Rose has become a vital part of our daily life, helping with the cleaning and laundry, watching the children at times and teaching me to cook some wonderful Ghanaian dishes. Although her work day should end at 5:00, it is often 5:30 when she is finally ready to leave for the night. Worrying about her walking home in the evening, I asked if she lived very far from our home in Adiebeba. “Oh no,” she said “I live very close.” When asked how long the walk would be she told me 45 minutes to 1 hour! Well, in my world, that does not count as close! Now I am really worried about her, knowing she has her own family responsibilities when she arrives home.

I was speaking with Abraham, our “Watchy-man” (translate: day guard) about Rose’s walk. I asked where she lived. “Behind the primary school.” he said. ‘But that can’t be,’ I thought. ‘That is right around the corner.’ The school is only about a five minute walk from our house! So I ask Abraham how long he thinks it would take Rose to get home in the evening. 35-40 minutes was his reply. “But I can do it in 10 minutes,” he adds.

At this point I realize that there is obviously a communication issue. I ask Abraham to explain the discrepency in times. He tells me that Rose is a woman and she has many friends. She must stop and visit many ladies on the way home.

And it is now becoming clear. The travel time is not based on the number of kilometers one travels, but rather on the number of friends one has along the way. And so the time it takes Rose to get home in the evening is not a burden, but a blessing. The importance of community is so great in Ghanaian culture that it is factored into everything. As an American, I am always thinking in terms of how quickly I can get somewhere or do something. I map out the shortest, most efficient route to finish my errands. I don’t have time for any distractions. Life is very different here. Here they feel fortunate if the shortest distance between two points is the longest because it is littered with many friends.

I’ve heard the requests for another update from Carrie and please know that she is working on one between everything else she has going on with our kids, other neighborhood kids, the house, shopping in the market, planning meals, me…., and also hosting Albert Jatoe, Eric Awinaaba and Roland Martin this weekend.  I think that the late night Uno games are catching up to her as well.

Also, the Liberian Council of Churches have gotten 40 young leaders together for us from Sept 18-20.  Jatoe and I will be teaching the complete Identification Conference during that time.   Please be praying for us as we fly to Liberia on the 17th and move throughout the country with Roland.

In the meantime, here is an update from Jatoe.  He, Roland, Eric and I are getting as much online work done as possible before heading to way up to Wa in the Upper West region of Ghana. 

“Last week, YLI team with Roland Martin went to Drobo to have a leadership Identification summit as part of the process of internship for Roland.  We had 34 participants including 5 established leaders who attended.  Everyone was excited about the things they learned and promised to unlearn what they have wrongly learned about evangelism to follow the Jesus way of loving unbelievers, bringing them to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and intentionally discipling a few to grow in Christlikeness.

We have just concluded plans of sending Roland to Wa to be with me, Jatoe, for internship.  Whilest in Wa we will be visiting our villages to allow Roland see first hand how disciples there have their discipleship group meetings.  He will also have the opportunity to participate in my leadership group discussions.  The second week will be spent going through discipleship group leading and one on one mentoring techniques. Roland will also move out with me into the community to observe how I relate with unbelievers and new believers as well.

Pray with us for more insight from above since this will be our first time of doing internship.  Eric Awinaaba will also be with us for apprenticeship.”

—  Albert Jatoe Wanaa

I am learning that air travel is “air travel” regardless of the country, and that flying from Liberia to Ghana can be just as frustrating as a Friday afternoon flight trip from Laguardia to Atlanta!  Churcher and I left Kumasi early this morning for the 4 hour drive to Accra.  Roland was due to arrive at 11 AM, but his plane did not leave Liberia until 4:30 PM.  Churcher and I made the most of our time in Accra though.  We got a good lunch and watched some olympic vollyball action, stopped by the Compassion International office to drop off a gift, and got to spend some wonderful time visting with YLI coach Eric Awinaba and Priscilla Zangina from Bawku.

Roland finally emerged from the arrivals gate shortly after 7 PM tired but excited about his month in Ghana.  Eric is also going to be experiencing the internship with Roland for the entire 30 days.  We hope that we can continue these YLI intensive immersions as God brings the right young men and women to us.

Here is a short greeting from Roland:  ” Greetings in the name of our Lord. It is great to be in Accra again this time for the 30 days training with YLI. My trip was long and tiresome but, by the grace of the Almighty we arrive safely.  I’m looking forward to a wonderful time here in Ghana with YLI coaches. GOD BLESS….”

Here in Ghana, one of our challenges is gaining the trust of local pastors in towns where we train young people.  The suspicion is that YLI is coming to start a new church and “abduct” their best talent!  So, before each conference we make efforts to visit each pastor at least once to introduce YLI, and also to show proper cultural respect for them and their churches. 

Trust building is simply ongoing here in Ghana.  We never stop working to build trust.

Friday, we received an invitation from the national council of churches in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, to join Roland Martin in organizing a youth leadership training conference in Liberia.  As Albert Churcher explained to me yesterday, that means we would be building trust “at the top levels” before we even hold a single conference.  Relationships with the top leaders of the major churches in Monrovia translates into YLI possibly having a wonderful opportunity to serve and train Liberian church leaders as they reach out to young people.  The impact could be far reaching.

Without effective ministry to youth, it is doubtful that Liberia will remain peaceful throughout the next generation.  Many children were used as soldiers in the civil war in the 1990’s and are now teenagers and young adults with little to do.  The government has organized some state run youth groups to keep youth off of the streets, but they can’t keep up. 

Please pray for us as we make decisions about YLI’s involvement in Liberia.  The need and invitation are real and compelling; but the commitment is great, so we want to make sure that this is where we are supposed to go.  In my life I am learning over and over that I am not necessarily supposed to force my way into every door that cracks open.  Its much better pray, listen and wait upon God’s timing!

 Katie turned 4 yesterday and as you can see by the picture, Carrie did some baking Ghana style.  This picture was taken just after Katie leaned down and mischievously bit off a small chunk of the cake (you can see it if you look closely).  I would have gone for the colored icing if I were her. 

Birthday menu:  hamburgers and french fries for dinner, butterfly cake and chocolate and vanilla Fan Ice for dessert.  It was all improvised using local ingredients but Carrie did a great job! 

On Friday we are moving two miles down the road to our new house.  We will miss the air conditioning and water heater, but my experience has been that a cold shower can help you fall asleep on a muggy African night.  And it will be nice knowing that we can settle in here for three months.  

Also, on the positive side:

• although the rent is the same, the house is twice as big so we can house and feed the coaches with us in Kumasi.
• Katie and John Mark can sleep in separate rooms which should really help us ALL sleep better!
• the dogs at this house are still puppies and love the kids.
• the snake population is much lower at this house.  We’ve seen two snakes in our current yard so far due to the plantain grove behind our house!  Most snakes here are pretty poisonous.
• there is no wild cat living in any of the bedrooms that we know of.

Thanks for all of your comments!  We love hearing from you all.

From the trip to Western Region last week…It may take a few hours for all of these to process so if they don’t work at first, please visit again later.

This first video is for Jim Moore (few people know he is a great lover of African singing and dancing).  The song leader’s dog decided to come up and help her lead the music and dancing.  Tetteh tried to shoo it away and almost lost his hand. 

Here are some excerpts of Jatoe’s teaching from the Essam Identification Conference.  First Jatoe tells them to change their mindsets… no ‘hit and run evangelism’!  Just go and love those who need you.

Here is Jatoe’s encouragement for them to allow God to live through them…loving those who the ‘sanctified gurus’ won’t get close to.

There is a funny African proverb that says, “He who follows the fishermen also gets the dead fish on him.”  Everyone in the church has heard it because it is often quoted to discourage Christian youth from venturing outside of the safety of the churches and getting their morals corrupted (and if you do hang out with “people of the world” the gossip will certainly follow!).   

And lest we take ourselves too seriously… this was shot behind the church where we did the conference.

Hope you enjoy it!  It only took me 2 hours to upload this stuff!

(the Pictures page – under “Learn More” to the right of this page ——-> has been updated)

I am still working on getting some photos and video optimized for posting but wanted everyone to know that Jatoe, Churcher, Naomi, Tetteh and I had a great time with the youth of Essam at the Leadership Identification Summit.  It is fun to see the reactions as what we are teaching begins to “sink in”.  The young people who attend our 3 day conferences are hand-selected by local pastors because they a desire to reach the people in their communities.  But usually no one has ever really taught them “how to do it” relationally. 

We return to Essam at the end of August for a couple of days to check in and see how they are doing (our Follow-up Conference).  In the meantime…Roland Martin from Liberia arrives Aug 11 to begin his month long internship; there is another Identification Summit in Drobo August 13-15; then mid-month we are traveling up to the Upper West region to visit Jatoe’s home and check in on Abraham in Sazie; and finally we visit Naomi and the people she is discipling in Sunyani at the end of Aug.  Busy month!

Another posting from Carrie:

I had an English teacher in high school who used to say, “If it happens once, it is interesting, if it happens twice, it is a coincidence, if it happens three times it is a paper topic! (or, in this case, a blog entry).  Over the last week or so the theme developing around here has been about Zaccheus, The Wee Little Man..

Katie recently learned the song “Zaccheus is a wee little man.”  She has been singing it enthusiastically for all our visitors, for her dolls, in the tub.  She has made up hand motions and I’m sure a ballet is in the works.  She is very into this story of this mean little man and how Jesus seemed to really like him. 

So, I am not sure if it was the Holy Spirit, or Katie’s singing that brought the story of Zaccheus to Ash’s mind as he began preparing for the second day Coach’s Conference that was held here in Kumasi this weekend.  Ash shared how Jesus, walking along with Father, was drawn this man, forever known for two things, being short and mean (Ok, am I the only one who pictures Danny Devito in Taxi?), to eat with that day.  Reflecting God’s purpose for the little guy, Jesus loved this man and his life was changed.  Of course Jesus was heavily criticized for it.  It is the same position many of our coaches face as they befriend the not so “desirable” folks in their communities. 

Naomi, one of our coaches and the self-proclaimed “Queen Mother” of YLI (she was the first female coach.), shared the story of her own Zaccheus.  Recently her daughter was stabbed by a boy in her town of Sunyani who is known for being angry, violent and hard.  As any mother would, Naomi was on a mission to bring this boy to justice.  She planned to visit the police station to report the incident but on her way stopped by the boy’s home to see if he could be found.  He was not there, but what she saw at the home began to change her thinking.  In her words, the home was “not fine.”  It was then that she realized that it would do nothing for him to be captured by the police.  She stated, “I realized I needed to capture him for Jesus.”  Naomi’s plans changed.  She didn’t travel to the police station.  She didn’t report the crime.  She called for the boy to visit her at the school where she teaches.  He came, ready for a fight and prepared to do what was needed to defend himself.  As Naomi poured love on this young man, sharing with him the truth of Jesus, she was shocked to see his tough exterior melt.  Tears fell from eyes that no one believed could cry as he accepted the love and forgiveness of Jesus, and Naomi and her family. 

This young Zaccheus asked forgiveness from Naomi’s daughter.  Naomi says that now all her daughter’s wounds have been healed.  And this young boy is now a regular fixture at Naomi’s home.  He is even helping with the cooking!  Naomi, like Jesus, is receiving quite a bit of criticism from her church and community.  They say that in time his true colors will again be seen.  Most people would rather see judgment than redemption.  But Naomi laughs at these criticisms.  Not only have her daughter’s wounds healed, but so have the wounds of this young man.

There is more from the conference to be posted (and some pictures too).  Thanks for being there for us!

Today, the seven YLI coaches and six new in-training coaches will be descending upon us in Kumasi for the coach’s conference.  These are the key young men and women who lead our work of incarnational evangelism and mentoring discipleship throughout Ghana.  They are natural leaders (what Jim Moye called H.A.F.T.  Heart for God, Available, Faithful, Teachable).  They are also a lot of fun.  We are looking forward to our time with them – hearing their success stories as well as their struggles, and worshiping and praying together.  Saturday we all will be serving at a local orphanage.  And keeping with coach tradition, there will also be a few pounds of Peanut M&M’s consumed, heated games of Connect-4 played, and to keep things loose we will be popping in the Evan Almighty DVD on Friday night.

At the conference I will be leading a discussion on Matthew 3:17, “And a voice from heaven said, ‘this is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”  The beginning of Jesus’ ministry on earth was kicked off with a display of love among the Trinity.  The Father, in the presence of the Spirit, confirmed Jesus’ calling with words of love.  It was this love of the Father that was the power and motivation for Jesus’ entire ministry.  Likewise for us and the coaches, ministering out of a sense of responsibility, obligation or guilt is to ignore the way of Jesus.  As those indwelt by the life of Christ, our lives need to be founded in the deep knowledge of God’s love for us; and it is from an overflow of that love by which we minister to others in our world.  Please pray this week that at the coach’s conference our young men and women will experience the love of the Father in a personal and powerful way.