Blessings

26 day left.  I cannot tell you how quickly the time is flying by now. Quite a contrast to when I first arrived and felt so out of sorts.  I looked ahead and thought nine months is forever.  Now I am looking back and thinking how quickly it has gone by.  I have fallen in love with nearly 50 children here in Ghana West Africa.  I have been tested like never before.  I have seen things, felt things, misunderstood things, understood things and now I know things that will forever change my life.  

Someone asked me if I wanted to go and eat when I got home, at the restaurant of my choice, and if they had asked me that 8 months ago I would have been very eager to go to Cheddars.  Now,I want to go, of course, but  my thoughts were there will be enough food on that plate for three people and some of the children in Ghana, especially in the villages, will not even eat some days. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the blessings that God has bestowed upon America and that we do not have to live in the conditions I have lived in here.  But living here makes you so aware of just how much we have to be grateful for and just how much we are blessed. 

 I will not complain about many things that I have complained about in the past.  I will remember the face of a hungry child knocking on my taxi window and begging for food,  looking at an adult with tattered clothes walking the streets with shoes that are too small begging for food, the smiling faces of three salt workers who were working in this dreadful heat and humidity all day long and told me God has blessed them with a job, the small children, two or three years of age, playing on the sidewalks of of these busy streets just five feet away from speeding taxis, the infected soars on the tiny feet that I have bathed, the missing hair on the heads replaced by ring worm, having to take de-wormer every three months, feeling so alone while sitting in a group of 5 or 6 people who are speaking another language, laying my head down at night so far from home.  I will remember and be grateful for what God gives me.

I have learned that much of what I thought I had to have I did not need and it became useless very soon after getting it.  It sat in a closet or some other place and did not get used.  I am praying God will help me to use my money wisely and I will give when I can to organizations like Feeding the Orphans or to the local homeless people.  We enter the mission field every time we walk out our doors and I pray that my eyes will be opened to the physical and spiritual needs of people God places in my path no matter how saddening it may be.Most of us don't want to be sad and that is why we choose to leave those things up to "more spiritual" people.  That just isn't my cup of tea.  It is the life Jesus Christ has called us to. Singing about it and going home to our comfy little houses does not meet the requirements of being a child of God.

I had walls up when I left America for many different reason.  I know now that not one of those reasons was good enough to shut out or pin up the love that God has asked us to have for each other.  I have met so many beautiful people in the past 8 months and have been so aware of the people that have been in my life in the past and will be back in my life when I get home.  I want to have deep meaningful loving healthy Godly relationships with as many people as God allows.  Will I get hurt? Yes, I will.  I will have an opportunity to live from my spirit and deny my flesh and I will praise God for the trials in my life because they will without a doubt bring growth and peace to my life if I am yielded to him.  I know that for a fact because living here has been very difficult and God has blessed me with many trials along the way, but not once did he not give me what I needed or leave me to face them alone.  He was here.


I am looking into yhe eyes of a beautiful four year old right now, Peter. He is smiling at me and he will miss me when I leave because he knows I love him.  Heartbreaking but so very much worth it!  

PETER

Peter and the other children have made the lessons God has taught me about the blessings in the trials so real.  Thank you Father!

 

ALWAYS THERE

Sometimes  walking around in the midst of poverty I begin to  feel a sense of despair.  God in His loving way reaches down from Heaven reminding me that no matter what circumstance I find myself in He is always there.

 No matter where I looked this is what the entire sky looked like for as far as you could see.  It was so beautiful!

THROUGH THE STORM

Today was the day to travel to the village of Chorkor and deliver food. I was very sobered today as I walked through the village.  Our walk was longer than usual because of the rain.  The water was blocking passages everywhere, standing stagnate, smelling horrible.  All I could think of was they have no way out of this. 

 I am getting on a plane in seven weeks and heading back for all the comforts that my wonderful county, America, has to offer and all I can think about is what if this was me, what if this was my child. I had done nothing to deserve this, it was just circumstance.  I was born here.  I was fighting back tears looking into the eyes of the children and the adults.  They yell out hello Grandma as I pass by now and I feel like they are dear friends.  Smiling at me when I yell back Toyo otein (how are you).  Yes, smiling in the midst of the green and black stagnate water and the smell that fills their nostrils that would be nauseating if they hadn’t grown use to it as it grew more and more stagnate.

 In a perfect world, was my thought and then I realized we will be in a perfect world when Jesus returns to take us to the place He has prepared for us. 

 It made  me think about the flowers outside my window.  We had a horrible rain, the wind was whipping so fiercely that it reminded me of a hurricane I rode out in Florida. The flowers were so beaten by the wind the were hanging limp and not beautiful at all.  The sun came out and the warm breeze began drying the pedals that were hanging so unattractive and before long they had regained all of their splendor.  As I stared at the flowers I realized all of the brown withered dying leaves were ripped away along with all of the dust that had once dulled their beautiful colors.  They survived the storm and were stronger, healthier and more beautiful.  I know that one day we will be like those flowers, the cares of this life washed away by  Heavenly rain and  the warm and tender touch of the Son making us into something more beautiful.  I also know that while we are here we are called to do more than realize that things will be different when He comes.  We are to occupy, to reach out and LOVE those less fortunate than ourselves and share the love of Christ. 

  God’s word says that if you do not know love you do not know Him.  Love isn’t a feeling alone, it is something that compels us into action on behalf of those we love and our hearts are overflowing with joy when an opportunity to bless a loved one comes along.  That is the love that we are suppose to feel for everyone. A compelling love, a driving love, a love without limits, a love that thrusts us into action.  I know there are television shows that come on every single day about starving children and we have become so use to them we don't even look anymore.  We need, as children of God, to ask ourselves why we don’t care when we see someone hurting.  Why getting to work, to meet a friend for lunch, to arrive at church on time and all of the other items on our to do list are so important to us but a starving child is a passing thought. 


 I promise you, if you lived here for the past 7 ½ months as I have and starred into the eyes of those who live poverty every single day of their life, looked at their shoes that are to small, their hands that are rough and worn, the scars on their bodies, the missing teeth, the tattered clothes, the water running from a child’s eyes who is sick because their parent cannot take them to the doctor, and so on and so on your heart would feel a new kind of pain.  A helplessness knowing that you cannot take them out of it.  I can do nothing on my own but when Christ lives in me I can do all things. When the body of believers unite they become a force that can change the destiny of hurting people everywhere.

I pray that if you look at these pictures and they touch your heart you will not allow yourself to ignore what is the heartbeat of God, becoming even more complacent, but that you will endeavor to help.  Please contact Feeding the Orphans and give something, anything.  No gift is too small and put together with others it becomes massive.  All they did was be born!

I met a father, Osbed and his son Steven today.  Steven is two years old, he cannot walk, he cannot grip a piece of paper.  I asked his father what was wrong and he did not know.  He has never been to the doctor. NEVER! His mother abandoned him and his father a short time ago so he is not able to work until he can find someone to care for Steven.   He needs us to be Jesus!

OSBED AND STEVEN

IF YOU CAN HELP CONTACT FEEDING THE ORPHANS THROUGH THEIR WEBSITE.  THANK YOU.

Cocoa Beach Pool Day

 I took several of the kids to the pool and we had a blast! We walked on the ocean directly behind the pool, the kids took these silly pics with the native statues, we ate pizza, french fries and drank Alvaro thanks to the generosity of American sponsors. We arrived at 8 a.m. and stayed until 6 p.m.  It was really a very nice day for the children.  A local Ghanaian driver picked the kids up in a tro tro and paid for their transport fees!  That was such a nice surprise.  He said he could not give money but he could help this way!  Thank you Joe.