75% of the way towards my mother having a Merry Christmas!

Four and a half weeks in over here in Ghana, and I’m doing well!  I’ve just finished my time teaching at St. Peter’s Mission school.  I spent about two weeks here, in the northern part of Accra, teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th graders.  We covered some English literature, specifically the Merchant of Venice.  Literature is something I’ve found sorely lacking here in both availability and appreciation.  There’s a certain pragmatism to the education, with the focus almost entirely on completing the mandatory curriculum and ensuring the students attain the highest scores possible on the standardized tests at the end of the year.  Additionally, getting books can be quite expensive here, since they must be imported, and imports are very expensive.  This means that reading for pleasure is something that is simply not common here at all.  Also means I should’ve totally thrown War and Peace in the bag, to be sure of always having something to read.
   

Anyways, the Merchant of Venice proved to be a very interesting book to cover since the central plot theme revolves around the power and impact of mercy (or lack thereof).  As such, it provided an excellent opportunity to talk to the students about what it mercy really was, and what forgiveness really means.  Additionally, there was a huge fight at the school a couple weeks back, where a foreign student attacked the director of the school.  This provided a great example to talk about what it means to forgive someone in the real world, how it’s not easy, and often fraught with risk, because it means losing power.  No-one deserves forgiveness…not Antonio from Shylock, nor Shylock from Antonio, nor the student who came after the school director.  Neither do we deserve forgiveness from God.

Tomorrow will see me head to the northern part of the country, to Tamale.  The Northern region is sort of the neglected stepchild of Ghana.  There’s a ton of NGO and Missionary work being done up there to help the people, but the region is extremely impoverished, and largely Muslim.  That said, most of the people in Accra are largely apathetic to the plight.  Much as people in the US are content to worry about their lives and businesses at home, most people in Accra worry about their own lives and businesses.  The north is the government’s problem, not theirs.  Most of the mission’s and development work (I think that those two are by necessity intrinsically linked together…you help people transform their whole lives, spirit AND body) is located in the north, and so my work will be centered around building connections with the various organizations, to learn what they’re doing and what full time missions work could look like. 

Please pray for my continued safety and renewed health, and that I’d continue to patiently trust in the Lord’s guidance.  I have much to learn still here in Ghana over the next week and a half, and then some big decisions to make when I get home.  The Lord is faithful, but it can be extremely frustrating constantly not knowing what’s going to happen next and all too easy to slip into imagining some fantasy future than focusing on the present God‘s provided.  Exhilarating too, but frustrating.