Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A Taste of the Town
About half our group is heading out on Friday, so we took yesterday and part of today to actually do a few tourist-y things....
The main event of yesterday was a canopy walk. We took a bus (a very small, very crowded) bus to Cape Coast, which is to the west and takes about 3 - 4 hours to get to. We arrived at Kakum national park for the canopy walk, which proved to be quite exhilirating. The entire tour is about an hour long, about half of which is spent doing the actual canoopy walk (you kind of have to walk through/up a trail first to get there. So, for the canopy walk, envision a bunch of wooden planks strung together from one tree to another, suspended from a rope bridge type contraption which hangs from two steel cables about a hundred feet in the air. yep. It was really awesome. There were about seven of these bridges, which went from one tree to another (with a tree-house-like platform at each) and wrapped around back to the started. Rather freaky, really fun.
We were going to try to take a tour of the old slave castle on Cape Coast as well, but it ended up being too late. We did get to stop there for a few minutes though and just look at the outside. And we were about a hundred feet from the ocean too, so we had some really cool views. (Some of us also may have gotten a bit soaked by one particularly large wave that crashed up against the cliffs... about that....). Then we took the four hour bus ride home, got back nice and late, and went to bed. [By the way the road to Cape Coast was the most annoying thing ever -- like every 1000 feet there are two sections of these things half way between speed bumps and rumble strips, but with all the worst features of each lol. just part of the experience lol.]
Then today we went to Accra mall (which is pretty much just a normal mall) for a few hours. Andrew and I are staying right in the city, so everything we've seen so far has been more of the market place vibe, whereas this was an actual indoor mall. It's about 20 minutes away, so we took a taxi to get there. (Me and Andrew have become quite the city-slickers, experts at bargaining with cab drivers lol. We got there today for 4 cedis, or a little less than 3 dollars.) I got a soccer jersey and a shirt that's of the local style (kind of loud-patterned button-up shirts). That'll probably be the extent of the souvinirs I get for myself lol. We also got some well-earned pizza at the mall lol -- we've been sampling the local fair they whole time we've been here, and experienced our share of interesting meals lol (a combination of yams, rice, or plantains with a peice of meat/fish along with this kind of mix of vegetables and this orange oil is usually the normal building blocks for a meal, give or take. then there's fufu. no comment. and i'm pretty sure I was eating intestines last night... probably better not to know lol.)
So tomorrow our team leader is meeting with the country leader from Ghana to discuss the trip and future plans for this same type of trip. We've done a ton of good so far (more than we realize I think), but of course things can always get better. Then the first half of the group ships out firday morning. That'll be really strange....
But we're really hopeful for some great things to come in the next two weeks for the remainder of the team. We'll be praying that we God lets us really do some wonderful things in this second half of the trip, and we've got a few cool prospects. I'll let you know what we decide for sure (we'll probably get going at the beginning of next week)....
The main event of yesterday was a canopy walk. We took a bus (a very small, very crowded) bus to Cape Coast, which is to the west and takes about 3 - 4 hours to get to. We arrived at Kakum national park for the canopy walk, which proved to be quite exhilirating. The entire tour is about an hour long, about half of which is spent doing the actual canoopy walk (you kind of have to walk through/up a trail first to get there. So, for the canopy walk, envision a bunch of wooden planks strung together from one tree to another, suspended from a rope bridge type contraption which hangs from two steel cables about a hundred feet in the air. yep. It was really awesome. There were about seven of these bridges, which went from one tree to another (with a tree-house-like platform at each) and wrapped around back to the started. Rather freaky, really fun.
We were going to try to take a tour of the old slave castle on Cape Coast as well, but it ended up being too late. We did get to stop there for a few minutes though and just look at the outside. And we were about a hundred feet from the ocean too, so we had some really cool views. (Some of us also may have gotten a bit soaked by one particularly large wave that crashed up against the cliffs... about that....). Then we took the four hour bus ride home, got back nice and late, and went to bed. [By the way the road to Cape Coast was the most annoying thing ever -- like every 1000 feet there are two sections of these things half way between speed bumps and rumble strips, but with all the worst features of each lol. just part of the experience lol.]
Then today we went to Accra mall (which is pretty much just a normal mall) for a few hours. Andrew and I are staying right in the city, so everything we've seen so far has been more of the market place vibe, whereas this was an actual indoor mall. It's about 20 minutes away, so we took a taxi to get there. (Me and Andrew have become quite the city-slickers, experts at bargaining with cab drivers lol. We got there today for 4 cedis, or a little less than 3 dollars.) I got a soccer jersey and a shirt that's of the local style (kind of loud-patterned button-up shirts). That'll probably be the extent of the souvinirs I get for myself lol. We also got some well-earned pizza at the mall lol -- we've been sampling the local fair they whole time we've been here, and experienced our share of interesting meals lol (a combination of yams, rice, or plantains with a peice of meat/fish along with this kind of mix of vegetables and this orange oil is usually the normal building blocks for a meal, give or take. then there's fufu. no comment. and i'm pretty sure I was eating intestines last night... probably better not to know lol.)
So tomorrow our team leader is meeting with the country leader from Ghana to discuss the trip and future plans for this same type of trip. We've done a ton of good so far (more than we realize I think), but of course things can always get better. Then the first half of the group ships out firday morning. That'll be really strange....
But we're really hopeful for some great things to come in the next two weeks for the remainder of the team. We'll be praying that we God lets us really do some wonderful things in this second half of the trip, and we've got a few cool prospects. I'll let you know what we decide for sure (we'll probably get going at the beginning of next week)....
Monday, July 27, 2009
Another Quick Story from Nkum...
In what I believe was the last village my group went out to visit while in Nkum, we saw some really encouraging things.
This village was one of the much bigger ones we had visited, relatively speaking, but less than 100 people or so; and they seemed relatively better off as well. Most of the people in this village we already believers in Christ (as were some of the other people we had encountered, who had been visited in years past). So we just decided to offer them some words of encouragement, or advice, or scripture or whatever came to mind. There were probably about 20 or so people listening intently and it was a great chance to build them up in their faith journey, since they don't often get the chance to hear things of this sort. So we probably spent about a half hour or so with different members of our team (both American and Ghanaian) sharing with them.
I (as well as some others in our group) noticed in particular this one older gentleman who was sitting towards the back of the group that was listening to us. He was frantically, intently, and eagerly taking notes of everything that each speaker was saying, making sure he got the reference for every verse or passage someone mentioned. It was a really neat sight to see.
And it stirred to mind Acts 17: 11, where it speaks of the Bereans being more noble than the Thesselonians because they not only recieved the message eagerly, but checked the Scriptures everyday to see if what Paul was saying was true. And that's exactly what this gentleman was doing on behalf of his village. Here were people who were not just eagerly receptive to whatever came out of our mouths, but they were genuinely interested in looking into it further, in double checking it, in talking about it more, and in taking it to heart. Their eager faith and desire for spiritual growth rooted in the Bible was truly impressive.
[P.S. I'm going to try also to not repeat any of the stories that Andrew is sharing so that you can get a bigger picture of things. He and I are staying with the same family, so we've spent like at least 90% of the trip together. So check out hios blog too for some of our other adventures and sights lol.]
This village was one of the much bigger ones we had visited, relatively speaking, but less than 100 people or so; and they seemed relatively better off as well. Most of the people in this village we already believers in Christ (as were some of the other people we had encountered, who had been visited in years past). So we just decided to offer them some words of encouragement, or advice, or scripture or whatever came to mind. There were probably about 20 or so people listening intently and it was a great chance to build them up in their faith journey, since they don't often get the chance to hear things of this sort. So we probably spent about a half hour or so with different members of our team (both American and Ghanaian) sharing with them.
I (as well as some others in our group) noticed in particular this one older gentleman who was sitting towards the back of the group that was listening to us. He was frantically, intently, and eagerly taking notes of everything that each speaker was saying, making sure he got the reference for every verse or passage someone mentioned. It was a really neat sight to see.
And it stirred to mind Acts 17: 11, where it speaks of the Bereans being more noble than the Thesselonians because they not only recieved the message eagerly, but checked the Scriptures everyday to see if what Paul was saying was true. And that's exactly what this gentleman was doing on behalf of his village. Here were people who were not just eagerly receptive to whatever came out of our mouths, but they were genuinely interested in looking into it further, in double checking it, in talking about it more, and in taking it to heart. Their eager faith and desire for spiritual growth rooted in the Bible was truly impressive.
[P.S. I'm going to try also to not repeat any of the stories that Andrew is sharing so that you can get a bigger picture of things. He and I are staying with the same family, so we've spent like at least 90% of the trip together. So check out hios blog too for some of our other adventures and sights lol.]
Youth Camp Yo
So, we just got back from the youth camp earlier this afternoon (Monday). I'm writing now from some random internet cafe in Accra lol. [Which we got to by way of taxi -- Andrew and I have become quite proficient in our bargaining with the drivers lol.]
The Youth Camp was a really good experience overall. It was made up mostly of people our age -- either in university, just before, or just after. It was interesting to get to see the way they run things: on one side the way they have things set up is very similar to the way they are at the Nav conferences in the US; but at the same time much of the substance/presentation, etc. was very much different. There were some speakers, some Bible studies, some workshops, devotions, singing, games, entertainment, and food. It's funny that the last sentence still perfectly the way things would be at home too, but there's a lot different -- kind of. It's hard to explain some of the subtle distinctions over the computer, but I'll try to at least give a small idea....
Their praise and worship is extremely genuine and really neat to get to see and be a part of. Most of the time when they pray in groups, instead of kind of speaking up one at a time as we usually do in such situations in the US, they just all pray out loud at the same time. It's really cool to hear the room kind of just swell up with the sound of a group of people softly praying out loud all at once. One other slight difference is that they seem to spend a lot more time working straight out of the Bible even in talks and presentations and such. Whereas I'm used to speakers interspersing stories, comments, ruminations, etc., they for the most part just jump from scripture to scripture. It can be good, but personally it was a bit exhausting the first day, with me being used to more of a variety of style. Friday morning I was literally reading the Bible for like 6 or 7 hours stright. The Ghanains like to go straight to the Truth....
Again, it's kind of hard to explain the diffences not in person, but it really was a great experience overall and the stuff they're doing at the camp really was awesome.
One thing that was a bit different from our very few expectations was just how thriving the Ghana Navs ministry is. I (and most others on the team) had gotten the impression that Navs here could really use our help and we would kind of have some leadership role in the camp. But we ended up being participants just like everyone else present for the most part. It's kind of cool to just be able to jump in with another strong community of believers and just be able to live alongside them. While some of our methods of practices may be subtly different, we're all working to know Christ and make him known; it really does feel like one big Christian family (-- again, the fact that the Ghanaians are so incredibly welcoming and friendly plays a big part in this).
Some of the same people whom we went to Nkum with for the missions trip were at the camp (as both officials and participants), so it was also really great to know them going into it and to get to spend some more time with them. We also got to share with the other pepole at the camp (about 80) what went on in Nkum for a brief while on Sunday night. I shared some thoughts and two quick stories, the one about giving the woman and her son a New Testament, and one about this one older gentleman in one of the bigger villages [see next entry....].
The Youth Camp was a really good experience overall. It was made up mostly of people our age -- either in university, just before, or just after. It was interesting to get to see the way they run things: on one side the way they have things set up is very similar to the way they are at the Nav conferences in the US; but at the same time much of the substance/presentation, etc. was very much different. There were some speakers, some Bible studies, some workshops, devotions, singing, games, entertainment, and food. It's funny that the last sentence still perfectly the way things would be at home too, but there's a lot different -- kind of. It's hard to explain some of the subtle distinctions over the computer, but I'll try to at least give a small idea....
Their praise and worship is extremely genuine and really neat to get to see and be a part of. Most of the time when they pray in groups, instead of kind of speaking up one at a time as we usually do in such situations in the US, they just all pray out loud at the same time. It's really cool to hear the room kind of just swell up with the sound of a group of people softly praying out loud all at once. One other slight difference is that they seem to spend a lot more time working straight out of the Bible even in talks and presentations and such. Whereas I'm used to speakers interspersing stories, comments, ruminations, etc., they for the most part just jump from scripture to scripture. It can be good, but personally it was a bit exhausting the first day, with me being used to more of a variety of style. Friday morning I was literally reading the Bible for like 6 or 7 hours stright. The Ghanains like to go straight to the Truth....
Again, it's kind of hard to explain the diffences not in person, but it really was a great experience overall and the stuff they're doing at the camp really was awesome.
One thing that was a bit different from our very few expectations was just how thriving the Ghana Navs ministry is. I (and most others on the team) had gotten the impression that Navs here could really use our help and we would kind of have some leadership role in the camp. But we ended up being participants just like everyone else present for the most part. It's kind of cool to just be able to jump in with another strong community of believers and just be able to live alongside them. While some of our methods of practices may be subtly different, we're all working to know Christ and make him known; it really does feel like one big Christian family (-- again, the fact that the Ghanaians are so incredibly welcoming and friendly plays a big part in this).
Some of the same people whom we went to Nkum with for the missions trip were at the camp (as both officials and participants), so it was also really great to know them going into it and to get to spend some more time with them. We also got to share with the other pepole at the camp (about 80) what went on in Nkum for a brief while on Sunday night. I shared some thoughts and two quick stories, the one about giving the woman and her son a New Testament, and one about this one older gentleman in one of the bigger villages [see next entry....].
Tomorrow we're going to take a day trip with our team and some Ghana Navs friends to Cape Coast to see the old slave castle and to walk some canopy bridge [?] or something of that sort lol. After that, the about half of our team will be leaving on Friday -- which is really had to beleive. I guess the trip is somewhere right around halfway through as of today. So the big parts of the missions work is over now (the Nkum mission and the Youth Camp) and we'll have to see exactly what the rest of us end up doing in the last two weeks.... We're thinking of maybe trying to help out at an orphanage in or around Accra... we'll see....
God bless from Ghana!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
It's Ghana Be Great!
Check out Andrew's blog too: ghanabegreat.blogspot.com
Hopefully between the two of us you can get a better idea of what's going on lol.
Hopefully between the two of us you can get a better idea of what's going on lol.
In the past week I have...
- bathed using just a big bucket and a small bucket
- equaled or exceded my drug intake for the entire year to date
- been (kind of) lost in the city at night
- been (kind of) lost in the jungle at night
- seen a goat dragged on its face
- slept under a table
- used my pants as a pillow
- been a player in a football match that drew almost the entirety of the village to spectate
- been to the beach(/garbage dump)
- washed my own laundry -- by hand
- seen 2 white people who weren't with us
- seen the truth behind the wisdom Auntie Linda (an American missionary who's been with Navs in Ghana for a while) offered us: "You can't out-serve a Ghanaian"
Nkum!
Wow. Wow. Wow.
So we just got back yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) from a mission in and around a village called Nkum, located a bit outside the city of Swedru. The whole experience was truly remarkable and definitely outside of anything I've seen or taken part in before. Again, all 12 of us from the US were there, along with another 15 or so Ghana Navs. This was the mission trip of the mission trip, to give some context.
We arrived in Nkum after dark (the sun sets around 5:45 this time of year) on Thursday, after a long [cramped, hot], but still enjoyable, bus ride there. We were all staying at the house [ "house" ] of this one family. The part we stayed in was one big room, which was kind of where we hung out anytime we were inside (which wasn't all that often lol); there were a few small rooms attached, each with a few beds. The girls all slept in one room and a few guys in the other, but most of us just slept on the floor in the main room, moving a few pieces of furniture to the sides to lay down some sleeping pads. The first day we basically just settled in and then went to bed.
The second day, similarly to the remainder, started nice and early -- around 6:30 or so (which I of course loved -- factor in the time difference and that's when I'm usually going to bed lol). We were quite the spectacle in village. All the children flocked toward where we were staying, and I (and some others) spent the majority of the morning playing with them -- tons of fun.
Then around noon we set out to do what was to be the heart of our work, going around to talk to different outlying villages about the Gospel. It was really incredible. You talk about the hypothetical village in the African jungle where the inhabitants have never heard of Jesus, but it's just an idea -- I never thought I'd get to see such a thing myself. We split up into two groups, around a dozen each, a mix of Ghanaians and Americans, and headed out into the bush with our respective guides and translators. Most of the villages we went to had less than ten people with the exception of a few; between the two groups we visited around almost 30 villages. Most of these people knew very little about Jesus, if anything (I'd say the average response was that they recognized the name, and then that was about it...). We would simply tell them we wanted to talk with them about Jesus and then briefly and simply explain the Gospel along with any other relevant scripture or comments that came to anyone's mind. Virtually everyone was very receptive to what we had to say, and many came to accept Christ. Really amazing to be a part of. I also talked with children in some of the villages (which was usually just a small handfull at a time). And some of these people had been visited the past year and accepted Christ, so we just offered words of encouragement and prayed with them as with the others.
Saturday went much the same as Friday. One really cool experience I had was in one village -- which was really just one family -- where they had just heard the gospel for the first time and subsequently accepted Christ into lives. We had actually already just left the village, and I was probably about 100 yards into the path (behind most of the team) when one guy on our team who had been saying goodbye and whatnot came running up behind me to catch up. He told me how he had been talking to the woman and her son and how they wished they could have a Bible to be able to read (but we hadn't brought any along because we didn't have a ton with us and most of the people we're visiting aren't literate -- at least in English). But I had an extra New Testament in my bag, so I was able to run back and give it to the woman. It was a great feeling. You hear people say it's often better to give than to receive, but when it's a gift like that, the feeling's even more intense -- talk about the gift that keeps on giving. Plus this New Testament happended to be the one that Navs had given out at the beginning of the year, and it was really cool to think that it had made it from welcome week in Cincinnati to a tiny village in the Ghanaian forrest that had never seen a Bible before.
Sunday we also went to a (very interesting) (and long) church service, and talked to people in town later that night. And Monday we spent kind of just hanging out and then held a crusade at some other larger village that night (think "revival" type thing -- but on dirt soccer field instead of under a tent lol). Then we packed up and headed back to Accra on Tuesday.
There's a lot more to say, but I've got to go. One other thing that really hit me was then real poverty of Nkum -- suffice it to say our house with our host family in Accra now seems like a luxury suite. We also got to know a lot of the Ghana Navs really well, which was great.
We head to the Youth camp tomorrow, which should be great (kind of a retreat/conference for high school/college students). I probably won't be able to write again til after that (it ends Monday morning).
Everything's still extremely well. And I thanks everyone again for their prayers for us and continue to request them as well. Thanks a ton. Till next time.
In Christ,
Matt
So we just got back yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) from a mission in and around a village called Nkum, located a bit outside the city of Swedru. The whole experience was truly remarkable and definitely outside of anything I've seen or taken part in before. Again, all 12 of us from the US were there, along with another 15 or so Ghana Navs. This was the mission trip of the mission trip, to give some context.
We arrived in Nkum after dark (the sun sets around 5:45 this time of year) on Thursday, after a long [cramped, hot], but still enjoyable, bus ride there. We were all staying at the house [ "house" ] of this one family. The part we stayed in was one big room, which was kind of where we hung out anytime we were inside (which wasn't all that often lol); there were a few small rooms attached, each with a few beds. The girls all slept in one room and a few guys in the other, but most of us just slept on the floor in the main room, moving a few pieces of furniture to the sides to lay down some sleeping pads. The first day we basically just settled in and then went to bed.
The second day, similarly to the remainder, started nice and early -- around 6:30 or so (which I of course loved -- factor in the time difference and that's when I'm usually going to bed lol). We were quite the spectacle in village. All the children flocked toward where we were staying, and I (and some others) spent the majority of the morning playing with them -- tons of fun.
Then around noon we set out to do what was to be the heart of our work, going around to talk to different outlying villages about the Gospel. It was really incredible. You talk about the hypothetical village in the African jungle where the inhabitants have never heard of Jesus, but it's just an idea -- I never thought I'd get to see such a thing myself. We split up into two groups, around a dozen each, a mix of Ghanaians and Americans, and headed out into the bush with our respective guides and translators. Most of the villages we went to had less than ten people with the exception of a few; between the two groups we visited around almost 30 villages. Most of these people knew very little about Jesus, if anything (I'd say the average response was that they recognized the name, and then that was about it...). We would simply tell them we wanted to talk with them about Jesus and then briefly and simply explain the Gospel along with any other relevant scripture or comments that came to anyone's mind. Virtually everyone was very receptive to what we had to say, and many came to accept Christ. Really amazing to be a part of. I also talked with children in some of the villages (which was usually just a small handfull at a time). And some of these people had been visited the past year and accepted Christ, so we just offered words of encouragement and prayed with them as with the others.
Saturday went much the same as Friday. One really cool experience I had was in one village -- which was really just one family -- where they had just heard the gospel for the first time and subsequently accepted Christ into lives. We had actually already just left the village, and I was probably about 100 yards into the path (behind most of the team) when one guy on our team who had been saying goodbye and whatnot came running up behind me to catch up. He told me how he had been talking to the woman and her son and how they wished they could have a Bible to be able to read (but we hadn't brought any along because we didn't have a ton with us and most of the people we're visiting aren't literate -- at least in English). But I had an extra New Testament in my bag, so I was able to run back and give it to the woman. It was a great feeling. You hear people say it's often better to give than to receive, but when it's a gift like that, the feeling's even more intense -- talk about the gift that keeps on giving. Plus this New Testament happended to be the one that Navs had given out at the beginning of the year, and it was really cool to think that it had made it from welcome week in Cincinnati to a tiny village in the Ghanaian forrest that had never seen a Bible before.
Sunday we also went to a (very interesting) (and long) church service, and talked to people in town later that night. And Monday we spent kind of just hanging out and then held a crusade at some other larger village that night (think "revival" type thing -- but on dirt soccer field instead of under a tent lol). Then we packed up and headed back to Accra on Tuesday.
There's a lot more to say, but I've got to go. One other thing that really hit me was then real poverty of Nkum -- suffice it to say our house with our host family in Accra now seems like a luxury suite. We also got to know a lot of the Ghana Navs really well, which was great.
We head to the Youth camp tomorrow, which should be great (kind of a retreat/conference for high school/college students). I probably won't be able to write again til after that (it ends Monday morning).
Everything's still extremely well. And I thanks everyone again for their prayers for us and continue to request them as well. Thanks a ton. Till next time.
In Christ,
Matt
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
I'm in Ghana!
Alrighty. This is going to have to be a quick one, sorry..... I'm writing from the Navs office in downtown Accra. We just finished with an orientation type deal and we're about to head back to or house which is about a 10 minute car ride away.
So, just to be clear lol, I've arrived safely! The flight wasn't bad at all. I went from Hopkins to JFK, leaving Cleveland at like noon and arriving in New York a little after one. I was greated at the airport by Mike, our team leader who is on staff with Navs out in Eugene, Oregon, and about four others. (Our team has 12 people total, 5 from UC.) I had a couple hours to get to know them before our second flight, straight to Accra, leaving at 5:30 (and all the planes were right on time too!).
So we arrived in Accra after an 11 hour flight and were greated by a number of our Ghanaian hosts, including Richard who was holding a sign for Andrew [Jarrel] and Matthew. Everyone is incredibly friendly and welcoming. Andrew and I are staying with Richard and his wife Georgina (and their 3-month-old baby daughter, Rinna [!] ).
We leave tomorrow for a village called Swedru, where we'll be ministering for four days (definitely no internet out there!). Prayers for the we do here would be great. I'll be working with children there mainly.... And about 30 of us are going, 12 from the US and 15-ish from Ghana Navs.
Everything is great so far! I'm fine and well and having a blast. I'll write again as soon as I can.
Peace,
Matt
So, just to be clear lol, I've arrived safely! The flight wasn't bad at all. I went from Hopkins to JFK, leaving Cleveland at like noon and arriving in New York a little after one. I was greated at the airport by Mike, our team leader who is on staff with Navs out in Eugene, Oregon, and about four others. (Our team has 12 people total, 5 from UC.) I had a couple hours to get to know them before our second flight, straight to Accra, leaving at 5:30 (and all the planes were right on time too!).
So we arrived in Accra after an 11 hour flight and were greated by a number of our Ghanaian hosts, including Richard who was holding a sign for Andrew [Jarrel] and Matthew. Everyone is incredibly friendly and welcoming. Andrew and I are staying with Richard and his wife Georgina (and their 3-month-old baby daughter, Rinna [!] ).
We leave tomorrow for a village called Swedru, where we'll be ministering for four days (definitely no internet out there!). Prayers for the we do here would be great. I'll be working with children there mainly.... And about 30 of us are going, 12 from the US and 15-ish from Ghana Navs.
Everything is great so far! I'm fine and well and having a blast. I'll write again as soon as I can.
Peace,
Matt
Friday, July 3, 2009
Here We Go...
Hey Everybody!
So it's been a while since I've written (sorry to anyone who's been paying attention so far lol), but things are finally starting to happen, and they're only going to start happening faster....
But first of all, I'd just like to thank everyone for all the support I've received so far: prayers, donations, words of encouragement and the like have all meant a great deal to me and I'm glad that you could all be a part of this experience. [And by the way, thanks to your generous help, the fundraising has gone really well: I've raised more than enough to cover the $1841 plane ticket (!), by far the biggest expense of the trip. So we'll see as we go just exactly how the other expenses pan out.]
There's just over a week now until I depart and I'm finally starting to get excited. The idea has obviously excited me for a long time, and I've felt a strong calling to do this all along. But I'm the kind of person who's passionate about where he is at the moment, and organizing and participating in things first at school and now at home have kept me more than busy. But the trip is finally looming into sight and the more I think about it the more excited I get.
I got all my shots and medications just the other day. Vaccines for Polio, Typhoid, and Yellow Fever, and prescriptions for Malaria (that one was quite a headache to get sorted out and filled lol) and, of course, traveler's diarrhea. woohoo [in sarcastic monotone].
Like I said, I should start to have plenty to write about soon enough, and I'll continue to do so as much as I can.
Continued prayers would be much appreciated, not just for me but more importantly for the people I'll be serving, whoever they may be, that they're minds and hearts can be open to the love of Christ as we begin our work with them.
Goodbye for now! (And Happy Fourth of July!)
So it's been a while since I've written (sorry to anyone who's been paying attention so far lol), but things are finally starting to happen, and they're only going to start happening faster....
But first of all, I'd just like to thank everyone for all the support I've received so far: prayers, donations, words of encouragement and the like have all meant a great deal to me and I'm glad that you could all be a part of this experience. [And by the way, thanks to your generous help, the fundraising has gone really well: I've raised more than enough to cover the $1841 plane ticket (!), by far the biggest expense of the trip. So we'll see as we go just exactly how the other expenses pan out.]
There's just over a week now until I depart and I'm finally starting to get excited. The idea has obviously excited me for a long time, and I've felt a strong calling to do this all along. But I'm the kind of person who's passionate about where he is at the moment, and organizing and participating in things first at school and now at home have kept me more than busy. But the trip is finally looming into sight and the more I think about it the more excited I get.
I got all my shots and medications just the other day. Vaccines for Polio, Typhoid, and Yellow Fever, and prescriptions for Malaria (that one was quite a headache to get sorted out and filled lol) and, of course, traveler's diarrhea. woohoo [in sarcastic monotone].
Like I said, I should start to have plenty to write about soon enough, and I'll continue to do so as much as I can.
Continued prayers would be much appreciated, not just for me but more importantly for the people I'll be serving, whoever they may be, that they're minds and hearts can be open to the love of Christ as we begin our work with them.
Goodbye for now! (And Happy Fourth of July!)
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