Would You Mind Taking a Quick Survey?

The past few days have ended up going extremely well. There was some initial doubt about what exactly we'd get to do after the first half of our team left, but we were trusting God to come through for us and give us some opportunities and He certainly has. We met on Monday to just get together as a team and spend some time praying as well, and to try and see what we'd concretely be doing for the next few days. We ended up deciding that we were definitely going to try and do something with the Freshmen at the university, since they would be registering/starting to move in this week.

So both the remaining Americans and some of the Ghana Navs met at the university (U of Ghana, at Legon) on Tuesday to discuss how exactly we wanted to go about this. Some of the other guys from the U.S. offerred an approach that they usually use to help get new people involved at the beginning of each year: they simply make up quick Navs-related surveys and basically just going around asking people if this would mind filling out the survey. It's really short, starting with real basic stuff like what are you studying, where do you live, etc., and broad questions like "Do you believe in God?; the Bible?; Have you heard of Jesus?; Who is he?" Stuff like that more or less. And a few questions asking if they'd be interested in joining a Christian group (like Navs), joining a Bible study, or meeting one-on-one with someone. Basically just if they'd like to talk about this kind of stuff more. And if they do want to hear more or start coming to some Navs stuff then there's a space at the bottom for them to put down their name and contact info, and then people can follow up with them.

So we decided to try something of that sort and made up our own quick survey. Of course, the way the we went about things was a bit different than it would have been in America too. For example, a question asking a Ghanaian if they believe in God is beyond superfluous; that's just a given. And people in Ghana are, in general, much more hospitable than in the U.S. Pretty much anyone you try to start a conversation with will take the time to talk to you (where from what the other guys were saying, in the U.S. people just keep right on walking by you 95% of the time). So the plan was basically just to strike up a conversation, help them with anything they may need (they are Freshmen after all lol), ask them to fill out the survey real quick, and just tell them a bit about Navigators along the way.

We went to the university both on Wednessday and Friday (today) to do this, and it went extremely well. We split up into groups of like two or three people and went to the various halls where the Freshmen were registering and whatnot. Almost everyone was very receptive to us
and a good number were definitely genuiniely interested in getting involved with Navs. Between the two days we got back something like 160 surveys. Pretty ridiculous. Especially considering that Navs at the university is currently around like 50 people. And I would roughly estimate that about half the people would legitimately like to get involved with Navs (which is really a phenomenal percentage for that kind of thing). The whole survey thing was new to me as well (at UC Navs does stuff like helping freshmen move in and giving out water at the beginning of the year), and I think each group went about things a little differently lol, but it worked out really really well overall.

It's actually a really exciting thing to see Navs at the University of Ghana poised for that much growth. I'd say they're looking at at least a 100% increase in the mere size of their group alone. It's really cool to see what God is doing at the University of Ghana, and even more awesome to have gotten to play part in it. I'll be anxious to see where things go for them, and any prayers sent in their direction would definitely be great as well.

(And by the way, we got to beach it up on Thursday again -- at LA beach lol. We went with some of the Ghana Navs this time, so it was a great chance just to get to hang out with them some more and have some fun. And we got to ride the tro-tro there too, the Ghanaian mode of public transportation; it's one of those like big 15 passenger van-type things -- except with like 20 in them, of course. Oh, Ghana. lol.)