to the next service. 

At the next service our group was introduced to the congregation before Tanishia and I made our way to the children's class for the rest of service.  When we walked in I was blown away.  The children were worshiping.  When I say worshipping, I don't just meant there were songs being played for them, I mean they had several older children (maybe 13-15 years old) playing drums and singing.  Every child there was singing and dancing along!  I can't wait to put up video!

After this the teacher invited any children who had a special song they wanted to share.  Several children came up to sing and were immediately accompanied by the drums and the voices of their peers.  There was also more dancing!  I wanted to get up to dance, but I had attracted a little girls of maybe three years old who was sitting in my lap.  I tried to resist making her move, but eventually I couldn’t hold back the dancing any longer!  She held my hand the whole time as we danced in the circle with the other young girls.  At this time the teacher began the lesson.  As she was teaching I really felt led to share with the children that Jesus loves them and present the Gospel to them.  When I was done about 30 children came forward to receive Christ!  It was incredible!  My prayer now is that they understood their decision and that it was a true conversion.  Either way it was so awesome to hear this huge group of kids pray to receive Christ in their native language (the teacher was translating for me)!

The festivities weren’t done yet though!  Dr. Clarke arranged to bring in soda and biscuits (cookies) for each child.  Some of the children from the surrounding homes got wind of what was going on and came over to get some.  At first the teacher and other students in the class were keeping this group of about 20 children outside fearing there wouldn’t be enough for the class and these extras.  I stayed by the door, however, and assured everyone that we would have enough.  Eventually they let these children come sit inside and participate with us.  It seemed like such a short time and it was time to leave.

At this point I was exhausted.  We had been up late at the revival the night before, then I had attended both services that morning.  It had already been a long day and we weren’t even halfway through yet!  Lunch was decided upon and we were able to sit and rest in the ac on the bus while waiting for food to be prepared.  When it was done we enjoyed chicken and fried rice, among other dishes, under the shade of a giant tree.

Next came a meeting with the chief of Tamale.  This was a very interesting meeting, but the story comes more before we met with the chief.  There were several young boys outside playing soccer.  Apparently the draw was too much for Dr. Clarke and Kwaun who both ended up playing football (soccer) with the kids.  We got some awesome photos and videos!

Finally, the time came for Angela and Vincent Adkins to leave us.  They were part of the team from a church in NYC who decided to stay longer than the rest of the group.  Having quickly become part of our group is was very hard to see them go.  Their flight left early this morning (Tuesday) so please be praying for travel mercies that they will be returning safely home shortly.

Even with so much having occurred already, our day was still not over.  We were able to get some rest before another program with the revival that night.  Although they had seats set up for us, I just couldn’t seem to stay seated.  After the first song I walked to the back of the meeting where I stayed for the entire event.  I walked the periphery praying constantly for those at the meeting, the speakers, those at the “bar” next door, those within earshot, etc.  I couldn’t possibly type out the amazing things we saw that night.  The Holy Spirit surely showed up in amazing ways.

Another tidbit from the program that night – on three separate occasions I was approached by a toddler with open arms!  It was so amazing.  The first time was when we first got there.  A little boy of about 1.5-2 years came toddling up to me and hugged my legs as I walked to the seats.  Then as I walked to the back of the meeting another little boy approached me in the same way.  It was such an encouragement and just made my heart smile!  J

As I mentioned, there is so much more to tell, but it would be very hard for me to write everything out right now.  I’ll have to write as begin to process things later as well.

Prayer Requests:

-          Travel mercies for Angela and Vincent.

Praises:

-          Praise God for allowing us to take part in the mighty work He is doing in Ghana!

God is so good! (Sat/Sun)

We had our program tonight.  Praise the Lord for He is so good!  The service was held outside on a basketball court.  They set up a stage for the musicians and left a large space open in front of the chairs for the speakers.  We began with worship led by the choir of the church.  Oh my goodness are they anointed!  They were absolutely incredible!  What amazed me most about worship was when the power went out on two separate occasions while they were singing.  They didn't miss a beat!  Power or no power they were praising the Lord!  No scheme of the enemcy can hold us back!  I just thought of home in the US where most churches will cancel all services and events if the power were to go out.  Here we turned our bus on to shine the headlights onto the musicians as they played and continued singing all the louder!  Glory to God!

After worship, where they sang many songs we sing in church back home, the pastor of the church introduced Dr. Clarke who, in turn, introduced the team.  We were each given an opportunity to say our name, where we're from, and offer a brief greeting.  It was so awesome the passion that came out in those greetings!  We were all so pumped from worship.  Following this Patrice gave an incredible testimony.  She shared about the prodigal son and offered some of her own story to show what a loving Savior we have.  Then came my turn. I spoke on forgiveness and how we are called to forgive those who have wronged us just as the Lord has forgiven us (Col. 3:13).  Finally, Dayna brought the word!  Along with sharing some of her testimony she encouraged us to be obedient to the Lord and wait with eager expectation for His return. 

When the altar call was given for anyone who wanted to receive Christ there were two girls that came forward.  I felt like I should go up with Dayna, but didn't want to just go on my own.  About that time Dr. Clarke looked back and told me to go stand with her.  I didn't know who he meant by "her," but it was apparent when I got up there.  Standing next to one of the girls who came forward, she literally fell into my arms.  I stood with her for what felt like eternity just welcoming her as my sister and telling her how beautiful and loved she is in the Lord.  Dayna continued to invite people to the front for prayer, but I stayed with Rebecca for most of that time.  When I was released from being with Rebecca I walked around the periphery of the congregation praying.  Dr. Clarke asked everyone to be seated, but I just couldn't do it.  I ended up talking to a young man at the back of the group named Phillip.  He had just been out for a walk and happened to hear the preaching so he stopped to listen.  God is so awesome.  He told me he has no doubt the Lord led him to that place at that appointed time.

It was so hard to leave everyone.  I was still talking to people and getting information when pastor Abraham (our host) came to tell me the bus was getting ready to leave.  I can't wait to go back tomorrow to see everyone!  It's like family.  There was such a warm environment where I really felt like I was amongst brothers and sisters. 

Praise the Lord for His wonderful deeds!  Father, thank you for allowing me to be a part of the work You are doing here.  May you be praised and glorified in all I do.  May I not return home the same, but with a renewed passion for Your people and those who don't yet know Your Name.  Amen.

Prayer Requests:

- Phillip:  Pray that God would continue to draw him closer as he decided to rededicate his life to Christ tonight.

- Pastor Abraham and his wife, Anafa, as they continue their work here.

- Pray that God would move in even greater ways tomorrow night.  That people would be miraculously healed and set free!

- Vincent and Angela will be traveling back to Accra by bus tomorrow.  Pray for safe travels.

- The team from NYC left this morning.  Pray they returned safely home.

Praises:

- I got to greet a new sister, Rebecca, into the family tonight!  :)

- We safely made it to Tamale and God is already speaking so much to us in this desert place. 

- Our God is awesome!  :D

Lots of Driving and a new city

Hello everyone!  i apologize in advance for the lack of capital letters in this post.  it's killing me to be so grammatically incorrect, but the internet is down at our hotel and i'm writing this from an internet cafe.  the keyboard is different so it's slowing me down to find the shift key!

yesterday consisted of a lot of driving.  we got up, packed a smaller suitcase for the few days we'll be in tamale and boarded the bus.  after a quick stop at the accra mall to get a cooler to keep our drinks nice and cold, we began our journey to tamale.  it was a long, quiet ride.  there really isn't too much to tell.  it took us about 6.5 hours to get to kumasi where we stayed the night.  my good friend Abigail's father offered to host us at his home there once again.  And yet again he prepared a feast for us!  after a huge meal, we had a quick debriefing and then headed to bed, preparing for an early morning.  we were up around 3:30am and on the road by 4.  we didn't actually make it to tamale until about 11am.  it took much longer than we thought it would.  along the way we could see the changes in landscape.  we're much closer to the Sahara desert here so there's not quite as much vegetation and it's much hotter.

tonight we're running a program at king's christian ministry.  it's starts at 6pm tonight and is scheduled to run until 9pm.  in case i don't have internet again for a while here's the schedule for the rest of the weekend/week -
program tonight from 6-9pm

Sunday
- 8-10am church service
- 10am-12pm another church service - i'm working with the kids
- 6-9pm program at the church

monday
- visit to the mosque
- day in a village - i'm working with the children
- evening program with youth 6-9pm
- spending the night in a village

tuesday
- leave early morning back to accra

please pray for the Lord to use us in mighty ways while we are here.  pray for peace and protection for our group as we step into new areas we've never experienced before.

praise the Lord for safe travels thus far.  the roads here can be very dangerous - we saw a huge truck flipped over on the road to tamale today.