The Jackson Journey

Laundry Day

2012-02-09T14:48:00.004Z

Mary Kay writes…

I am working at home today – an unusual occurrence in and of itself. And since I am home, I am getting some housework done as well – even rarer! Hell might actually be freezing over at this very moment. I have scrubbed the bathrooms and hung out a couple of loads of laundry to dry.

As I hung out the laundry, I was overwhelmed by memories. I remember as a very small child “helping” my mom hang out the laundry in our back yard. I would hand her clothespins out of her apron pocket. I think she only wore the apron to hang out the laundry – and to hold the clothespins. I loved to run through the damp clothes, feeling the cool damp cotton against my arms, especially on a hot, sunny Houston summer day. While I am sure my mom was thrilled, it was a bittersweet day when we got a dryer.

Sheets flapping in the breeze remind me of my Grandmother Queenie’s house. Myrtle, her housekeeper, would hang them out to dry, then iron them flat even after they got a dryer. The cotton sheets always seemed so crisp and fresh. Who needed “spring breeze” scented laundry soap then – we had the real thing.

Today I also washed and hung out my hotpads – all hand-crocheted by my mother. She rarely has idle hands, preferring to always be working on the latest project. She learned to crochet and to make the hotpads from my Great-Grandmother, so it is a family tradition of sorts. Some of my hotpads (the maroon and navy ones) are almost antique now – made as shower gifts when Charlie and I got married 25 years ago. The primary colored ones were made before we left for Ghana – to match the dishes I was bringing here.

While I am far from home, today I feel like I have been hugged – by my Mom, my Grandmother and the great-grandmother I never knew. Who knew that housework could be so rewarding?

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies…She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed. (Proverbs 31:10, 13, 27-28, NIV)

Ashesi African Studies

2012-01-27T06:11:00.002Z

Charlie writes,

I sat in on two classes yesterday at Ashesi where fellow faculty discussed African issues. In the first, Lloyd Amoah, introducing Leadership 3, had the students read and react to two essays written by a Kenyan and a Ghanaian on the state of political leadership in their countries. The other, Mikelle Antoine, supervised the African side of a bi-coastal conversation (Ashesi and Swarthmore) on the reactions college students studying the diaspora had to a troubling image of an African wrapped in a European Union flag, standing, head cocked, next to a smashed bicycle in a desert landscape.

What do you make of it? What do you think the photographer was trying to say?

December 2011 Newsletter Released

2011-12-21T11:23:00.001Z

Mary Kay writes:

After several late nights at the computer, our next newsletter is finished and will be going out via e-mail, or you can read it at the last link.

GE, meet Ashesi. Ashesi, meet GE.

2011-12-14T21:03:00.000Z

Charlie writes:

On Tuesday, December 13, Ashesi celebrated a new partnership. The General Electric company, a world-wide conglomerate with 300,000 employees, arrived with three managers and three recent Ashesi alumni who have worked at the company for less than two years, to kick-off the relationship (there are only 24 GE employees in Ghana).

Mr. Abu Sulemana is GE's new Africa CIO. Abu, a tall, poised, and handsome gentleman, was raised in Ghana, educated at KNUST (first class in Civil Engineering), later earning an MBA in the UK. Moving to the US, he worked with Amersham Health, which was acquired by GE in 2004. Mr Sulemana had just moved from Princeton, New Jersey the night before, planning to live and work out of Accra. He offered to teach on project management at Ashesi, claiming he had some wonderful stories about IT projects around the world he had managed.

Mr Patrick Awuah, founder and president of Ashesi University College had spoken at a GE training event near Washington, DC, triggering Mr. Sulemana's interest in the college. Some visits later, GE's HR organization determined that Ashesi met the criteria for becoming an "Executive School," a list that includes over 45 US colleges the likes of Boston College, Boston University, Bucknell University, Clarkson University, Clemson University, University of Connecticut, Cornell University, University of Dayton, University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Michigan, Northeastern University, University of Puerto Rico, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Case Western Reserve University, University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Miami, University of Notre Dame, Pennsylvania State, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, Duke University, University of Florida, Georgia Tech, University of Maryland, Michigan State, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Prairie View A&M University, Texas A&M, University of Texas, Tuskegee University and Virginia Tech. According to the University of Dayton, nearly 70% of GE interns and college hires come from this small list of schools.

Mr Kunle Olaifa, GE Africa's HR executive, defined the goals of the designation as a strategic university partner. Ashesi becomes the second such college on the continent, along with Strathmore College in Kenya. These schools are willing to work with GE and will see GE investing corporate & business resources to proactively build a sustainable employment brand, recruit & measure results. We were pleased to hear the comment that Ashesi hires had some of the "best ROI" of their African recruiting campaign to date.

One of the reasons Ashesi came to GE's attention was its focus on ethical leadership. Key qualifications included academic excellence & GE cultural fit, and the gender balance at Ashesi. GE also applauded Ashesi's goal of drawing students from a broader geographic area, an initiative supported by the Master Card Foundation.

What was most encouraging to me was the realization by GE that finding bright people in Africa is not particularly hard, but that GE's "DNA" of integrity is trickier. One of the alumni hires admitted that her experience at Ashesi exposed her to a community that expected ethical behavior, making it easier for her to "fit in" at GE. All in all, it made for a very encouraging morning.

Thanksgiving - Considering Africa's "Middle Class"

2011-12-03T09:17:00.005Z

Charlie writes:

This had to be the strangest Thanksgiving for me in many years. Both Mary Kay and I worked, since it is not a Ghanaian holiday. Ken and Mary Kay joined friends at the home of other friends for a turkey dinner (including the requisite dressing and sauerkraut). By the time I arrived after the daily bumpy ride down off the mountain at 7:15pm, the only food left was pizza (well, I did get some pumpkin pie and dressing, too).

Lest I throw myself a pity party, Lloyd Amoah, one of my co-workers at Ashesi, sent along a link to the following report by the African Development Bank. The report, while many months old, shocked me with the idea that "middle class" for Africa includes those who make more than USD 2 per day, and making over USD 10 per day puts you in the "upper class." When I consider that I spend more than the lower amount on lunch each day, it puts my complaints in perspective!

Yet, the claim by AfDB is that incomes rising into that range have a large number of positive impacts on governance and lifestyle. People with something to lose tend to me more concerned about the government protecting them from abuse or theft. They also begin to save, and consider investing in their children's education. Birth rates go down. Health improves. And Africa has been moving in that direction.

There is still far to go. Last week, Lloyd also forwarded the text of an address that Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, the entering CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Telecoms made at their recent inaugural meeting. As he fussed Telecoms is no Tobacco Industry before the National Communications Authority, which had just fined all the mobile operators big bucks for "poor service quality," he stuck a nerve for all of us up at Ashesi. He commented:

Chairman, there are external factors peculiar to our third world environment, and over which mobile operators have little or no control, but which impact the quality of service; factors that you will not find in the First World.

...

Power outages and diesel thefts also prevent base stations from functioning without undue interruption. It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll run into a man on the M1 in the UK or along the autobahn near Berlin trying to peddle diesel by the gallon to passing motorists.

This lack of infrastructure and the costs to private operations for services that are taken for granted in the US have concentrated our minds out in Berekuso. At the recent "Town Hall Meeting," Patrick expressed his frustration at the huge expenses that Ashesi is now incurring because of roads, electricity, and water. Most of the staff refuse to drive to the campus for fear of ruining their vehicles, and the entire campus has been afflicted with over-voltage and blackout-induced failures, including the destruction of the pump that provides us with drinking water from our private borehole. This last week, the University elected to run the Administration block off diesel backup after measuring voltages from 100 to 400 volts on a nominally 220 volt system. And he announced that the school has had to pay 4500 GHS (about USD 3000) to have water trucked up the hill for sanitation over a two week period. This is a huge burden when you are trying to run a "first world" operation in a "third world" context. And to juxtapose these charges with the idea that a "middle income" begins at $2/day, which would represent working "four years" to pay for two our last two week's worth of water...

I'm just pleased to be working with folks that are trying to do their best in this environment.

But even more so, that God sent his Son to be born in barn and laid in a feeding trough!

Have a Merry Christmas

Philippians 2:5-11 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

"Dead Aid"

2011-10-25T23:03:00.004Z

Charlie writes: I've been reading a book that I had seen
in Schiphol airport on the way back from The Mission Society's
eastern hemisphere meeting. The author, Dambisa Moyo, is an
economist who was born in Zambia, but then schooled in the
USA and UK, later working for the World Bank and Goldman
Sachs. Her thesis is that the reason Sub-saharan Africa
has floundered for the past fifty years is the trillion
dollars that the World Bank and developed nations have
dumped on them. The insidious unintended consequences of
aid (dependency, corruption, opacity, etc.) have left
those countries in worse shape than they were before the
aid began.

The excerpt below really rung true for me this week:

Although Africa is at the centre of the universe in the
area-accurate Peters Projection Map (occupying a much-coveted
proximity to the industrialized hubs of Europe and America),
it takes way too long to transport goods on its
nonnavigable rivers, impassable bridges, and pot-holed roads.
Besides, to state the obvious, no profit-seeking company can
afford to bet on Africa's unreliable power and erratic
telecommunications as the source of its manufactured
inputs. Of course, were Africa's dire infrastructure predicament
remedied, its chance for higher-valued trade (thereby distancing
itself from the tag of commodity exporter) could dramatically
improve.

as Ashesi struggled today with limited electricity. There
were a series of strong rains yesterday, and the power was
coming on and off all afternoon. Apparently, the circuitry
connecting the four backup diesel generators to the property's
circuits require that fuses be physically removed to isolate
the generators from the mains. During the repeated ons
and offs something was ''spoilt'' on three of the four.

Since starting at Ashesi, I've really begun to depend on
Courseware, the Moodle-based LMS (Learning Management System).
It enables me to set and collect all the assignments as well
as posting all the lecture slides which Ashesi is trying to put
out there so that Google and webometrics will find them and
credit Ashesi with a variety of learning resources. Of course,
if the electricity is out, the server (and the phones, printers,
canteen cash register, projectors) will also be out. I lectured
using my laptop on battery to review my slides, but had to
do a lot more writing on the board than I typically would have.
And we resorted to ''sneaker-net'' to distribute Assignment 7 on
a pen-drive to all the student laptops.

Tonight, I was able to log on from Cantonments, so apparently
the lights must have come back on!

Sub-Saharan African Economics

2011-08-30T19:32:00.004Z

Charlie writes...

Today at Ashesi, Dr. Augustin Fosu, who is deputy director of the UN WIDER (World Institute for Development Economics Research) center in Finland, delivered a lecture on the topic of how Sub-Saharan African economies have fared during the credit crunch and ensuing bad times around the world. The story was actually rather encouraging.

Apparently, since the mid 1990's, the GDP (and to a lesser extend, GDP per capita) for Sub-Saharan countries have moved upward at a rate nearly equal to those of the Asian Tigers and BRIC countries. Even during the credit crunch and trade shocks following those events, their economies did not dip as deeply, and even seem to have been more resilient to the dip, recovering more rapidly than other countries. Ghana, in particular is really heating up, as a Ghanaian in the diaspora mentioned here, it has been reported the fasting growing economy in the world this year!

As an expert in econometrics and the data collected by the UN and World Bank, Dr. Fosu had published articles in refereed journals noting that this improvement seems to be coincident with a blossoming of democracy across the continent. If countries are able to navigate the change from autocracy to democracy without descending into chaos (which he admits has happened in several countries), they become more appealing to FDI (Foreign Direct Investment). In early, destitute conditions, external aid is vital, but many of the countries in SSA are now moving beyond such overwhelming reliance on outside help, and are growing well.

Also encouraging is the observation that finally, it seems like this rising tide is starting to float more boats. The reduction in abject poverty is becoming noticeable in many countries, including Ghana.

He cautioned that the distortions of the oil boom and gold price increases might not be managed well for the further support of the poor in Ghana, but was encouraged upon visiting here (he will be a visiting scholar at University of Ghana, Legon this year) to hear debates in parliament about the use of oil revenues. Transparency will likely be an important issue.

When asked about how such money should be spent, he admitted that the strict "savings only" approach used by Norway would not be appropriate in Ghana, as there were still major development challenges needing funding. As it seems everyone who visits Ashesi remarks, he highlighted an improved transportation network. The US Ambassador had mentioned he felt like "fufu" on his way up the mountain, and I have already reported on the bone-jarring trip the Ashesi staff endure twice a day.

Today, I noticed on the way out that the first sandy place which had been absolutely awful in the morning had been smoothed out and filled with more sand this evening. Why sand is used still escapes me, after tonight's rain/dew the place will likely be back to the prior condition. There is also some work being done on the crater pictured at the head of this post.

²³ Be sure you know the condition of your flocks,
give careful attention to your herds;
²⁴ for riches do not endure forever,
and a crown is not secure for all generations.
²⁵ When the hay is removed and new growth appears
and the grass from the hills is gathered in,
²⁶ the lambs will provide you with clothing,
and the goats with the price of a field.
²⁷ You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed your family
and to nourish your female servants.
from Proverbs 27 (NIV)

A New Beginning - Ashesi University

2011-08-18T19:19:00.009Z

Charlie writes...

This Monday was my first day at Ashesi University. After five years at Methodist University, I was ready for a change, and the Ashesi approach to private tertiary education in Ghana was and is compelling.

Ashesi, which means "Beginning" in the Akan language, was founded in 2005. Next week, students will be joining us on a brand new campus in Berekuso, atop a hill overlooking Accra. As you can see from the photos at the last link, the facilities are in a lush, somewhat cooler climate than the lower elevations. The first phase of construction has the library at the highest point, with three other wings containing faculty offices, administration, and classrooms. Adjoining the Founder's Quad is the dining area. The hostels (dorms) which will house 60 male and 240 female students, (out of this year's expected population of 500 students) are below that. The rest of the students will be renting space elsewhere and commuting.

WAEC (West Africa Exams Council) has delayed the testing and reporting of WASSCE (West Africa Senior Secondary School Certification Exams, the analog of SATs in the USA) results this year. Thus, Ashesi's admission decisions will be delayed and our first year students will not be coming to the campus until October 24.

I am glad to be in an office with a window out onto the central courtyard, with windows that open on two sides for ventilation. So far, I have not turned on the air conditioning, but all the rooms are so equipped. They were able to provision computer and email on my first day, impressive!

Alex Inkoom, the HR Manager had organized a two-day program to orient new staff. We heard from the founder, the dean of students, academic dean, facilities manager, librarian, nurse, as well as the career services and IT directors. We also saw a quick run-through of Ashesi's computerized LMS (Learning Management System), called FOCUS. It is based upon Moodle, which I had already used.

I was inspired by the founder's address, which outlined the mission and some of the strategic decisions that have been made recently. It was refreshing to hear that Ashesi will not copy the recent explosive growth in size of both public and other private university colleges. Knowing that a school of 500 to 2000 students is an entirely different place than one of 5000 or 10,000 is important. The impact on the students can be significant in a smaller school, as I have been reading in the book "Colleges That Change Lives" by Loren Pope. With any luck, the new campus will greatly increase the number of candidates applying for admission. Coupled with a limited population, this could mean a student body with fewer students from the lower half of their high schools.

This term I will be teaching Quantitative Methods. Fortunately, the content is rather similar to a combination of the statistics and Operations Research classes I have been teaching at MUCG. Also, I share an office with Andrew Nunekpeku, who has taught the class before, and who will be teaching the other section. Still, starting on Monday will be a challenge to my organizational skills.

Much of the staff is riding Ashesi's GET (Ghana Education Trust) Fund-supplied bus back and forth to work, which is a good thing since the road to Berekuso from Kwabenya looks like a minefield. Ken says the video looks like an amusement park ride! In one section, half the road has completely washed away. Mary Kay has been dropping me off at 6:40 a.m. and picking me up at 6:45 p.m. from the former campus, which will be the first stop for the bus until Ashesi establishes a smaller satellite office in Accra somewhere for admissions processing after the new year.

Thursday, the IP telephones were labeled and plugged in, and the network engineer was programming the main switch. He trained us on how to use the new phones this afternoon.

At lunch Thursday, a fourth-year student working on a research project with the dean asked me what brought me to Ghana. He was a bit surprised when I answered "God did," but was interested in hearing about The Jackson Journey.

Lamentations 3:22-23 Because of the LORD's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Light of the World

2011-05-08T14:43:00.003Z

Mary Kay writes…

Easter Saturday was a Red Letter Day for the village of Fawomanye near the coast of Ghana between Winneba and Cape Coast.

My first interaction with Fawomanye was in the fall of 2007. I went there at the behest of friends from Arizona State University to assess their water situation and determine whether or not the village water supply was suitable for treatment using ceramic pot filters. I journeyed out with my test kit to take measurements of turbidity (off the charts), bacteriological contamination (yes!), and other potential contaminants (not really). I was watched with close scrutiny as I took water samples, mixed in reagents, used test strips, etc. I met under the fig tree with the chief and elders to discuss the potential project and ascertain their level of interest.

The village elders were impressed with my scientific props (in restrospect, this must often look like alchemy to villagers). And they were interested in the promise of help in treating their water supply. The village did have one borehole, but the pump was broken, and they were not really interested in fixing it, as the water was too salty to drink anyway. They did use the water to make cement/mud blocks for building, but they could use the nearby pond, which was currently their source of drinking water, for that, too. But at the end of the day, the oldest man in the village engaged me in a long discussion of what the village really needed – electricity. All of this was in Twi, so I probably only got every third or fourth word, but as there is no word for electricity in the local language, I did get the gist of the subject. He was pointing toward the high-voltage transmission lines that could be seen in the distance and was asking why, if power was so close, they couldn’t have it. And could I help?

Now, I am a Water Engineer. I did take one Electrical Engineering class in college, but only because I had to. All I could think of was to say (in my halting Twi), “Yε bisa Nyame.” (We will ask God.) I left thinking that they were a bit ungrateful not to be more thankful for my water help, and what could I do about electricity anyway? But I guess it never hurts to ask!

Now 4 years later, in the strange ways often ordained by God, they have electricity. My generous friends at ASU and Desert Cross Lutheran Church have raised the money to purchase power poles, street lamps, and to subsidize the electrical wiring of homes. I have joined local delegations to visit the Ministry of Energy and the Electricity Company of Ghana to advocate for their service. It has been a long and sometimes frustrating journey, but sometime this week, the lights will come on for the first time!

But the more exciting part for me was to be able to testify to the village about God’s glory on Saturday. As we once again gathered under the fig tree in the center of the village, I gave thanks to God for the provision of electricity. But I also reminded the village that Jesus is the Light of the World, and that if we follow Him, we will no longer walk in spiritual darkness (John 8:12). Furthermore, if we are following Jesus, we are called in turn to be light to those in darkness around us (Matthew 5:14-16). So I asked the villagers to see their new-found electricity as a reminder that they are to be light to those around them to the glory of God.

May the people of Fawomanye and I never forget that we are called to be Christ's light in a dark world!

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12, NIV)

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16, NIV)

Easter Lamb (and Goat, too!)

2011-04-22T08:16:00.017Z

Charlie writes,

During a recent trip north, Mary Kay was presented with two animals by the chief in Sekote. A partner church in the USA had sent funds to construct a new secondary vocational school there, and he wanted to express his appreciation for the gift. To reject the animals or even offer them to hungry local people would not have been honourable. So she arranged for the animals to be parked at the local pastor's place, and then ferried back to Accra on the deadhead return of a Pure Home Water supply run. For those of you who did not grow up around animals (like me), you can tell the sheep from the goats by which way the tails stand (tails up, like the white goat to the left, tails down, like the brown sheep on the right). Since she was up in Tamale when the cute animals arrived at the house, she texted me to deal with the situation.

Mary Kay suggested I just take the animals to the local butcher, which in retrospect would have been best, but our day security man said he knew a local butcher who did housecalls. So on Wednesday, he came over with the torch and the two of them butchered the sheep and the goat for us. After slitting the throats, the next step is to burn the fur off. In the north, they would just throw the carcass into the fire, but here in Accra, you use a flame thrower that hooks into the LP gas tank we use for the stove. The smell is quite strong, but it is much easier and faster than trying to shave the fur off.

The heat doesn't help the smell of slaughtering - I can see why they waited until winter to butcher hogs on "Little House on the Prairie". Fortunately we did not have to smear the blood on our door jamb and lintel as we are already covered in the blood of the Lamb! Thank goodness we don't have to practice ritual animal sacrifice anymore!

Then, the hide is washed with Key soap and water. The results are then cut with a sharp knife into various pieces, including ribs, legs, and neck. I washed the pieces a second time in the sink, then sealed them in ziplock bags before loading them in the deep freeze.

Should have double-bagged, as more blood leaked out of some of the bags, and Mary Kay and I had to spend an hour emptying the deep freeze and washing all the other bags which had frozen blood over them, tossing food which had been spoiled by contamination by the blood. Also had to defrost and chlorox the deep freeze. Then, the electric phase powering the deep freeze went out, so we had to crank the generator to get the meat frozen.

Not sure what we will do with the meat, which all still has hide attached, but that will be an adventure after Easter. We'll be sharing a treasured ham, brought from the US and NOT butchered by us, with Michael and Darrell when they spend Easter evening with us before traveling on to Kumasi for their missionary mobilization conference. Have a blessed Easter!

NO GAS: waiting for LP gas ...OR: A lesson in Economics

2010-09-20T12:46:00.003Z

Charlie writes:

Last week, we ran out of cooking gas in our blue 15kg bottle, and switched over to our second one. I figured we could go by either of Dansoman's two fuel stations for a re-fill, but found it not so easy.

Earlier in the week, the station in the neighborhood of MUCG was dispensing gas to a long line of taxis, making the access to the campus more congested than usual. By the time I made it there, the 3-foot-square white painted plywood sign with red letters "SORRY NO GAS" was back in place, and the station was locked.

Later in the week, we saw a similar long line of taxicabs near Control Goil station. Since High Street is being worked on, all the traffic is rumbling over dirt roads parallel to it, and again the line of cabs was obstructing traffic. I stopped by on Friday with our tank, and the attendant just shook his head, then suggested that I come back at 6 a.m. when the line would be shorter. I

counted about 100 tanks waiting to be filled, and the attendant said it would be a four hour wait.

This morning, our driver was running late (another road closing) but advised that the queue was of a manageable length, so I could try again if I got there around 7 a.m. I loaded the tank in the back seat of the Carina, then parked outside the station. There was a line of about 20 tanks awaiting the pay station, where the attendant would eyeball your tank, then quote your

fee (I paid GHC 12.20, about USD 8 for the 14.5 kg of gas, sold at just over 80 pesewas per kilo).

She dispensed change and a two-inch square receipt with the quantity purchased and today's date.

Next, I carried the tank to the end of the line snaking back from the chain-link fenced cage. Here several operators (all male) wearing bright blue jumpsuits were handling the LP gas filling operation. Everyone was patiently waiting for their turn, and as tanks were brought into the cage, the whole line would advance a few feet. The men would move the womens' tanks, letting them sit on the bench provided. Everyone from a girl who looked about 10 years old, to market women, mothers with babies on their backs, and young men were attentive to their place in

the queue, and there was surprisingly little conversation going on.

When someone's tank was filled, the operators would heft it from the scale, and half roll, half swing the tank down to the entrance of the cage. The young men would often carry them off stiff-armed straight overhead, carrying them as a lifter might carry a barbell weight, in a

horizontal position, grasping the bottom ring and the top flange. Most women would place the tank atop their heads, using a small rolled cloth to cushion their skulls from the metal edge of the bottom ring. One woman begged the attendant to help her carry her tank, she holding one

end while he the other, until they got to the main road, where she could hail a cab. I noticed a handtruck near the gate, so used it to lug my filled tank back to the car, belting it into the back seat for the trip home. During the hour that I was at the station, I believe I was the only one to do that.

The whole experience reminded me of a summer in the 1970s, when I sat in our family car during the gasoline crisis in the USA. Today, the Goil folks were not accepting taxis at

their station, I presume they are nearing the end of their supply and would prefer to dispense gas for cooking than for driving. According to Dean Osborne Jackson, my local economic advisor, the main cause of the lines is that the price set by the government is sub-market. Therefore, taxi drivers have moved in great numbers towards LP fuel. This interested me, so I checked with Mr. CDK Opoku, an economics lecturer. This resulted in a long discussion about markets and African politics. If you pull up a chair, here's the rest of the story...

The Government of Ghana had worried that her forests were being cut down to make charcoal for cooking fires. To relieve pressure on the forests, Ghana, as well as some other African

countries, promotes the use of LP Gas for cooking. In order to make the cost attractive, the Government, which is the only entity allowed to import petroleum products, enters into agreements for the supply of crude oil from Nigeria and other oil states. Then the Tema Oil Refinery produces petrol and LPG from the crude. The government subsidizes the cost of the LPG. CDK believes the market price for my tank would be about GHC 20, rather than the

GHC 12.20 that is charged.

During the last administration, the Government of Ghana entered into a 90 day credit facility with Nigeria for crude oil. Nigeria required that their oil be carried on Nigerian vessels to use the facility, and the current government of Ghana claims that there were payoffs being made to certain unnamed parties on this carriage, and withdrew from the deal. Now, LPG must be bought on the spot market for cash, rather than refined from crude here on credit. So, there

is a reduced supply, since the Government does not have sufficient funds to purchase and subsidize the quantities demanded. Ironically, since the prices are subsidized, the taxi operators have found that it is cheaper for them to run taxis on LPG than petrol. In yet another example of unintended consequences to government programs, the LPG demand has grown dramatically.

And there are taxi drivers who are already dropping LPG tanks off to be filled while they wait at other stations to fill their tanks. It is likely that they use the other tanks to unsafely fill their taxi tanks. So clearly, it would be impossible to set a different price for domestic and automotive use of LPG.

Who'd have thought I'd learn so much economics from a simple transaction so Mary Kay can cook dinner?

Couple Time

2010-08-02T19:35:00.003Z

Charlie writes:

Today marks 24 years of marriage for me and Mary Kay. It has been interesting to spend a week back in our old haunts around Atlanta, but without either of our boys. Ken is down in Brazil, visiting our missionary colleagues, the Reyes, while Chip is busy at summer school in Blacksburg, VA. The two of us had spent a short time in Utah in early July, visiting Mary Kay's brother and a supporting church in Park City before spending two days in the southern part of the state, enjoying the incredible scenery at Bryce Canyon and at the Capitol Reef National Monument.

We have been able to meet with some long-standing friends on this trip, and as we share stories and hear about their lives, it strikes me how encouraging it is when such friends affirm our decision to extend our stay in Ghana another two years.

Yesterday, we spoke at Dunwoody UMC, our home church in the USA, and shared photos of water projects, clay pot water filters, teaching at the University, and such. After lunch with the Mathis's, who have opened their home to us this month, Mary Kay and I drove on up to North Georgia and tromped about, looking for waterfalls. We visited one we had not seen before, called Helton Creek Falls, which was not particularly well-marked, but listed on the Georgia Trails website. On the way back, we stopped in to hike the 3/4 mile trail to the upper DeSoto Falls. Even though the temperatures in Atlanta were in the mid-90's, the forests were still very green and remarkably cool. Then on our way home, the usual afternoon thundershowers cooled things down nicely.

The walks brought back fond memories of other walks Mary Kay and I have taken, especially those in forests. Don't get much chance to do that in Ghana, and I miss that.

Our time in the US is flying, we will gather as a nuclear family of four this weekend in Virginia. I'm looking forward to catching up with both boys, maybe spending some more time out on rivers or in forests, which are beautiful in western Virginia.

Innumeracy in High Places

2010-06-04T15:25:00.006Z

Charlie says:

As a math lecturer, I'm always interested in seeing the confusion many people have about the subject. Tuesday of this week, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission here in Ghana announced new tariffs. Here's the headline: "UTILITY BILLS UP: Electricity by 89%, Water by 36%." (Story by Michael Donkor, Daily Graphic, Tuesday, 1 June, 2010)

Now, this seemed a bit extreme, so we read on:

Consumers will now pay a total of 125 per cent increase in utility bills following an upward adjustment of 89 percent in electricity and 36 per cent in water tariffs announced yesterday by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC).

Speaking at a press conference, the Chairman of the PURC, Dr. Emmanuel K. Annan, explained that the increases were arrived at after a wide range of individual and institutional stakeholders consultation to solicit views.

He said for electricity, consumers within the threshold of 0-50 would continue to pay the old tariff of 9.5Gp, while those within the range of 51-300 would now pay 17Gp as against the existing 12Gp.

He said those within the range of 301-600 would pay 21Gp, as against the existing 16Gp, with those within the range of 601 and above paying 23Gp, as against the existing 19Gp.

Dr. Annan said in adjusting the tariffs for electricity, the commission did not lose sight of the social impact on and fairness to consumers, hence the lifeline tariff for electricity consumers.

He said, however, that consumers in the residential category of between 51-300 units had an increase of 42 per cent per kilowatt-hour, which translated into 17Gp per kilowatt-hour, up from the existing 12Gp per kilowatt-hour.

Dr. Annan said the increase was partly to restore the value of the tariff in dollar terms, which dropped from 13 cents per kilowatt-hour in November 2007 to eight cents per kilowatt-hour in November 2009 as a result of exchange rate depreciation.

He explained that it was also to ensure that consumers of electricity got value for money through an improvement in the quality of service being delivered by the utility service providers.

Dr. Annan said that the increase was based on a projected hydro/thermal generation mix of 60/40 and it was envisaged that the delivery of natural gas from Nigeria and its use in the generation of thermal energy later in the year would have an impact on generation tariffs.

He said the increase in tariffs fell substantially below the level requested by the utility companies and left a financial gap of approximately GHc49 million.

On water, Dr Annan said the current adjustment was meant to assist the GWCL/AVRL meet key operational costs, such as the cost of chemicals for the treatment of water, replacement of obsolete equipment, maintenance of the system, among others.

He gave the assurance that the commission would closely monitor the GWCL's performance and would not hesitate to impose the necessary sanctions where laid-down benchmarks were not adhered to.

He reiterated that tariffs alone could not raise all the desired funds for investments, maintenance, replacement and refurbishment of utility equipment and, accordingly, advised the government to continue sourcing investment funds to supplement the tariff income.

He said that would enable the utilities to achieve the desired level of investments in service delivery.

He said the PURC would ensure that stringent but realistic quality of service benchmarks under relevant regulations were adhered to by the utility service providers.

Dr Annan said failure to comply with these benchmarks would result in the application of penalties and sanctions under the regulations.

Ken read the story and figured the 89% number came from adding the percentages in each of the bands, I guess that is as good an explanation as we'll ever get. To recap, here is a table:

Band old new %increase

0-50 9.5 9.5 0%

51-300 12 17 42%

301-600 16 21 31%

601+ 19 23 21%

and the sum of these is 93%, close to the 89%, but clearly not the correct number. The Graphic had to print a front page retraction later in the week. I suppose the summing of the 89% and the 36% to get a total of 125% falls in the same category...

The Flip Side - IT Disadvantages

2010-03-08T15:12:00.000Z

Charlie writes:

This last term, I taught about 300 of the 500-member class "Introduction to Computers" at MUCG. One essay question asked the students to relate personal experiences, both positive and negative, with information technology.

What a wonderful way to gain insights into West African teens' use of information technology.

In this second post, I excerpt some of their self-reported negatives:

Because I am a business girl and at the same time a student a don't always go for lectures because lecture periods crush with my other business. Because of information technology I have access to lecture notes on net.

Information technology has introduced me to many friends which makes we waste much of my time charting with friends on net.

[most of the bandwidth going to the university is probably being used to post to facebook, I'd guess.]

The aspect of my life which has been impacted by information technology was lying. I lied to somebody through a cell phone which I didn't know the person was standing right behind me. The person called me through a cellphone and asked me where I am and I lied to him that I am doing something urgently for my father which was a lie. I became ashamed of myself when I saw the person behind me. The positive impact through this cell phone was that the person was able to reached me within a short time just like three (3) seconds. The negative is I lied to the person through the cell phone which I became ashamed of myself.

The negative impact of this facebook system has made me to lie about certain things about my personal life. This has become so because you would want to be in the range of people who use this system. Some of the lies include telling people your wrong age just to fit in and also send false pictures to be posted on the net.

[We have been trying to help a man from the USA locate a "Natasha" he found on the internet who claimed to live in Accra. Unfortunately, we had to conclude that it was another case of "sakawa," see below...]

I remember when my dad was abroad, USA to be precise, he saved lot of money becasue he knew my siblings and I were graduating from SHS to the university. But when we about to enter into the tertiary my dad called and said he has been duped by fraudsters and all his long-saved money was gone through the internet. This what information technology brought to us becasue of what we call "sakawa" my siblings and I had to spend two years at home before going to school. This is the negative part of it.

However, not everything about IT has turned out to be good, sometime back my dad's credit card number got into the hands of some fraudsters and they cleared out his accounts online, he ended up losing lots of money.

But with every great power comes a price and this price that I have to pay is the bombardment of pornographic pop-ups and malware infested sites which may cause damage to my computer so although I try to gain helpful information from the internet sometimes I see things that are negative to my health or damage my computer.

it has had an adverse effect also on my life when my friend nearly ended up making me an adult movie addict "introducing me into pornography" but with good advise I have been able to overcome this addiction and hope IT would only impact others in the positive way.

IT can also impact negative information to students. This can be done, when a student goes to the internet and visit a website that contains pornographic movies and pictures, the student might be aroused, therefore he/she might practice such act which might cause teenage pregnancy and early parenting.

The use of the internet also has its side effects in terms of increasing immoral lives side effects in terms of increasing immoral lives since one can go the internet and have access to ponographical films that at the world put him into practising them. This brings about increasement in rape cases and high rate of prostitution.

Even with the good aspect it has a negative one too and this by introducing machines into the various companies to replace human labour. With this some workers were dismissed and my mother was included. This made her unemployed and has affected my family economically. That is by introducing some information technology make some people unemployed.

As a result of Information technology a worker like me at the post office is not recieving customers because people sit in the house and deliver the necessary information.

It has tended to make me lazy because instead of doing the research myself, I rather go for the answer on the internet. Like this I am not able to experience for myself the first handedly the process and the fun obtained from carrying out researches.

There was also a time when I lost my mobile phone. I was very restless because I could not easily communicate with people afar. [Ghana has less than one landline phone per 100 population, but nearly 50 cellphones per 100, so the loss of a cellphone is a real problem!]

The use of cell phones is much more easier and fast, also, no matter how far the distance you always get to talk. In Ghana it is always not so because the reception is not good sometimes and it is also costly to get a good cell phone which is a disadvantage.

Although the ATM is the fastest way to withdraw money, people stand close to them, and as soon as you withdraw some money, they attack you.

But it is with this same machines that help to cure illness that has also brought about more injuries in hospitals. Some machines used for scanning and x-rays are known to have side effects of skin cancer. Also, this machines if not placed plugged properly could cause fire hazards and deep wounds by the machine dropping.

How differently would US college freshmen answer this question?

The Internet: "a cesspool of knowledge"

2010-03-05T23:39:00.001Z

Charlie writes:

What a wonderful way to gain insights into West African teens' use of information technology.

I'll start with selected positive impacts in this post, their self-reported negatives will come next.

Information technology is the gateway to the world. One aspect of my life which has been impacted by information technology is accessing information or gaining information on the internet. This has helped me to gain more knowledge since the internet is basically a cesspool of knowledge. Years past people had to walk far distances to gain information through libraries but now there are electronic libraries which can be accessed from home.

[I just love that image - the internet as a cesspool of knowledge!]

At the top of the list, I.T. has helped me greatly on my English life. With the help of Information technology (IT) am not afraid to talk in public, because I have overcome the fear in pronouncing of words. With my student Encarta I now say byebye to spelling mistakes. My grammer was so bad. But with the help of IT I can now go to the level of even writhing novels, poems and articles which can also put some money in my pocket. With this out of the lot I say Information technology has helped me to become if not the best one of the best in the world.

[obviously, without the computer, spelling remains a challenge, "grammer", "writhing"]

Education has been a key area that IT has affected my life, with the use of information technology learning/studying has become more easier and more accessible to me because of the availability of the internet. Researching used to be a problem for students before me as my dad always tells me that "in your time you have all the facilities to succeed but we had to struggle."

With the help of the internet, I can get deeper meaning of my subjects of study with the sense that through the internet I get the meanings of topics I cannot get in books.

It has impacted me positively in terms of research. Gone where the days when I had to go to the library and pick over ten books just to get information on a particular subject. Now all I have to do is access the internet and all I have to do is type my question and all possible answers would be given to me and all I have to do is choose the answer that suits me.

[I can attest to this, as some of their earlier essays were cut-and-paste from Encarta or other web sites!]

The positive impact in my life is when I was looking for admission in MUCG, I was leaving far from the school. With the help of information technology I was able to get information from the net about MUCG. All that I was suppose to do before being admitted. Instead of picking car everyday to go to the school. Information technology has made me save money and time.

I gained my admission letter from my e-mail instead of travelling to my school for my admission letter.

Under communication, as a result of Information technology, I am able to make a phone call, recieve messages, browse and search for the meaning of words on my phone. There is no need for me to travel before I can send information to somebody.

In fact, information technology has brought about fun in everything that I do. I am very happy with IT. I am able to dial and save people's numbers everywhere I go.

Now I can surf the internet when ever I want to with the help of my laptop computer and a modem. I can download music, videos, chart with my parents outside Ghana and even buy stuff from other countries all all the net.

[Ghanaian English has nearly silent 'R' sounds, so mis-spellings like formerly vs. formally, or charting vs. chatting appear commonly.]

Information technology has over the years grown to gain by so many people living in different parts of the world. As I grew, I came to realize how information technology has improved my educational life. That is, my father has bought me a personal computer at home, a pendrive and even a laptop which I carry around almost everywhere I go. With these devices with internet connection, I can browse and search for information anytime I am given assignment from school. This has made research work extremely easy for me. With typing softwares installed on them, I practise typing during my leisure hours which has improved my typing speed. I also take lecture notes/slides from lecturers using my pendrive which is easier and faster. This any many more benefits are what has made my life better with the help of information technology.

I can now send my assignments to my lecturer through internet instead of going through all the stress in order to give him the assignment.

The introduction and use of cell phones, an example of information technology has had a great impact on my life. It has really saved me time and the stress of writing letters to long lost relatives. I always had to go through the stress of buying envelopes and postage stamps and then queing for long hours under the scortching sun to get my letter posted. Sometimes the letter doesn't even get to the recipient.

[We can relate, having just received some Christmas cards this week. Mary Kay received a birthday card one year after it was mailed from Texas! "Stress" is a common complaint of students here.]

Information technology has impacted greatly in the aspect of my health. With the impact of information technology in my health, it has made it possible for doctors to diagnose and cure illness easily. This is whereby information technology has made it possible to bring all sorts of machines used for surgeries, x-rays, scans, autopsy and many others. With the help of IT, people no more have the fear of loosing their lives or living with an incurable disease till your death.

I've made new friends and made up with old friends who now help me in my educational problems.

The ATM card has helped me alot espically in school. It has help me save time. Because I don't need to join in a long queue at the bank.

Before ATM's (Automated Teller Machines) were made available, I would have to queue up in the bank just to withdraw some money. This could sometimes take up my whole day. But since the introduction of the ATM, I'm able to withdraw money without joining a queue.

[This idea has shown up repeatedly in essays this year and prior years. When I questioned our driver about whether this is exaggerated, he denies that, saying that it did actually happen. He reports going early to the bank, then returning later in the day, picking up his place in line, as the Ghanaians watch out for each other!]

How differently would US college freshmen answer this question?

Laundry Day

2010-02-08T12:50:00.002Z

Mary Kay writes:

One of my friends, Jamie, is a true southern writer, blogging and writing about life in small-town Georgia. I love reading her blogs, as she has such a similar outlook on life to mine, but she is much funnier! And it helps me to feel connected to friends and life back in the US.

This week was priceless. She wrote about laundry day, and her daughter’s request that they go green by getting rid of the washing machine and dryer. Charlie and I got a kick out of this! While Jamie researched 1930s laundry practices in the US, it could easily have been 2010 in Ghana! Laundry is still done by hand here, and most Ghanaians we know would love to have a washer and dryer, and the heck with the carbon footprint!

We personally don’t make our own soap, but my NGO trains women on how to make it to sell for extra family income. We use shea butter, palm oil and commercial caustic, rather than lye from wood ash, but it is still basically the same – and a hot messy process!

Laundry day- we have a washing machine that works – sometimes. If the power is on. And if the water is flowing.

Then everything gets hung out on the line. The first couple of times, I had the romantic memories of being a small child and helping my mom hang the laundry. I love the sound of snapping out the sheets to get them straight before hanging. And the smell and feel of the fresh, damp laundry. Playing hide-and-seek among all the sheets. But, after the laundry all gets re-soaked in the sudden afternoon downpour that you didn’t see coming… Or your whites turn a dingy grey because of all the smoke and dust in the air… Well, maybe a dryer would be nice.

Then comes the ironing – not because we really care about being neatly pressed, though everything is cotton and needs to be ironed. But there is a lovely mango fly that lays its eggs in cotton clothing. Then once the clothing is put on, your body heat hatches the eggs and the larvae will burrow under your skin to live and grow, until they come popping out like in Alien. Fortunately, the heat from ironing will kill the eggs, so everything gets ironed – even your underwear.

The only thing I can say is, “Thank goodness labor is cheap here and I don’t have to do the laundry!” It is basically half to two-thirds of our housekeeper’s job to keep up with our laundry. The remainder of her time is spent in mopping the house every day to keep the dust under control.

So, Jamie, tell your daughter she is welcome to come visit and do laundry at our house anytime she wants to reduce her carbon footprint!

(Soup) Bowl Score: Mary Kay 1 – Turkey 0

2010-01-01T12:33:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes:

In keeping with Ghanaian tradition, we received a live fowl for Christmas again this year. Having given in to the children’s horror last year, we gave the guinea hen away, rather than kill it and eat it ourselves. But this year’s gift was a HUGE turkey. So I was determined not to let this one get away.

After all, I come from good pioneer stock, right? My ancestors settled the hills of Tennessee, and the plains of Texas and North Dakota. I read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a girl. And my mom always talked about her grandmother going out back, catching a chicken and wringing its neck for supper.

So if they could do it, I could! Well …. maybe…. with a little help….. Please?

So Charlie got the kids out of the house, under the guise of a driving lesson up at the MUCG campus. There, that will stop the complaints from the peanut gallery. Our boys, especially Chip, really don’t want to know that their food was once a live animal!

Then, I sweet-talked our security guard, Michael, into helping me. Having grown up in a small village, he knew exactly what to do. Michael slit the turkey’s throat and let him bleed out. Then, he poured boiling water over it, and we plucked him. I think Michael was pretty surprised that I would help!

But we had an interesting conversation about food – how we in the west never really see our food alive, only packaged in the grocery store. And which parts of a turkey are edible – everything except the feathers, it turns out. Needless to say, I was not at all hesitant about parting with the feet, head, and intestines – my “gift” to Michael for helping me. Well, I felt guilty about taking all the good parts, so I gave him some of the meat as well.

I never weighed it, but the whole turkey was huge probably 18 to 20 pounds or so. He was so big that I ended up having to cut it into quarters to package and freeze it. But that will give us several good turkey dinners, not to mention the turkey soup afterwards from the bones, over the next few months. Yum!

I’m just glad that we don’t have to perform blood sacrifices any more. Next year, Michael says I have to do the whole thing myself. Where is Butterball when you need them?

“What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to Him is much better than offering the fat of rams.”

(1 Samuel 15:22, NLT)

Gathering Prayer Request

2009-10-30T13:46:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes:

On Saturday evening, Charlie and I will be traveling to a Regional gathering of all Mission Society missionaries in Africa, Asia and Europe. This meeting will be a time of worship, training in latest missiological trends, fellowship, rest and renewal. In addition, Charlie and I will have about three days of much-needed vacation and sightseeing. We will return to Ghana on Nov 11.

Please keep the following in your prayers during this time:

· Safe travels for us and for everyone else coming from all over the world.

· Family members and ministries that are left behind as we meet. Ken, and our intern Anna, will remain in Accra with friends. Pray that they won’t miss us too much, and that Ken will be responsible in keeping up with his schedule and schoolwork in our absence.

· The gathering itself – that God will anoint the meeting as a time of renewal and rejuvenation for us all so that we all return to our ministries refreshed and revitalized to be about the Father’s business!

Thanks for keeping us covered in prayer!

“I pray that out of His glorious riches, He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God… then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Ephesians 3:16-19, 4:1, NIV)

Drilling Prayer Request Update 2

2009-10-30T13:36:00.001Z

Mary Kay writes:

Thank you all so much for covering us in prayer while we were drilling (or trying to) in Yawsae. We were finally able to get the pipe pulled out of the ground a second time last Sunday, and the crew and I returned to Accra on Monday.

We will go back to Yawsae to complete this work just after Thanksgiving. Needless to say, we will have a different approach, pulling all the pipe out of the ground every night, so that we don’t get jammed again! We are confident that we can successfully complete this borehole next time around.

Thank you too for your prayers for the village of Yawsae. As with many Ghanaian villages, Yawsae is on the front lines of the battles of spiritual warfare. But God’s work is prevailing, and I continue to pray that our project will be yet another proof to the village of God’s sovereignty and His extreme love for them.

“Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”…When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord – He is God! The Lord – He is God!” (1 Kings 18:37, 39, NIV)

Prayer Update

2009-10-20T10:09:00.002Z

Mary Kay writes:

I wanted to give you a quick update on my prayer request of 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, things have not gone smoothly. The first day of drilling was great, and we got down about 34 meters. But after shutting down overnight, we could not restore circulation of the drilling mud and the drill pipe got stuck in the hole. After over a week of exploring options and waiting, we were able to get a 25 ton crane from Newmont’s near-by gold mining operation, and we pulled the pipe out on Friday.

We then were able to drill an additional 10 meters yesterday, but again this morning the drill pipe was stuck. We pray that Newmont can assist us once again, and then we will demobilize until I have had a chance to research the situation and determine how best to overcome the problem.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers!

“Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4, NIV)

Prayer Request

2009-10-04T18:32:00.002Z

Mary Kay writes:

My crew and I leave tomorrow for about 2 weeks in Yawsae, a small village near Sunyani. We will be drilling a borehole for the Yawsae Methodist Clinic. Water is a such a vital necessity for life and health, and I am praying that we are able to assist this clinic in this manner. Please pray for safe travels, health and safety while we are there, and a successful borehole! And pray that the village of Yawsae will be brought closer to God through our witness of Christ's love to them.

"See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." Isiah 43:19 (NIV)

It's A WAWA Day!

2009-10-04T17:51:00.003Z

Mary Kay writes:

A dear friend of mine, Steve, had a wonderful phrase he used to use, when he lived in Ghana: “It’s a WAWA day!” WAWA stands for “West Africa Wins Again”. This is the phrase that he used whenever things just didn’t go as planned. In our North American culture, we are so used to events running on time, schedules going smoothly. We value efficiency so highly. Our culture is full of phrases that celebrate this concept: “run like clockwork” and “time is money” are two that come immediately to mind. But things just don’t work the same way here in West Africa. So when the two worlds collide, it is easy to get frustrated. These are the WAWA days. Because in the end, all you can do is laugh about it.

I had a bit of a WAWA day yesterday - a wedding that started at 12:00 according to the invitation, and 1:00 pm according to the program they handed out, actually started closer to 1:30. Which wouldn't have been a problem, except that we had another wedding that was supposed to start at 2:00. We don't know what time the second started, but the reception was still going strong when we finally arrived at 5:00! Both brides were beautiful, both grooms grinning from ear to ear, and both couples duly married in the eyes of the state and of God. So I guess it didn't matter, but it sure was making this schedule conscious oboruni (foreigner) anxious.

It also reminded me of the blog below, written several months ago, but never finished or posted.

Today is definitely a WAWA day – capping off a WAWA week. I am sitting in the airport terminal in Tamale – and will be for the next FIVE hours! (Which, by the way, is why I actually have time to write a blog!) Now, before you start imagining some fancy airport terminal with shopping and all the amenities, let me describe my surroundings. The departure side of the terminal is a space about 15 feet wide by about 60 feet long. There is a check-in counter, which both airlines share, a small snack bar that sells minerals (cokes) and biscuits (cookies), and a dozen or so molded plastic chairs – the kind you put on your back deck. That’s it!

The airport was just renovated in 2008, so it now boasts air-conditioning, a metal detector and x-ray baggage screening. Prior to then, it was open air, all luggage and carry-on was checked by hand, and individuals were “patted down” prior to boarding. So now, it actually feels pretty luxurious. But I will miss my friend, the security woman who used to do all the screening of women passengers. Maybe Africa is getting to me more than I realize!

There is no Chili’s or Burger King to get a meal, no shop with books and magazines, none of the usual trappings we associate with an airport. But the woman who runs the snack bar is always very friendly. She runs the place, day in and day out, with a small baby – maybe 3 or 4 months old – on her back. She gets here at 5 am, because the flights in and out of Tamale are (usually) early in the morning, and she always has a smile on her face. And she makes the best omelet sandwich ever! A treat I look forward to every time I come to Tamale.

And I am blessed. I don’t have anything urgent I am rushing back to Accra for, unlike the UN official who will be missing several meetings today. I have a book to read and a laptop to write on, so I can be productive. I can slow down a bit from the hectic week and enjoy a small space of peace and calm, rather than racing on to the next task.

Maybe sometimes when West Africa wins, I win too.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life… Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:25, 27, NIV)

“Don’t worry, be happy.” – Bobby McFerrin

Me yε Ghanani (I am Ghanaian!)

2009-09-25T23:49:00.002Z

Mary Kay writes:

I have been praying for a deeper love for Ghanaians. So many missionary biographies speak of the missionary’s overwhelming love for the people they are called to serve. I read that and think, “I don’t know if I really feel this way. Is there something wrong with me?” As I get caught up in the hassles and frustrations of another day, it can be easy to focus on irritation rather than love.

But recently, I have been in two conversations that opened my eyes. I bless these encounters for helping me to see my heart in a fresh, new light!

In the first, I sat with an expatriate I had just met, talking about the work that brings us to Ghana. As we got to know each other, this person started in on a lengthy diatribe against Ghanaians – so disparaging that it shocked me! I tried to defend Ghanaians, but this person would listen to none of that. Afterwards, I wondered why this person had stayed in Ghana so long, if s/he disliked the people so much. And I cried at the pain this apparent hatred brought me and must surely bring to Ghanaians.

In the second, I was at a party with a friend extolling the virtues of another part of Africa. I told her that we had been there, and enjoyed it, but had fallen in love with Ghana. In the face of a somewhat dismissive attitude about there being nothing to do here, I found myself passionately, almost irrationally, defending Ghana. I could see the point my friend was making, but my experiences in Ghana have been so radically different.

It was as I drove home from the party that the realization hit me. I DO have an overwhelming love for the people of Ghana. My God-given compassion for these people is what brings me here; it is what holds me in thrall to this country we now call home. How can I not thrill to the sounds of the Ghanaian national anthem, or jubilate over a Black Stars win, even as my heart stirs to the sounds of the Star-Spangled Banner? Yes, sometimes I want to cry with frustration or rant in anger at the things that are wrong here. But no society is perfect, because we humans are not perfect. As Jesus wept over Jerusalem, I ache for Ghana.

Love is not easy - whether in a marriage or a society - is it? May God ever strengthen my love for Ghana.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, … how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (Luke 13:34, NIV)

Friendship

2009-09-16T07:10:00.004Z

Mary Kay writes:

Charlie and I are so blessed to have wonderful friends all over the world. I say this with a spirit of awe, as I normally take it for granted. It is just not something we think about so much.

But in the last month, our reliance on our friends has really been brought home to both of us. Charlie and I spent an entire month on different continents – he in the US getting Chip settled in school and speaking in churches, while I was here in Ghana with Ken for the start of his school year. This may not seem like much to some of our friends who travel a lot for long periods of time, but this is the longest we have been apart in 23 years of marriage! The previous “record” was 3 weeks, when Charlie returned to the US for medical tests in late 2007.

It is hard to be separated from your best friend and life companion for that length of time. There are so many things – both important and insignificant – that don’t get said, little stories that don’t get shared. But God has given us so many blessings in this time as well - particularly our friends.

As Charlie has traveled around the US, he has relied on friends, both old and new, to provide a meal, a place for him to stay, a car to drive, a pulpit to preach from. You have all been SO generous in this provision. He owes a debt of gratitude to so many! We are especially thankful for the Rakes and the Hughes, who took him in in Virginia without ever having met him, and Walter let him preach on Sunday, too! The Mathis family in Atlanta gave him a home for two weeks, while the Greers were again generous with the use of a car. And the list of people who fed him would stretch for pages!

Meanwhile, Ken and I were here in Ghana, starting a new school year. It is hard to be the ones at home, as nothing seems to happen. It is so quiet in our house right now, with both Charlie and Chip gone. But we too have had friends step in to help out, feed us and provide companionship. The Mozleys and Gongwers were a real blessing, keeping Ken one weekend while I had to travel and feeding us on several occasions. God has even brought new friends our way during this time, knowing the void we needed to fill.

Charlie will be back home tonight, for which I am so thankful. But I am also freshly thankful for all our friends!

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7, NIV)

The Rich Young Ruler

2009-09-09T09:40:00.002Z

Mary Kay writes:

I read the story of the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-30) today for the gazillionth time. This story is so precious to me because of its role in my faith journey. In 1997, I was at a point in my life where I had put just about everything ahead of God in priority – my young family, my career, my marriage, volunteering in the community. It wasn’t that I rejected God, I just was too busy for Him. On a retreat weekend, I remember praying over and over that God would reveal to me what I had to give up in order to truly follow Him, and that I would have the courage to do it and not turn my back and walk away in sadness.

What God revealed to me then was that the biggest obstacle for me was … ME. I wanted to be in charge and control things, which meant I didn’t allow room for God to be God and to take control of my life. That weekend led to a deepening of my faith and my walk with God became much more intentional as I gave authority over my life to Christ.

What this story doesn’t tell us is that it is not a one-time decision. The ruler could have given everything up at that time to follow Christ. But what would he have done when a relative died leaving him another fortune? At that point would he have been tempted to think that he had been sacrificing so much and this was God’s way of rewarding him? Would wealth and possessions start creeping in to take over his life again?

I find I am continually faced with this struggle. I give control to Christ in some areas of my life, but not all. Or I cede control, only to snatch it back again, like a disputed territory in a border war. It is too easy to point to being a missionary in Africa as evidence of how I have turned over everything to Christ, and then to start to believe it. But it is also too easy to revert to thinking that I am the one doing good things, or it is my ministry here in Ghana rather than God’s. LORD, once again, I pray, “Don’t let me walk away sad.”

“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the LORD Almighty. (Zechariah 4:6, NIV)

The Blink of An Eye

2009-08-03T09:14:00.001Z

Mary Kay writes:

We all talk about it— how time flies! The Bible refers to the fleetingness of time and life on this earth, comparing us to grass that grows one day and withers the next. Poets have said that our entire life is but the blink of an eye for God.

Our family has experienced this phenomenon in many ways this summer. Today, August 3rd, as I write this marks the 3rd anniversary of our arrival in Ghana. We look back on these three years and though it has gone quickly, realize how much we have learned and grown in this time.

Yesterday marked Charlie’s and my 23rd wedding anniversary. Where is that young, slightly naïve couple that stood at the altar and pledged to love each other “’til death us do part”? We are still here, though our hair is graying and we have a few more wrinkles and aches than then. And we are still thoroughly in love with each other!

But nowhere is the passage of time more evident than in Chip’s life. Where is that little baby that we just brought home from the hospital? Or the boy that showed such curiosity about the world around him? Charlie and I were entrusted with his care for such a short time. And now he is grown—a wonderful young man who loves the Lord.

Now he has moved back to the United States. While it was hard to say goodbye, we can’t wait to see what God has in store for this next phase of his life. He will be studying Aerospace Engineering at Virginia Tech, and he is so excited about it. But he will tell you he has been forever changed by three years in Africa. Chip, we love you and are proud of you!

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’S love is with those who fear him… (Psalm 103:15-17, NIV)

What's in a Name?

2009-03-11T22:34:00.001Z

Mary Kay writes...

Aunt Kay was my grandmother's older sister. She became the one that most of the girl descendants of the Miller clan were named after in some form. We have Kathy, Kathleen, Kesti, Mary Kay, Jean Kay, Kathryn - and that's just in the first two generations. I have no idea how many of our children are named for her - probably up in the dozens!

At least we weren't named for her sister (my grandmother). Her name was Gertrude - a little old-fashioned for me, though Trudy is a nice name. But her middle name was Mary, so there are a few of those running around. And I am the lucky one who was named after both, hence the double name, Mary Kay.

The funny thing about all this is that Aunt Kay didn't particularly like her name, and was dumbfounded that all the girls were being named for her. I can remember hearing her groan about yet another "Kathryn" in the family (one of the great-grand kids as I recall).

Well, now I'm a Grandmother! No, neither Chip nor Ken made a mistake. In Ghanaian culture, your family is not just blood relations, but all those around your family - in your village or friends of your parents and grandparents. One of my friends here is the Headmaster of the Konkori Methodist Primary School, Mr. Samuel Kwarteng. I first visited his school last fall, and helped them by testing the water quality in their hand dug well. We found bacterial contamination, so I sent him chlorine tablets and instructions on how to disinfect the well. And I attended the school's opening day (for the new term) in early March.

But imagine my surprise when I got a call this weekend telling me that his wife just gave birth to a “bouncing baby girl”. The word “baby” is almost never heard on its own in Ghana; it seems to ALWAYS be qualified with the adjective “bouncing”. So what happens if your baby is not bouncing, but sick or something?

Anyway, he asked me to name the baby, a real honor! And he calls me grandmother. Can't I be the auntie? It doesn't sound so old! So now there is little Ama Katherine Kwarteng, or Ama Kate for short. Ama is the girl name for Saturday-born in Twi. And of course, Katherine for me (mom misspelled it on my birth certificate)and by extension for Aunt Kay. Somehow, I don't think Aunt Kay ever envisioned that!

I haven't seen her yet, but pictures are on the way. I'll post them when I get them. And I can't wait until I can get back to Kumasi to meet her in person!

Ghanaian Haircut

2009-01-06T10:56:00.003Z

Charlie Writes:
This Monday, I went by my local barber to get trimmed up for the coming exams period at MUCG. Upon hearing my tale, Mary Kay suggested I blog about it some.

There are more barber shops around here than you can shake a stick at. The Ghanaians are very much more likely to work in the "informal economy" than would folks in the US. This means that they do not register as a business, and the payment of Social Security or other taxes is "informal," i.e., "not done." Typical businesses include hair salons, small corner stores (stocking bread, eggs, Milo, tomato paste, rice, oil), "Comm Centers" which may include internet cafe for browsing, text processing, faxing, and other business services.

When I arrived at my usual barber (whose container is about 0.8 km from our house) there were two barbers at work, so I spent some time on the couch waiting. One was getting the usual cut, about 1/8 inch long all around, while the other was having his head shaved smooth. That's one of the things I love about Ghana, for men my age, not having any hair is not really a problem, since everyone cuts their hair so short anyway. Above are photos of the the NDC and NPP candidates for president in the recent election (NDC won after some nervous days), and the outgoing president, as examples of what I'm talking about.

The owner swept out the area near his chair, then escorted me to it. He unwrapped a six-foot length of t-roll (toilet paper in the US) to wrap around my neck, then covered me with a white apron just like in the states. There was no discussion about the style of a haircut, either because he only knows one style, or there's not enough hair on my head to do much other than that anyway!

They use the same buzzy razors that are used in the US, with various comb attachments to control the length of hair left standing. The haircut went as usual until the part where in the US you would have been daubed with alcohol to tighten your skin. Here, the barber went out in the street with a plastic bowl, scooped some water out of a bin, then returned inside where he poured some hot water out of his teapot, mixing with some "Dettol" a disinfectant similar to what is sold under the name "Lysol" in the US. Using a hand towel, he then rubbed down my head all over and then followed up with hair spray, which here came in a lady-like pink shade. Glancing at the ingredients, I noticed three - perfume (obviously needed, so I didn't smell like a freshly washed floor or toilet leaving the shop), protein (to give you hair "body"), and sun screen.

As you can see in the photo above, I'm ready to go for another month or so.

Be Careful What You Wish For, Part 2

2008-12-25T23:21:00.003Z

Mary Kay writes...

Another lesson in "be careful what you wish for" came yesterday afternoon. I had spent a little time moping this week about how shallow our relationships with Ghanaians sometimes seem. It may be cultural misunderstanding, or just that we do things differently? Anyway, as I delivered Christmas gifts to various pastors and others, I was feeling a little sorry for myself, thinking that the gift giving seemed pretty one-sided.

But, yesterday we returned from a couple of days at the beach to quite a surprise. As we carried our wet towels and sandy bags into the house, our security man told me that someone had dropped by a Christmas present for us - a truly Ghanaian Christmas present of rice, palm oil,and a guinea fowl. I walked in the house and saw the rice and oil sitting on the floor. But where was the guinea fowl? I looked in the refrigerator and the freezer, but I didn't see anything that looked like guinea fowl meat.

Then I started cleaning up from the trip, and went to throw out some trash from our snacks in the car. As I started to drop the paper into the kitchen trash can, a small movement caught the corner of my eye. I had found my guinea fowl - it was alive!

I had to smile - a live bird for Christmas. When Charlie worked at UPS, they used to give us a frozen turkey every year. Prior to the Depression, they had actually delivered a live turkey to each employee's family. We used to laugh at the image of the UPS man having to wrestle a live turkey up to our front door during the Christmas rush. Now we were living that story!

I called the rest of the family in to see our Christmas present. The boys immediately sent up howls of protest that the "poor bird" was being held captive in our trash bin. Then they asked what I would do with it. Needless to say, my response of "wring its neck and eat it" was not well received. Chip and Ken were absolutely not going to eat anything that they had seen alive, even if the fowl did not become a pet. And never mind that the chicken and beef they eat every night for dinner was once alive.

So the guinea fowl went home with Jasper, our driver. He was very appreciative, and I am sure his family feasted well today. But I was a little disappointed. I was looking forward to finding out if I really had enough pioneer stock in me to wring a bird's neck, pluck it, and cook it for our dinner. It's probably easier to just go buy a frozen chicken at Max Mart, though. What wimps we are!

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. ... They asked, and he brought them quail and satisfied them with the bread of heaven. Psalm 105:1, 40

Be Careful What You Wish For, Part 1

2008-12-19T22:48:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes...

Be careful what you wish for! Yesterday in our newsletter, and also posted on our blog, I wrote that one of the things I missed about home at Christmas time was the sound of the Salvation Army Santas ringing their bells outside stores. Not to worry!

Today, I was in one of the larger, western grocery stores in town, Max Mart in East Legon. I was picking up a few things so that the boys and I could indulge in some Christmas baking. As I strolled the aisles with my cart, picking up dates, flour, sugar, etc., all of a sudden I started to hear a familiar sound.

There was a Ghanaian man, dressed up in a Santa suit,complete with fake beard! He was roaming up and down the aisles of the store, ringing his little brass bell. No "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas" or large kettle for donations, but still a little reminder of home. I was practically rolling on the floor with laughter, as I thought of how hard God was trying to make me feel at home for Christmas!

I took you from the ends of the earth,from its farthest corners I called you. I said, 'You are my servant'; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:9-10

I'll Be Home For Christmas...

2008-12-17T22:37:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes... I wrote the following for our newsletter, but thought I would publish it here as well.

I have the Christmas music playing on my laptop as I write; I’m trying to convince myself that Christmas is just around the corner. It is difficult, when it is in the 90s outside. And while Christmas is a celebration here in Ghana, and becoming more commercialized, it has not taken on the production levels of the US.

As I listen to Christmas favorites, I realize how many of them came from the World War II era, when soldiers were separated from loved ones and dreaming of home and a White Christmas. I dream of Christmas concerts at the church, Salvation Army Santas ringing their bells, and the scent of pine in the house. Charlie longs for cold weather, and the boys are just glad school is out!

That first Christmas was really no different for Mary and Joseph. They, too, were far from home at a time that they longed to be celebrating with family. And they did not have the luxury of e-mail and digital photos to get the news to their loved ones back home! But they did still have their faith in God , that all was happening according to His plan.

That is what we are learning: That home is not the place where you are born, or where you feel most comfortable culturally. Home is where God places you for this time in your life. And while we may be far from loved ones, we are never far from The One Who Loves Us! So we are home for Christmas, here in Ghana, but we will also be home with you, if only in our hearts and prayers.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:4-8

Death of a Material Girl

2008-12-05T22:21:00.001Z

Mary Kay writes…

Well, she’s finally dead! No, not Madonna (at least not that I’ve heard). But I definitely would have fit her description of a Material Girl in years past. Not anymore!

It is getting toward that time of year again – Christmas! Many friends and family members have e-mailed us asking what we would like to receive for Christmas. We have scoured the internet, the boys’ teen magazines and more, trying to come up with answers. But we struggle to make a list. The things we would like the most seem so insignificant – a box of Cheerios or Life cereal, some broccoli or asparagus. It doesn’t take much to make us happy these days. Of course, the things we really want, like Peace on Earth or safe water for everyone, are a lot more difficult to come by.

A couple of days ago, I walked into our local Orca store – a kind of overgrown Pier One crossed with an undersized WalMart. There was one item I needed to get, which I quickly found. But then I thought I would just look around a minute to see if there was anything I needed to get for Christmas. I was quickly overwhelmed by all the “stuff”. I definitely felt like I was in Madame Blueberry’s StuffMart (a great VeggieTales video, if you haven’t seen it!). After only a couple of minutes, and without seeing most of what was on display, I couldn’t stand it any longer and had to leave, with my one simple purchase.

Charlie hit the nail on the head last night. As we were trying to answer one more Christmas wish list e-mail, he said, “You know, it is hard to know what you “want” for Christmas here, without all the advertisers to tell you what the latest gizmos are!”

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Philippians 4:12

Thanksgiving Day 2008

2008-11-27T12:51:00.002Z

Mary Kay writes:

It is strange and disorienting to celebrate a major custom like American Thanksgiving 10,000 miles away from home. Of course, Thanksgiving is not a holiday here in Ghana, so life is going on as if today is an ordinary day. The children are off of school – for today only – but that is only because they attend the American school. We are far from the family we are used to celebrating with.

There is not the least hint of fall, or coolness in the air. It is probably 90 or so here, and definitely over 100 in the kitchen where the oven has been going all day. We will not be able to watch the Macy’s parade on TV, as we prepare the Thanksgiving feast, and we will not sit down to watch the A&M-Texas Thanksgiving Classic after the meal. Of course, this might be a good thing for us Aggie fans, as we are probably going to get thrashed! And if I am really motivated, I can listen to the game on the internet – providing the internet is working and I want to stay up until the wee hours.

But the thing I miss the most at the moment is cooking with my Mom, and my sister. We ran my Grandmother out of the kitchen a few years ago – she is now 97+ and has cooked enough Thanksgiving dinners to give her a bye for life! And now, my niece, Shannon, has joined in the tradition. I am cooking the same foods I would be were I in Atlanta, or Houston – turkey, cornbread dressing, giblet gravy and sauerkraut - but I am having to do it by myself. I cried as I chopped onions for the dressing this morning, but I couldn’t tell if it was just from the onions or from homesickness too. I think the latter. And who is here to help me decide if there is enough salt or sage in the dressing?

I called home last night to ask Mom about quantities of the dressing recipe, as I was trying to figure out how much to make for the thirty people or so that we will celebrate with today. I had just put my cornbread in the oven. I found Mom and Shannon, my 14-year-old niece, in the kitchen, with their cornbread in the oven. So it did feel a little like we were cooking together, even though we are oceans apart. I also thought about the first pilgrim women and how they must have felt the same. Homesick in the strange new land God had brought them to, missing family and friends, yet thankful for the blessings of the year. At least I have modern communications to help me connect back home!

There is one benefit to celebrating in a place where it is not a national holiday, though – if you forget anything or run out at the last minute the stores are all open! And later this afternoon, we will gather together with the rest of our Mission Society team – both Americans and Ghanaians from all over Ghana – to celebrate. There will be plenty of food – all the traditional favorites, including green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. And maybe someone will have a podcast of one of last years’ football games that we will project on the wall and watch. We are so blessed to have this new family, complete with sisters and brothers, nephews and nieces, here in Ghana and thankful to be able to gather together to celebrate.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim His greatness. Let the whole world know what He has done. Psalm 105:1 (NLT)

Drum Lessons

2008-11-22T11:30:00.002Z

Mary Kay writes:

I spent a pleasant hour a couple of weeks ago sitting under the nim tree at the Kumasi Cultural Centre with the drum carvers. The head on Chip’s djimbe (one of the African drums) had split, and I had taken it back to the carver Wednesday to have it repaired. Of course, when we returned today before heading back to Accra, it wasn’t quite ready yet, but we were promised the wait would be “small”. Hint: one never knows exactly how long “wait small” means here, but since I wasn’t in a huge hurry, I decided I could wait for about an hour rather than try to figure out how to get it to someone else to bring to me in Accra.

The morning was overcast, so it wasn’t too hot yet. I sat under the shade tree and watched the men work on Chip’s drum, as well as other projects. And an African drumming and dance troupe was practicing in the background. A beautiful day in Ghana.

There were drums in all stages. Some whole logs were still waiting to be rough carved. One apprentice was working on the rough shaping and carving for two large ceremonial drums. The master was carving intricate detail into a beautiful drum, and several drums were awaiting new heads. There were drums of all types: beautifully carved drums that may well end up as decoration in some tourists home in the US or Europe, funeral drums covered in black cloth, ceremonial drums covered in real! ocelot or leopard skin, and much plainer, more functional drums. But all with the same purpose – to add beauty, both decorative and musical – to our lives.

I was especially fascinated by the finishing touches being put on Chip’s drum. The head had already been replaced, and was being tightened. When the apprentice started, the drum had no tone, just a dull thud sound. But he worked his way around the drum pulling on the strings, tightening them as he went. By the third time around, the strings were so taut that he was twisting them around a stick, which he then used as a lever against the drum itself to pull them tighter. It looked like at any moment the strings would break under the tension, and we would have to start over. But then, he was finished, and the drum had the beautiful ringing high pitches, and deep low tones of a Ghanaian djimbe.

As I watched, I thought about my life. Sometimes I feel stretched to the limit. I think, if one more thing goes wrong, I will just break. I can’t handle any more. But the Master Drum Maker continues to stretch me anyway. But it is in the stretching that I am transformed. The stretching strengthens me and transforms me, so that I am better able to worship and glorify God.

How has God stretched you lately?

"Peter Bread"

2008-11-10T12:36:00.004Z

Charlie writes:

The Ghanaians speak an English closer to British than American. A prominent feature for me coming from New Jersey is that the letter 'R' is rarely pronounced. Normally this is not a problem once you get used to it, but we found an interesting mis-transcription of our favorite Lebanese flatbread at the store this week. As you can see from the scan, what we would call "Pita Bread" is marketed here in Ghana as "Peter Bread!" which sounds the same to Ghanaian ears.

Raising Global Kids

2008-10-08T07:55:00.009Z

Mary Kay writes…

Our children are growing up in a very different world than we parents did. The changes in travel, immigration patterns, communications, and the like have created a global environment. But how do we raise our children to succeed in this environment and to be aware of the differences around them? How do we teach them to understand and value that future co-worker who comes from halfway around the world?

Charlie and I both grew up in fairly homogeneous environments. Everyone was pretty similar to us – same language, same culture, same general values. Being different in my elementary school meant that you either had just moved into the neighborhood from somewhere else or you were one of the Jewish children (there were three in my grade). But by the time we were leaving our jobs to come on the mission field, we were working in a completely different environment. Charlie worked in one group at Lucent that had group members from the US, Nigeria, China, the Ukraine, and India. Throughout my consulting career, I worked with Indians, West and East Africans, a Jordanian, Eastern Europeans, Russians, Taiwanese, Koreans, and more, as co-workers, as subordinates, and as clients. Boy, had the world shrunk since my elementary school days!

I recently received a missions e-mail on raising global kids, which really got me thinking about this issue. What had we done, prior to moving overseas, to help prepare Chip and Ken for life in a global society? What were we doing now, and how was it different?

We always tried to raise our children’s awareness of global issues as they were growing up. Our first strategy was to send the boys to our local elementary school, Chesnut Charter School, where at the time we attended there were students from 26 different countries, speaking 13 languages in the home. We introduced them (OK, not so successfully for those of you who know how picky an eater Chip is) to foods from around the world. We had a globe and an atlas and we would look up places that we heard about on the news. Eventually, we hung a world map in our hallway and placed a dot in each place that we had friends living, so that we could see it and remember to pray for them. It was amazing how widespread our network was, even before we entered the mission world!

We also traveled, trying to show the boys other parts of the world. This started the process that landed us in Ghana – we came to visit friends who had moved here. Ostensibly we just wanted to show the boys another part of the world, a place very different from suburban Atlanta, but God had a different plan. We had no idea when we visited in 2002 that we would all fall in love with Ghana and her people, much less end up living here!

We moved our children overseas to Ghana 2 years ago when they were 15 and 12. It has been amazing to watch their transformation. We had always lived in a fairly multi-cultural environment. However, in looking back on it now, that was still an environment where all these children from all over the world were trying to become American (except on International Festival Day). The difference in being in a (no more diverse) international school is that everyone brings their own culture to the table. If I were looking at schools back in Atlanta now, I would definitely explore sending the children to an international (expatriate) school there, as a way of growing global kids.

The other thing that has really impacted us is listening to, watching, and reading non-US news media sources. With the internet and cable now, you can listen to or watch BBC, Al Jazeera, and other similar networks. It is very interesting to compare and contrast their reporting. Our local Ghana news TV station shows 30 mins each of CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera each morning. It is eye-opening to watch the same news stories covered from three different angles. With older children such as ours, this has given us a real opportunity to discuss media bias and discernment when watching any single source. Other programs, like the BBC Africa radio call-in show “Africa Have Your Say” have been the basis for many interesting dinner table discussions on topics we would never have discussed in the US, such as the merits (?) of polygamy and the torture of female circumcision (try discussing that with teenage boys!). As with anything, we work to bring a Biblical perspective to these topics, but I daresay they would never have even surfaced in the US.

As we visited colleges this summer, one of the experiences most often promoted is the college semester abroad. These are great experiences for any of our young people, opening their eyes to new worlds! I really applaud those students who choose to go to the hard places like Africa and India, rather than just hanging out and having fun in Europe. But Chip had an interesting comment on this: “If my family lives in Africa and I am going to school in the US, are all my semesters considered semesters abroad?”

I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 1 Cor 9:22 (NIV)

MUCG B-School Dress Code

2008-09-24T08:20:00.007Z

Charlie writes:

The dean of the Methodist University College's Business School has posted this announcement regarding their take on appropriate dress at the University. Not sure if I will be expected to wear a tie when I am teaching classes with BBA/MBA students, but I've packed one in my office desk to be safe.

Having worked at United Parcel Service headquarters, I recall having been concerned that I dress according to the style expected of lecturers here. The Principal set my mind at rest, saying that there was no formal dress code at the school last year. I understand that the "casual Fridays" rule at UPS Headquarters may be extended to the non-summer months - it seems that in the US, dress codes have fallen into disfavor. During the 1970's when I worked at Chevrolet's Central Office, we were required to show up in suit and tie, but could park our suits in a closet in our office unless visiting customers/clients.

Another interesting aspect of the document is the use of a wide variety of fonts. The Ghanaian, once he masters the use of a computer to typeset documents, tends to go overboard with the idea of clip-art and weird fonts. This particular document had only one font family (Times Roman), but included three different sizes, bold, and ALL CAPS (which from my perspective seems like I am being yelled at). Not sure that the Ghanaians feel the same way, however.

Lord and Master

2008-09-10T10:35:00.005Z

Mary Kay writes:

I am currently reading through a series of excerpted devotionals from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest that deal specifically with missionary topics. The devotion I read today (September 22) is entitled “The Missionary’s Master”. Chambers talks about how poorly we understand the term Master. We tend to equate it with “boss” – someone to be obeyed. But the word means much, much more. As Chambers writes, “To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who fathoms the remotest abyss of my heart and satisfies it, one who has brought me into the secure sense that he has met and solved every perplexity and problem of my mind. …In the Bible obedience is based on the relationship of equals, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not God's servant, He was His Son. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience . . ."”

As I read this again, I am struck by how differently Ghanaians would interpret this than we Americans do. We take even the roles of father and son pretty lightly in our culture. So many want to be “friends”. The respect and absolute trust that obedience often requires is frequently missing, even in our parent/child relationships. Therefore, we see the son’s obedience to the father as optional – something the son does if he wants to.

Ghanaian sons would only at great personal peril (not physically perhaps, but relationally) disobey their father, or even their extended “fathers” – uncles, family friends, others in authority. Charlie and I were really struck by seeing a drama of the story of the prodigal son. At the end when the father tells the older brother to go join the party, the brother did! We had always just assumed that he stayed outside sulking – what many of our North American reactions would be. And at first, I thought that this better mirrored how God wants us to be in relationship with him. Not only obeying when we want to or it fits our agenda, but obeying always, without question.

But now as I write this and continue to ponder, I think that Ghanaians miss the mark too. For they often obey out of fear or cultural pressure. The father-son role is often very authoritarian and dictatorial. Again, though for different reasons, respect and absolute trust are missing.

I remember hearing someone (Max Lucado?) preach one time about being a father – and building that relationship of absolute trust. He told an anecdote of being in a situation where the child’s life was threatened by a poisonous snake just behind her feet. The father knew that if he told the child about the snake, she would freeze in fear and probably be bitten. But he also knew that if he just told her to slowly walk toward him, she would because she trusted him and would obey. After she was safe in his arms, he could tell her about the snake.

Oh that we could be the same – obedience to God not when we choose or desire it, and not out of fear, but out of total trust. Absolute trust that He knows what is best for us, even when we cannot see it.

"Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am." John 13:13

Famous Last Words

2008-06-11T21:19:00.003Z

Mary Kay writes:

The week of Pentecost, I was asked to preach the sermon at the Methodist University Chapel Service. My first reaction was, “I can’t do that – I’m not a preacher!” But a good missionary must be prepared to pray, preach, or die at the drop of a hat…. And I received three preaching invitations within two days, so it seemed clear that this is something God wants me to take on. Then I looked at the lectionary text for that week – talk about a “gimme”. I think any missionary anywhere could preach on the quintessential missionary Bible verse – Acts 1:8. Ironically, the text for one of the other preaching assignments was Matthew 28:19. So maybe this preaching stuff isn’t so hard after all! Here are some of my thoughts on Acts 1:8.

Imagine with me for a minute that you are one of the Disciples. Think back on the emotional roller coaster that you have been on over the last month and a half:

43 days ago, you watched your Teacher and Master brutally tortured and put to death on a cross. You then hid away in The Upper Room for fear that the authorities might come after you next!
40 days ago, you awoke to shouts from some of the women in your group that the tomb was empty. You may have even been in the group that ran to verify what the women were saying.
Later that day, Cleopas comes running back to the Upper Room to tell you that he met Jesus on his way home to Emmaus.
Since then, Jesus has visited your group several times – both in Jerusalem and in Galilee. When He sent you back to Galilee, you must have wondered whether that was the end, and you were being released back to your old life again. Were you one of the ones who returned to fishing?
Your emotions have swung between the depths of despair and total elation. Jesus has been teaching again, but you have barely been able to take the lessons in, in the wonder that He has risen from the dead!
And now He has disappeared again – taken up into the sky. You start to compare notes with the other disciples around you. What were those last words He said to us?

Last words are very important. I think about when I first started leaving our two boys at home by themselves. My last words were things like, “Don’t open the door to strangers.” Important commands that I wanted to make sure they obeyed – for their own safety and well-being. Or they were words like “I love you”, that I want them to carry with them always.

Or think about it like this – the forty days the Disciples had just been through were like Revisions Week. They had sat at the Teacher’s feet for three years, taking in His teachings, watching Him perform miracles, seeing how He interacted with a hurting world. Now, it was almost time to write the examination. So for a final few days, the Disciples are given the chance to once more sit at Jesus’ feet and prepare for the upcoming exams. When you sit with a Lecturer during Revisions Week, if they tell you to pay attention to a particular concept, you can be certain it will show up on the exam!

So what did Jesus think the Disciples needed to know for the exam? What were Jesus’ last instructions to the Disciples and by extension to us? While they differ slightly in the details, each of the four Gospel writers record the same final instructions – “Go and tell everyone about me.”

The big question for me is how do I live this out on a daily basis – whether here in Ghana, or at home in Atlanta, or traveling to some other destination?

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8.

Optical Fiber Deja Vu

2008-02-22T21:31:00.006Z

Charlie writes:

Thursday afternoon, I walked over to the Lartebiokorshie campus of Regent University to listen to Prof. Steve Squyres of Cornell speak on the Mars Rover expedition. Turns out his elder daughter is visiting Ghana while a student at NYU, and one of the Rover drivers is a Ghanaian in the diaspora who was a classmate of a lecturer at Regent. A great talk, followed by some inspirational comments made by the provost and president of the college to the effect that with "Spirit" and "Opportunity" you can achieve anything you set your mind to. Dr. Squyres let me have a copy of his presentation which I shared with Chip and Ken that evening.

On my way over, I passed an unusual scene - dozens of Ghanaian men working with picks and shovels, digging a four-foot deep trench all along the road, preparing to bury a fiber optic line for MTN, the multinational African telco that sponsored the recently completed Africa Cup of Nations 2008 soccer tourney in Ghana.

The contrast of seeing people selling used clothing, tropical fruits, and repairing appliances adjacent to a high-tech telecom installation was jarring. You have the open gutters clogged with water sachets and rotting peels, dirt and dust. And of course, all the PVC water and drain pipes which were chopped open by the workers and then patched back up. Reminded me of the time BellSouth was trying to lay fiber in our Briers North neighborhood back in Atlanta, and they seemed to hit water and gas lines even with them supposedly being marked ahead. The idea of marking such lines in Ghana is ludicrous to even consider.

Having worked in a factory where we made such cables, I tried to see what brand they were pulling, but was not able to make it out.

After the stories in the newspapers about the Electric Company of Ghana not being able to keep copper cables in stock (they are stolen from locked storage areas and hocked for the copper inside!), I was interested to see what techniques MTN would use to keep people from stealing their fiber cables.

As you can see, they worked it from both ends: HIGH POWER LASER INSIDE-- DOES NOT CONTAIN COPPER.

Life In Ghana

2007-09-17T07:00:00.000Z

Ken wrote the following haikus for a recent English assignment. We thought they gave a good picture of life in Ghana, so we asked him if we could share them with you. As I post this, the roosters in the neighborhood are going nuts! The photo is Ken in 2005.

Power Out

The night has begun.
Our microwave won’t start up.
It is power out.

Morning

The morning cock crows
As the sunlight fills the house.
Ghana’s life returns.

Rat

Coming out at night,
The rat skitters through the roof;
It eats all our food.

No attention span,
I start daydreaming in class.
I get in trouble.

Akokɔhene
(Chicken King)

The royal cock crows.
His fiery crown stands up as
He struts proudly by.

Daughters of the King

2007-07-13T21:33:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes...

I went to a crusade in the village of Kushibu, about an hour outside of Tamale, last night. I met a wonderful mission team from Heritage Christian Academy in Dallas, TX, at the guest house where I was staying, and they invited me to join them for the evening.

It was the usual stuff of village crusades – singing, dancing, praying, and preaching the Gospel. The entire village will turn out for something like this – but then again, what else is there to do on a given Wednesday night in a village in the middle of nowhere? The children all gather around, wanting to touch us, greet us, and practice their few words of English – which in this village seemed to be limited to “my brother.” I tried to teach them “my sister” or “sistah” as a Ghanaian would pronounce it. But since my Dagbani is at least as limited as their English, it was a lost cause.

During the sermon, which was entirely in Dagbani, I found myself watching the mothers of the village, who were standing across the circle from me. My heart feels such a bond with these women. But tonight, I found myself wondering whether we were more alike or more different.

I’ve always focused on the similarities before. They marry, have children, care for their families. They cook and clean and work to help support them. They love their children and try to raise them to become productive and respected members of society. They want the best for their children. I observed all this as I watched mothers quiet children who were noisy or restless. And as the hour grew late, every so often a mother would get up, gather her sleepy preschoolers, and take them home to bed.

But then I was hit by the differences. The women my age are grandmothers, if they have survived this long, and have given birth to 6, 8, even 10 or more children. They look more like they are in their sixties or seventies, than their mid-forties. And I don’t have to watch my children run around half-clothed in rags (well, except for Chip’s fashionably torn jeans!). I won’t hear their cries as they go to bed with empty stomachs (again!) because the rains have not come and the crops are failing. I don’t have to worry that the next mosquito bite will be the one that brings my child a fatal case of malaria. I can turn on the tap, rather than worry about where I will go to find water for my family, or about whether the water I and my daughters fetch will make us sick, or about what might happen to my daughter as she goes to fetch water or search for firewood. Most of these women cannot read and write. Most will never travel further than Tamale, while I am typing this into my laptop on a plane bound for Europe.

And yet, we are all daughters of the King. God loves each of us passionately. He calls us His “beloved, beautiful and precious in [His] sight” (Isaiah 43:4). Jesus cares about each of us individually and wants to know us personally. He wants to share in our joys and our sorrows, to comfort us in our fears, to give us hope for a better tomorrow. But many of these village women may never know that they have a wonderful inheritance, theirs for the asking.

I pray that I never become complacent or self-satisfied. I want an ever-burning passion to share Jesus’ love with my sisters – in Kushibu, in Dansoman, in Dunwoody – wherever I meet them. I pray that God will use the bonds that we share to bridge the gaps, whether cultural, language, or lifestyle, that divide us.

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; He gently leads those that have young. [Isaiah 40:11]

All Creatures Great And Small, Part 2

2007-07-06T20:50:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes...

For the last six weeks or so, we have had a visitor living with us. Not someone we invited in, by any means!

Our awareness of our house guest started when we heard scurrying in the ceiling. At first, I would only hear this during the day time. Later on, our friend would wake us up in the night, racing around our bedroom ceiling. Fortunately, it is solid wood, so I didn’t think he would fall through on us! We decided that we had mice, and hoped the racing was one of the neighbor cats coming over and chasing them. This seemed to be the case, as one morning I awoke to see a small mouse crawling across our bedroom window sill. Needless to say, I woke Charlie up and left the room! But the mouse got away.

Then, he started to take greater advantage of our hospitality. One morning I walked in, and a large bite had been taken out of a banana sitting in our fruit bowl. That seemed odd, as I didn’t think mice ate bananas, but maybe they are different here. We got some poisoned grain and scattered that around the kitchen hoping to get rid of our friend. We even put some on a banana, hoping that would attract him. But our guest was smarter than that, and not fooled in the least by the grain or the banana. Would Snow White have eaten it if the witch had offered a poison banana instead of an apple?

Things soon escalated. I went into a cabinet one morning to get a new carton of milk, and found that our visitor had chewed a hole in the side of one of the milk cartons. There was milk everywhere. In addition, he had eaten one entire container of shelf-stable yogurt also in the cabinet. This was an all-out declaration of war!

The next night, we put out poisoned yogurt in the cabinet. Once again, our friend didn’t touch that – instead he went for the cartons of fruit juice! And this time, not just one. Four cartons of juice were punctured and had to be thrown away. What kind of creature is this that is eating fruit and milk, not bread and grains? Do we have a bat or something?

Last week, Chip went into the kitchen at lunch to put his uneaten pizza away. Opening a drawer to get a plastic bag, he shrieked and ran out of the kitchen. For sitting in the drawer was our house guest – a huge, 8-inch plus tail, rat! Chip says the photo bears a good resemblance to our furry friend, but is not nearly ferocious enough. The kids and I ran out of the house, and sent in the security man, our driver, our housekeeper and Charlie to try and catch it. After about thirty minutes of chasing it around the kitchen, the rat got away. We put out more poisoned yogurt and grain, hoping to finally kill it.

We haven’t seen our “friend” any more, but he is getting the last laugh. Apparently, he finally went for the poison, but chose to die behind the cabinets (or maybe under the washing machine?). Because now we can smell our late guest.

“How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Psalm 104:24

All Creatures Great And Small, Part 1

2007-07-06T20:49:00.001Z

Mary Kay writes...

One of the great things about living in Africa is the chance to see a different part of God’s creation.

I always enjoyed watching wildlife in the U.S. As a little girl, on our summer vacations in the Hill Country of Texas, my family, my grandparents and I would pile into the back of my grandfather’s pick-up each sunset and go for a drive. The purpose was to see how many deer we could count each evening, as they came out to graze. Some nights we would see over 100 during the 30 minutes or so we were out!

Later, as a Mom, the boys and I would laugh as we watched the squirrels play outside our kitchen window, and we would put out bird seed in our feeder to attract all sorts of birds. Occasionally, a rabbit would show up in our backyard (before we got a dog!). And for one brief period of about a month, there was a beautiful red fox that we would spot in the neighborhood as we walked to the bus stop.

But here in Ghana, wildlife watching has gone to a whole new level! When we first arrived in Accra, we were surprised to see so many chickens running loose, but now we are accustomed to spotting a good variety of animals in our urban neighborhood. There are goats, cows, and sheep, often with their herders nowhere obviously nearby. On the grassy area of the roundabout by our church here, a pair of tan donkeys have shown up, and a horse joins them sometimes, calmly grazing while watching the tro-tros and taxis speed by.

Last Christmas, when we traveled to the Volta Region, we were able to visit the village of Tafi Atome. Here, the traditional religion worshipped the local mona monkeys as messengers from the gods. Christianity almost wiped out the monkey population, as taboos were lifted and monkeys were killed because they represented the old ways. Fortunately, ecologists stepped in and were able to show the villagers how the monkeys could be saved and eco-tourism could improve their economy. Human visitors arrive each morning and evening to watch the monkeys, who now sleep safely close to the village. We were even able to feed them bananas – the monkeys would come right up to us and take the fruit from our hands!

But not all the wildlife is so innocent! In June, I took a bus to Wa to watch a borehole being drilled. At one stop, I looked down from my window at a man who was calling out loudly on the sidewalk, selling something. Movement on his hat caught my eye, and I looked closer: live scorpions! Imagine my discomfort when, as the bus was preparing to depart, he stepped on! Yikes! What if these critters got loose on our very crowded bus? It turned out he was selling bush medicines – herbs and barks to treat all sorts of ailments – including scorpion stings. He gave his sales pitch in both Wali and English for the benefit of the “oboruni” (foreigners) on board. He was very entertaining, reminding me of the patent medicine sellers in movies about the American West. But I never took my eyes off those scorpions!

“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small…the Lord God made them all.”

Dancing For Joy

2007-06-28T21:28:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes...

Last weekend, I went to Lawra to watch a borehole being drilled. The water is for the Lawra Integrated Health Project, run by the Methodist Church Ghana. This program started as a nutrition and feeding center for malnourished children and pregnant/nursing mothers. As the program grew, and those in charge could see the needs around them, a general health care clinic was started, then an HIV/AIDS clinic and counseling center, and finally an orphanage. While the program has been in operation for many years, they have never had a reliable source of potable water.

When I first visited in March, the clinic staff was fetching water from the river. They did have one connection to city water, but this was a problem because they never knew when the water would be turned on and for how long. Some days, the city water flowed only 10 minutes for them, some days not at all. (One of my US water engineering magazines recently carried an pipe manufacturer’s advertisement featuring a dry faucet with the headline “What if you turned on the tap and nothing came out?” This reminded us just how crazy that would have seemed just last year, while it is very much part of our life here in Africa.)

A group of churches in Georgia, with a heart for Ghana and the orphans at Lawra, generously raised the $6700 needed to drill a borehole for the clinic. I arranged for a driller to put in the borehole, and last weekend, it was installed. The borehole is 63 meters deep and is producing 36 liters of water per minute. This will be enough to serve all the clinic’s needs for years to come. Praise God for his provision of water!

I was privileged to be present for part of the drilling and installation of the borehole, though I was not able to be there the entire time. Seeing the joy on everyone’s face as the well was going in was wonderful.

The children were so cute. The clinic staff had set up a bench where the children could watch, but be out of harm’s way. They sat there, fascinated, for two days watching their borehole being drilled. Big grins were on all their faces!

The best part was the dancing, though. The diesel engine on the drill rig had a definite rhythm to it, not unlike the native drums these children are used to hearing. So, at one point, they got up and danced! Danced for joy at the gift of water – hope for the future. And Marjorie, the clinic’s director, and I danced, too. It was a moment of grace and joy in the midst of struggles and adversity.

“Sing to the Lord a new song…Let them praise His Name with dancing and make music to Him with tambourine and harp.” Psalm 149:1,3

A Servant’s Heart

2007-04-10T20:05:00.000Z

Painting from the Jesus Mafa project. See http://www.jesusmafa.com for more information.

Mary Kay writes...

On Maundy Thursday, I sat in church for the services. I was by myself, as Charlie had a class to teach and the boys had homework. So I was the only white person in the congregation of several hundred. I had taken a seat near the back, rather than our usual seat up front, in an effort to be a little less conspicuous (yeah, right!).

About ten minutes into the service, one of the church leaders came over to me and said that the Reverend Minister (senior pastor) was wondering if I would be willing to take part in the foot washing that would occur later in the service. One of the things that we were taught in our missionary training was that a good missionary should be ready to preach or pray at a moment’s notice. So of course, I agreed to help out. The woman led me to the front of the church to sit with other church leaders.

As I sat through the next part of the service, my mind kept wandering. I had participated in foot washings back home, but only in small groups, never in a large gathering like this. Of course, this was my first Easter in Ghana, so I had no idea what to expect. Would we wash the entire congregation’s feet? That could take quite some time. And Ghanaian feet are not like American feet. Since Ghanaians usually wear flip flops or sandals, or even go barefoot, their feet are much dustier and more calloused than most Americans. More like the disciples’ feet would have been at the Last Supper. But God has called me to serve these people, and I will gladly wash their feet. Was there a hint of pride that I would be so chosen? Yes.

Then came time for the foot washing. Basins of water and towels were carried to the altar and chairs set up. We were called forward. But I was being directed to sit in one of the chairs. What was going on? Was the minister going to wash my feet? Surely not – I was here to serve them, not the other way around. But that was exactly what happened. Four persons, three leaders of various church groups and I, were called up front and the ministers washed our feet in front of the rest of the congregation.

At first, I felt uncomfortable being served, rather than serving. But then it dawned on me – my reaction was just like that of Peter’s that first night. “No, Lord, you shall never was my feet!” [John 13:8]. And Jesus’ answer is still the same today as it was 2000 years ago. “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.” I went back to my seat humbled.

It is so easy to focus on the end of the passage about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Jesus did instruct the disciples to wash one another’s feet, to have a servant’s heart. As a North American, I tend to jump to the end, focus on the action, put this task on my “To Do” list, and later check it off. But first, I must be served. I must allow myself to be humble and vulnerable, so that Jesus can wash my feet. Then I will have a part with Him.

“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

Bumpy Roads and Blessings

2007-03-23T10:26:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes...

I just got back this morning from Wa in the far north-western corner of the country. It was a great trip and a wonderful time of fellowship and ministry, followed by a gruesome 16 hour bus ride.

Charlie and I drove to Wenchi last week (about an 8-hour drive) to participate in the dedication of the new Agricultural campus for the University. It was a wonderful ceremony, and a great chance for us to realize just how many people we have gotten to know here! While we were in Wenchi, we went by and presented a monetary gift from the Mission Society missionaries to the Wenchi bishop, whose parsonage burned to the ground last month! He had been studying simplicity, and has a great attitude about the whole thing - that God really wanted him to get this message about "stuff". Fortunately, he and his wife were out of the house at the time, so there were no injuries, etc.

Charlie and I also learned about cashews. We are all familiar with the nut. But the yellow fruit of the cashew is edible too. It is shaped like a small bell pepper, but very sweet and juicy.

John Russell, another of our missionary team, picked me up in Wenchi and drove me to his home in Wa, another 5 hours north of Wenchi. There I stayed with their family, including their 7 year old son and 3 year old daughter. It was a lot of fun and good fellowship - especially for Bess to have another adult to talk to, but it made me appreciate how grown up my boys are now! I did enjoy reading Dr. Seuss again, though.

Sunday, we went to worship in the village of Kongu - under one of the trees, as their church building is not yet complete. This is a village church that John and Bess planted about 5 months ago, and it is thriving! They only have the Gospel of Luke in their language of Dagare right now, though the Catholics are finishing up some other books which will be released soon. It was great to see how hungry they were for the Gospel and for worship!

Monday, John, his assistant, and I drove to Lawra, about 2 hours north of Wa in the very northwestern corner of Ghana, to visit the Methodist Integrated Health Project there. They have a nutrition center, clinic, orphanage, and HIV/Aids center - and not enough water, which is why I went. After looking over the situation and talking to leaders in the town, I think we will be able to put a new borehole on their campus to alleviate their chronic water shortages. Some of their buildings are on the town's water system, but there just isn't enough water for all their needs, especially the vegetable and moringa plot for nutrition supplementation. I am really excited about being able to help, and I think this will be a good first project.

We returned to Wa on Monday afternoon to find that the Wa pastor's wife, Gifty, who I had met on Saturday, had been admitted to the hospital on Sunday evening with severe burns on her arms, lower legs, and to a lesser degree on her face. She had been cooking in a gas oven and the flame went out. When she went to relight the oven, the built-up gas flared and burned her badly. To make matters worse, this is the week that her husband is being installed as the Superintending minister (a little like a DS) in Wa, with festivities and lots of visitors, family, etc. coming to town. Of course Gifty hates that she will miss it all - but the women of the church are stepping up to take over her hostess duties. She should be released from the hospital today or tomorrow, but of course, the healing will take a long time. Please pray that she heals rapidly and that infection does not set in!

Tuesday, I was supposed to return to Accra, but on Monday, we had heard that the American Ambassador was coming to Wa on Wednesday to meet with Pastor Amos (Gifty's husband) about a water project for one of his village churches. We decided it would be a good idea for me to stay for this, so my bus ticket was changed to Thursday. Then we found out that the visit was delayed until at least Friday...by which time it was too late to catch the Tuesday bus (service is only on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday). Oh well, it really was great to spend additional time with the Russells. I was also able to bring some letters and other items back to Accra for Marjorie, the Lawra clinic manager, which gave us more opportunity to build our new relationship. And it gave me a day to shop for a smock for Charlie (Wa is known for this type of weaving), as well as some down time.

So that brings us to Thursday and my big bus adventure. There is a song from one of the kids' favorite cartoons (Arnold) about "Riding on the Crazy Bus" - well now I've done it!! The bus was supposed to be an air-conditioned motorcoach (greyhound type), and was rumored to show movies (Nigerian soap opera type) for most of the trip. Well - it was a bus, but that was about all the similarities! The usual bus needed repairs, so we got an un-airconditioned, no frills bus, similar in comfort level to a typical city bus - except that the shocks were really bad, so it felt more like you were riding in a school bus. Fortunately, the children on the bus were all very quiet - there was the real potential for screaming babies on this one. The only noisy person was the guy sitting across the aisle and one row behind me, who decided he had to "entertain" the only foreigner on the bus. He started by telling me not to think that all of Ghana was like this, as we were bumping over the three-hour section of dirt road. I told him I knew it wasn't because I lived here, and that I was used to the bumpy roads. So then he decided he had to give me language lessons - not in Twi, since I already know some, but in Ga and Ewe at the same time. Finally a couple of the other passengers got him to leave me alone, so the rest of the trip was pretty quiet. But every hour or so, the bus would just quit working - kind of stall out. So I just kept praying that each time it would start again - and it did. Whew! So we left Wa at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon and arrived here in Accra at 5:45 this morning! What an adventure! Our driver picked me up at the station (where he had been waiting for me since 3 am when the bus was supposed to arrive), and we got home just in time to send the boys off to school.

Walk In The Light

2007-01-10T11:24:00.000Z

Chip writes:

At New Year's, the Elim Youth Group went on a three day retreat at the beach. The first night our speaker was talking about breaking the chains that keep us away from God. She used the parable of the wheat seed found in John 12:24-25:

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Only when the seed is broken can it grow into a plant and produce abundant fruit.

Afterwards, I was praying with God about letting go of my chains, and He gave me this vision:

When God made us in our mother’s womb, just like Adam we are just a corpse that can’t do anything until God breathes life into us. In doing so, He puts a ball of light inside us that is His spirit. We try to fill up the emptiness between our outer shell and the light with earthly things and lies that the Devil tells us about ourselves. Those things are like dirt that forms a crust around the ball of light. But, when we have even just a mustard seed of faith and we throw it at the crust, it cracks the crust so God’s light can shine through. This light then consumes all of the dirt inside of us and consumes us until it begins to flow through every orifice in our body and then out our very pores. This light then encourages others to take that step of faith and become more like Christ.

Christmas in Ghana

2006-12-15T11:16:00.000Z

Mary Kay writes:

I am struck by the things that are the same about Christmas, amid the many differences.

The first thing we've noticed is the weather. While temperatures are dropping in Georgia, and days get shorter and shorter, here in Ghana it is actually getting warmer, with our highs in the 90s. The air is full of dust as the winds blow south from the Sahara, bringing harmattan. And the days are the same length year round, as we are on the equator.

But the stores are full of Christmas goodies - toys for the children, electronics for dad, jewelry and perfume for mom. Christmas ornaments, gift wrap and garlands of tinsel in every color imaginable are available amid the vegetable stalls in my local market. Christmas carols play on the radio and in the stores. The boys had a holiday concert at the school last night, and we will go to a service of Lessons and Carols at our local Methodist church next Sunday.

The church is decked out in purple altar cloth for Advent, but there is no Advent wreath to be lit, no Advent hymns that we have sung as yet. I find I miss the thoughtful strains of "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel".

Many of our family traditions remain the same. We still light our Advent wreath, which had been carefully packed in tissue and bubble wrap to make the move, each evening and read a Christmas story as a family. We no longer sit by the fireplace, sipping hot chocolate, but that seems to be OK. Treasures ornaments made by little hands in numerous preschool and Sunday School classes still adorn our tree. We won't be able to drive up to Lake Lanier on Christmas Night for the Christmas lights, but we will have the chance to go explore a new part of Ghana during the break between Christmas and New Year's when Charlie's classes are out and the boys are on winter break. And my mother has sent us a jigsaw puzzle - a family tradition to set out and work over the holidays. We just will be watching soccer matches instead of bowl games while we work it. And the biggest difference is that Gramma and Grampa won't be here (this year, at least!) to work it with us.

Our nativity scene, which we have put out on the bookshelf where we hung our stockings (no mantel here!), was carved here in Ghana of local mahogany. The characters of the traditional story take on a new meaning for us, as we see the Wise Men are carrying the traditional symbols of an Ashanti king - a staff for the spokesman for the king, a machete for the body guard, and a calabash for the water bearer. And the shepherds look like Ghanaian goatherds from the north of the country. But the baby Jesus lying in the manger, is the same Jesus we wait for in the US.

So is Christmas different here in Ghana? Yes....but No. For at its heart, Christmas is about celebrating God's incredible gift to us in the birth of His son, Jesus. And that is why we are here in Ghana.

Bits and Pieces from December

2006-12-01T11:09:00.000Z

Charlie writes...

Mary Kay has joined Andrew Jernighan on a trip out to the Lake house that he is preparing for their arrival. They have a bore hole there, but no pump. And before you order a pump, you have to discover the "recharge rate" of the hole. While the state Water and Sanitation agency that drilled the well is supposed to be able to tell you that, we're not taking chances, as the Jernighans have two little kids, and Mary Kay wants them to have reliable water. The Lake is south of Kumasi, and was formed in the crater left by a prehistoric meteorite impact. It is the largest natural lake in the country, with a good fisheries industry on it, although as Andrew says, "we are two hours from anywhere." Mary Kay took Ken along, so it is just me and Chip holding the home fort. He has been busy working on his IB Junior Project - where he is drawing plans of our house here and then speculating on the features and why they are different than in houses in the states, to be followed by interviews with Ghanaians who know something of architecture to validate his inferences. He's really enjoyed the drafting - reminds me of my drafting class at Westfield High.

The music director at the college died in early October, and Mary Kay and I went to the funeral, our first one in Ghana. We had the boys stay home, and then had Jasper take them over for youth group in East Legon, then on to the Mozleys until we could come pick them up. The staff got to ride in the new MUCG 15-passenger bus, and the students rode in the GET-Fund big bus. The service went on and on, and as the only white people present, the usher made sure that we were seated prominently near the front (which was pretty embarrassing, as I did not really know the man, and was going as a support to the University and to see a funeral). We went out to the gravesite and then after singing some hymns, adjourned to one of four different receptions - this one at the MUCG Registrar's home, which is also in Winneba. He had been the registrar at Winneba's school of Education before retiring and then joining MUCG. He has a very nice home, and again we were treated like royalty - one of the few times since I've been here that we had time to converse with the principal. I think it also was the first time we had met his wife.

My exam is scheduled for January 15 - the evening class will have to come in to take it at the same time as the day class - exam security is a big deal in Ghana. The paper has had "Wall of Shame" photos of people who obtained admission to Legon, the state University that we are working under, under false pretenses and were now being publicly shamed and banished from university here for two years. There are also seasons where exam cheaters are expelled with similar publicity. Rather sobering...

Lincoln had a nice Christmas program with multiple choirs and music ensembles. Chip played African drums and the American drum set, and Ken played clarinet, and they both sang. The music people did a great job of pulling it off, since they had kids from pre-school all the way through high school in one program!

The college had a "Lessons and Carols" service last Wednesday - ad- vertised to begin at 5 p.m., so we were there to an empty house at 5:05, thinking we would be late! Shortly after, we started to see some of the choristers coming for their rehearsal, and things began to happen at 6:15. Program began at 6:30, continued until 9:30, and since we had not yet had dinner, we were starved. They did the usual readings - from Genesis, Prophets, and Gospels, and there were four different choirs there - "Mass choir" which is open to all at the University, the University Chorus which provides music at the Wed. morning worship services, the Mt. Olivet Methodist Church choir, and the Dansoman Youth Choir, some of which have members in common. Of course, it turned into what Chip would have called "Battle of the Bands" - but we did hear music ranging from calypso to Handel's Messiah excerpts, local African music, and Methodist hymns. There were even Methodist Christmas Hymns that I had never heard, out of the British tradition, I suppose.

Notes from November 06

2006-11-15T12:44:00.000Z

Charlie writes...

We are keeping busy with the logistics of life here. Traffic is horrendous, as the roads are in poor condition, and cars, taxis and tro-tros (15-20 passenger vans that function as an unofficial bus service) frequently block each other and cause gridlock. This and the lack of restaurants in our part of town are our biggest complaints. So, really we don’t have it so bad. We are doing pretty well in our language lessons. We can make simple sentences describing activities or a picture, and hold some basic conversations. I get more practice with the women in the market than Charlie does at the university.

The boys have plugged right in to their school. Chip is in the school play this next week, with two smaller roles in Oedipus Rex. He is also enjoying playing goalie for the JV soccer team. Ken is his usual carefree self, and enjoying after school activities like karate and chess. They both had good reports on their mid-semester report cards, some room for improvement, but that’s to be expected!

Charlie is teaching two sections of Freshman Math for IT students, a Discrete Math course. He has a day session with about 40 true freshman, and an evening session with 9 “mature” students. He really is enjoying it, especially when he sees that they understand what he is teaching or when they get engaged enough to really start asking him questions. Please pray for him and his students as they will be having mid-term exams this week and next, and Charlie has to prepare his final in the next couple of weeks as well. One of the other things that we are really enjoying is the Wednesday morning worship service at the University, which we both attend. The chaplain draws from a wide variety of speakers, both on and off campus, and the choir is terrific!

I have had two meetings with the Methodist Church Ghana, starting the groundwork for future water projects. I am looking forward to getting to know the Ghanaian civil engineer that they have hired as a consultant. He will be a great resource for me as I try to learn about the practice of engineering in Ghana. I will participate in a Dry Farming workshop on November 21^st. We want to educate farmers to work together to put in wells near their fields so that they can irrigate crops and increase their yields. We will be sharing a number of technologies with them that day, including a treadle pump and clay pot water filters for drinking water. I will also attend a conference on Rural Water and Sanitation that is being held in Accra the last week in November. So keep me in your prayers as my schedule picks up.

We’ve started to look for a vehicle to purchase. Right now we are borrowing a car from friends on furlough, but they will come back after Christmas. This seems to be a very complicated process here. We found one used Pathfinder that seemed like a pretty reasonable deal, but then were advised by several friends not to buy a used car in Africa, as you never know what you are getting and vehicles are often poorly maintained here. So we will start looking at new cars next week, but of course that has budget issues. We have been blessed to find a terrific driver, Jasper, who helps with getting the boys to and from school. He worked at one time for a German organization that was involved in water projects, so he is knowledgeable in that area, too. He has been a big help to Charlie as they have looked for a car together.

We’re attending church at Mt. Olivet Methodist Society, here in Dansoman. It is a truly Ghanaian church, probably about the size of DUMC. It has an English service at 7:30 am, that we attend for the boys’ sake. Several other lecturers from the university are members there, as well. It has an interesting mix of traditional and contemporary worship in the services, which last 2 to 2-1/2 hours each.

MUIT 101 Daytime, MUCG Prayer Service, Trip to the Post Office

2006-09-27T21:33:00.000Z

Charlie writes...

It was a busy day today. I joined the boys and Jasper as they left this morning for school, and they dropped me at the college. Ken was greeted by his namesake and Jasper's brother, who is now watchman/guard on the campus. Kennedy had been our night watchman at the house when we first arrived, and introduced us to Jasper. I spent some time reading Romans in "The Message" before some of the IT freshmen came by to ask about where MUIT 101 was to be taught. Together, we scoped out a room on the ground floor that seemed about the right size. There are about 40 freshmen in the IT group, eight of whom are female. The evening students are older, and numbered 9, all male.

The day students are mostly fresh graduates of the SSS (senior secondary schools, comparable to a high school in the US), and seemed alert and ready, even though the class ran from 8:30 to 10:30, which would have been VERY early and long for me as an undergraduate. I outlined the differences between what freshman IT majors would learn in their math class and what the other majors would be studying. The polynomials, equations of lines, trigonometry, and exponentials/logarithms of the rest of the school are replaced with "discrete math" which includes topics like Number Theory, propositions and proofs (via induction, cases, contradiction), Trees, Networks, Graphs, Counting, and Recursion.

After class, I chatted with the master groundskeeper/landscape architect on the campus, who was supervising a crew of 6 men hacking away at the elephant grass lining the main dirt road leading to the campus. The principal had requested that bermuda grass be planted for a more finished look, but the landscaper again commented on the very tight budget he must work within. He also indicated that water for irrigation may be a problem, since the water pressure on campus is not great. Perhaps Mary Kay will have a water project in our own backyard!

The chaplain's office had put up flyers announcing the first weekly worship service on campus, and Mary Kay came over to join me. We sat in the front with the other lecturers and academic officers. A lecturer in psychology who is a Prebyterian minister gave the homily, and lead the congregation in a prayer session following. Using texts ranging from Genesis to Jeremiah, he tried to impress upon everyone that we should be confident in pursuing our goals which honor God, and not be afraid or distracted. There were several hymns sung from a book excerpted from the MHB (Methodist Hymn Book), most of which we were familiar with, even using the tunes we remembered from the US. It seems that almost half of the hymns we sing at Mt. Olivet Methodist are familiar words but sung to different tunes than we are used to.

The college receptionist gave us a notice from the Ghana Post Office that reported the arrival of a package from my sister two weeks ago. We checked at our local PO, but they directed us to the Accra Central PO for pickup. Jasper stayed with the car, while I queued at the main window. The clerk there told me I was at the wrong place, and so we ended up circling the block to park inside the main post office courtyard. We were then directed to walk around the outside again to another entrance. We saw a long line of people queued for outbound shipments, but then a number of windows for pickup. Our form had a red '7' marked on the top, which we then found out indicated the window which we were to use in claiming the Parcel Post. We had been instructed to present ID in the form of a Ghanaian passport and driver's license, so I had brought along a scan of my US passport and the International Driver's Permit and my Georgia license. The clerk joked that people from the US have too many IDs. She took the passport copy and made note of my Georgia license number on her paperwork, then went behind to fetch the parcel. Then the customs lady had us open the parcel in front of her, then announced that based on the contents, I would have to pay 47 thousand cedis duty. Being familiar with the habit here of quoting a price down to the cedi and then collecting much more without returning change, I had brought along smaller bills. I paid 47 thousand with two twenties, a five, and two fresh one thousand bills. This made quite an impresson on both of them, as they assume that an obruni (white man) will pay with big bills, and they can pocket the change. Then I was asked questions about what I was doing in Ghana, and once they found out I was teaching at Methodist University College, the customs lady said she had a relative she wanted to get into college, and the post lady said she had a ward who she wanted to get into the Wesley Grammar School on the opposite side of the property. I had to beg off, saying I didn't know the folks at Wesley Grammar. All in all, a rather complicated exercise. Upon exiting, the gate keeper asked Jasper to pop the back trunk for an inspection, which seemed a bit gratuitous. Having packages delivered is obviously much more complicated than flats, which seem to make it more easily, although still at a cost of nearly $20 each.

7th Grade First Day

2006-09-01T16:16:00.000Z

Ken writes...

7th Grade First Day

Fall of 2006 has come.
I feel my left leg going numb.
It's my first day at this school.
This makes me feel like a fool.
2nd period....
time for French.
My mother said,
"It's a cinch!"
What's that? I don't understand.
I feel like I'm in a foreign land.
It's time for lunch!
Munch! Munch! Munch!
Next stop Math!
There's no path
Between the 10th graders.
I slip,
I trip,
I do a flip
In the giant crowd!
I want to sleep in the shade
On the first day of 7th grade.

Support Raising as Deep Change

2005-07-08T19:01:00.000Z

Charlie writes...

I just read the book "Deep Change" by Robert E. Quinn, which had the following comments which I thought relevant to the process of support raising (pages 84-86):

Deep change works in a similar way. Once we have our sense of direction, we need to get organized, pack our gear, get motivated, and move on out. This process introduces new information and allows us to make choices and progress and grow our way forward. The process also transmits signals to others, and they are attracted by our courage and motivation.

I am often reminded of Gandhi, early in his career, in South Africa. He had developed a vision and was working toward it. One day, a man arrived from another country and volunteered to join Gandhi. The man asked, "Aren't you surprised that I've shown up like this?" "No," Gandhi replied. He pointed out that when one discovers what is right and begins to pursue it, the necessary people and resources seem to turn up.

Trusting in our vision enough to start our journey into the chasm of uncertainty, believing that the resources will appear, can be very difficult. The fact that we have enough trust and belief in ourselves to pursue our vision is what signals to others that the vision is worth investing in. Our message is filled with integrity and good intentions. However, it is usually our actions, not our words, that send the message.

Acting on a vision that exceeds our resources is a test of our vision, faith, and integrity. Once C. K. Prahalad and I ran a strategic planning workshop for forty-two business school deans and their associates. They were a tough audience. They had little patience for our "theories." They wanted to get their strategic plans done.

We let them prepare their strategic plans and then provided some feedback. C.K. reviewed what he saw going on in many of the planning groups. They reviewed their resources, clarified their objectives, and then budgeted their resources for the upcoming period.

C.K. promised them that if all went well, they would be, at best, mediocre. Why? Because they were letting their present resources determine their future. They had plans, not visions. A vision would lead them toward a plan that exceeded their present resources.

His comments made the deans furious. Their level of denial and rejection soared. They accused us of being unrealistic and specified numerous constraints that made it unrealistic to think in the way that C.K. was suggesting. We listened for a long time. Finally, I asked if there were any business schools in the last ten years that had been transformed. They listed several. We chose one and analyzed the initial impossible situation it was in. We evaluated the strange and risky things that were undertaken by the dean of that particular school. Gradually, the complaints stopped, and the group began to show some interest in trying to understand what C.K. was saying.

Caught in a similar situation, most of us will react in exactly the same way. It is much easier and safer for us to stay within the zone of certainty, particularly if we are mired in the slow death dilemma and suffering. The challenges arise as we contemplate deep change. We must reach a point of ultimate despair and frustration before we seriously think about initiating deep change.

Tackling deep change and facing a new future, we must be willing to get lost with confidence. This confidence, along with tenacity, will guide our actions as we begin to build the bridge toward our vision. It is only when we experience deep change that the new vision comes into view. When we can actually "see" our vision, we must be willing to put it into action.