My Mail

One thing we missionaries love is to get mail!
Here in Ghana, there are no mailboxes at people's houses. In fact, for most Ghanaians, they will never receive one piece of mail in their entire lifetime! Since the majority of the people here are illiterate, there is no junk mail, no bills (sent through the mail), and no personal correspondence.
Compared to the average man's normal income, a single stamp costs 25% of a day's wages! To put it in perspective, that means that if you were working 40 hours a week at $6.50/hr., you would be paying $13.00 for every stamp! I know postage is getting expensive in the States, but I'm pretty sure it's not that bad yet!
We receive our mail in a post office box. Once a week, on our way to town to do all our shopping, we check our mail. It is always exciting to get a letter or card or even a customs declaration telling us to go pick up a package at the main post office downtown.
Truth be told, many missionaries we know have lots of problems with their post offices in their respective countries -- extremely slow processing, lost packages, stolen articles, etc. We've found, though, that most of the probems we have with our mail have to do with the people who prepare our mail to come to Ghana. Sometimes, the people writing us mislabel our mail, like the time somebody sent a letter to us in Ghana, South Africa. (That may not seem too confusing to you, unless you know that Ghana and South Africa our both countries -- like sending a letter to someone in America, Canada.) Sometimes, the postal workers get confused, and label our mail for another similar sounding country, like Guyana (in South America) or Guinea (in Africa). And sometimes.........well, I guess this one just has to be chalked up to computer error........

Can you read that stamp......MISSENT TO THAILAND....????????
Your guess is as good as mine!

Baptism Pics

Well, we finally had our baptism service! We had planned on having it February 8th, but the water company did not do their job. Since the school building we meet in does not have running water, we planned to hook up a hose at a near by house and run water from there to the reserve tank we were planning on using for baptism. But....the water didn't flow.........for an entire week. So, we replanned the baptism service for last Sunday, February 15th. We were certain the water would flow this time, but once again were foiled by the water company! The water ran for about an hour on Friday night...not nearly enough time to fill the reservoir. So, John spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening and then Sunday morning looking for a Plan B! Praise the Lord, we found one! We had been told there was a river in the area, but couldn't find it. Early Sunday morning, John want hunting for the river and was finally able to find it. After the Sunday morning services, we all got in a tro-tro (type of minivan used as public transportation) and headed out to the river.
Inusah was the first to get baptized. For those of you who don't know him, he is a young Muslim man that accepted Christ about six months ago. Since then he's really struggled with fully identifying with Christ - afraid of repurcussions, afraid of his family, afraid of his imam, afraid of his friends. Praise the Lord, he finally decided for Christ! He was the first one into the water, ready, willing to show the world that He had turned his back on Islam and accepted Jesus as God!


The second person to be baptized was Mabel. She has never been in water higher than her knee in her entire life, including a bathtub! She was scared to death! When John bent her down and her back hit the water, she got scared and opened her mouth and let go of her nose. Let's just say, she took in some water, but she was fine! A little embarrassed, but fine! Her one-year old daughter was screaming, but she just laughed about the whole thing!


The last person to be baptized was Joe. He's a young teenager who has grown very faithful to our services and activities. It's a blessing to see him in his place every Sunday and faithfully bringing his friends.

My Friend

Today I wanted to write about my friend, Gifty.
As a new missionary in Ghana, one of the things I really wanted right away was a friend. Since the missionaries we were planning on working with left after just a month, I assumed my new friend would be a Ghanaian. I guess I didn't really think about the language or culture barrier being a problem. But..........it was. I couldn't communicate with any of the older ladies, and there were very few ladies my age in the church we were helping in. Soon we began holding a Bible study at the University. I just knew I would make some friends there. But, I was wrong again. Many of them were very friendly, but they all had there own lives - school, studies, dating, etc.
At that point I just figured that maybe I was meant to be friendless for a while. In God's sovereignty, He knew that a close friendship with a lady my age wouldn't have been the best thing for me at that time. He knew that I needed to deal with the language and culture shock first. He knew that these things would draw me closer to Him, to my husband, and to my daughter. He knew what was best!
After a while, I quit thinking about having a friend. It's not that I didn't want one, it's just that it became secondary to all the other things I needed to think about. And then, one day, God gave me that friend! A young lady from the University came to our house after church for some counsel about a boy she was dating. We had talked a few times at the Bible study on campus, and she seemed pretty nice. As John and I were finishing talking to her she asked who I went visiting with. I told her that it was something we had been praying about for a while, but that I just went with John since there were no ladies for me to visit with from the church. She simply said, "Could I go visiting with you?", but that was the answer to several years of prayer by several people!
Since that day, Gifty has become a good friend! She has helped me understand so many more things - about the culture, about what it is like to be a native Christian, about what it means to have a cross-cultural friendship, about the language. The list could go on and on!
I sum it all up now with a request that you pray for my friend, Gifty. She has recently gone through some very difficult things. Please pray that God will give her the grace she needs to deal with what she has been through and that she will come through this trial as a stronger Christian. Pray that God will give John and I wisdom as we try to encourage her through this valley. And lastly, pray that God will use our friendship to see more souls brought to Him!

My Church

My church doesn't have a name yet. My church meets in a rented school building. My church doesn't have lots of programs or groups. But....we are still a church! We are a church, because a small group of believers is joining together regularly to worship God, learn more about His Word, and tell others about His saving grace! And now, we're adding observing the ordinances. (For those of you who went to Crown, I'm sure you'll notice a familiar definition!) This Sunday will be our first baptismal service.
Please pray that everything comes together for the service -- that the water will flow so that the reservoir we are using will fill, that the people who are planning on being baptized will follow through with this important step of obedience, and that those who are unsaved or saved but not baptized will learn from this special day.
Here are a few pics of the building and area where we meet, some of our past services, and our most recent youth activity.

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