Spencer in Ghana

I went to Ghana for 10 days of leadership and education meetings.  It was a great experience.  The opportunity to meet the leaders on our field was great.  The District Superintendents and or Ministry Coordinators were there from Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, and Senegal.  One really cool thing was to meet Matt Price who was our LINKS missionary in Lake City!  Small world, huh?  Well, West Africa is seeing a lot happening and there is really much more on the horizon...  

I thought it might be interesting to share some of my experiences on the trip.  First of all, I thought Senegal was hot... until I went to Ghana.  We would lay down to go to sleep most nights, around 11:00 p.m. and the temp. would still be about 92 in our room with - I'm guessing - about 80% humidity!  Comfy!  Although the cold shower just before bed didn't hurt, when we had water...  I did have my first bucket bath also.  You do kinda get used to sweating all the time after a while.  There were about 20 guys staying at the church.  We had four showers, all cold, and one sink - outside.  We ate a lot of rice and various sauces, all sauces were a little spicy, a welcome change from Senegal!  We ate lunch at a local restaurant several days.  When we walked in the second day and saw bowls of water and soap on the tables, I wondered what it was for.  The second day I saw it, I knew we would be eating with our hands...  So we drank our water from bags and ate with our hands. : -)   

The markets were much like Senegal, however... Ghana is an English speaking country (a surprisingly strange adjustment) so they had many products that we are used to that are unavailable in Senegal.  I was able to bring back some brown sugar, Crystal hot sauce, Tobasco, and even a little Root Beer!  I was able to walk around town one day with Frank Mills, a local pastor from Accra.  We taxied around to find a bank that would accept my check card, stopped at his mother's house and had a "Vita Milk," a very different drink for an American (Soy milk), and walked a few miles around town.  By the end of the trip, I had tried a "Malta Guinness" also.  Again, a very unusual drink.  It tastes like drinking carbonated grape nuts with a corn flake finish.  I'm not kidding!  The funny thing is it was surprisingly refreshing on a hot day.  Well, I could tell things of much more significance, but I thought these experiences might be interesting to others.  If the conditions sound miserable to you, well...  I had a wonderful time.  The only condition I really didn't like is my family wasn't with me!  God is good!  Oh I almost forgot, I was able to attend a Sunday service in English for the first time since we moved here!  God IS good.  Be blessed.  And feel free to join me here up on the Potter's wheel.  Spencer.