Seeing the Country of Ghana

It has been a couple of difficult days. I've been crammed together with two other guys in the back of a small SUV driving for about 16 hours in the last two days. The Ghanans wanted to show us their country and we have covered about half of it or so it seems. I think that in the Christian life a lot of time is spent in the mundane and unpleasant so that we are available when the opportunity comes to make an eternal difference.

The country is pretty, very green this time of the year although it is very hot and humid. We've seen some beautiful beaches and a rainforest and lots of countryside. We briefly visited a family that had just had a funeral right before we came. They do that a lot differently than we do. Everybody comes dressed in black or red and it seems the whole town turned out. It becomes quite a social event, usually on Saturdays, and after the service later in the afternoon everyone comes over to the relatives' house and they essentially have a party.

We learned an interesting fact about this culture. Everyone's first name is the day of the week they were born on, although men and women have different names for the day of the week. For Friday men are called "Kofi" as in Kofi Annon. All men born on Friday have that first name. Then they are named after a friend or relative, then a Christian name like Paul or David, etc. and then their father's name. So they all have four names. They asked us what day of the week we were born on and none of us had a clue. Do you?

There seems to be an abundance of small churches here but very little knowledge of the truth. It makes our passion to teach pastors the Word more pressing. I can't wait to get started on Monday.

Thanks for your prayers,

Al