COUNTRY ROADS

Tonight I have two big projects due for my doctorate classes. For a while, I seriously thought I was going to be able to complete them while I was in Ghana. 

If nothing else, I reasoned, we would have hours of travel in Emmanuel's pick up truck.

It just goes to show I had no idea what to expect out of this trip. Even with all my years in Haiti.

I made an attempt! A couple of days ago, I pulled my laptop out as Emmanuel was driving us from one village to the next. My fingers bounced all over the keypad and the spellchecker lit up the page with its squiggly red lines. 

Fortunately, I recognized my profound misjudgment regarding my homework in time to request an extension from my professors.

And they were both gracious. 

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Here's a sampling of the roads we traveled over the last week or so.

A few looked like this:

But not too many and never for long enough.

A lot looked like this:

And some like this:

And we drove down a few that were more like trails through a state park than a place to drive a vehicle:

God bless the men and women who navigate these roads on a daily basis!

ANSWERED

Today Emmanuel and I crossed Lake Volta on a ferry a bit too late in the day to continue traveling on. (The sun sets by 6:30 and then it’s too dark to navigate the potholes in the road safely.) So we are spending the night at a guesthouse in Dambai, a scenic little town.

I will try to post some photos of the town and my room at the bottom. (The owner of the guesthouse must have gotten a good deal on tile!)

I have limited internet, so I thought I better get back in the saddle, but I will need to keep it short. 

This trip has answered all my questions about Mission Resource’s work in Ghana and about the general effectiveness of microfinance as ministry. 

A week from now, God willing, I will be arriving back in Indiana. I am looking forward to seeing Melissa and the kids!

But I can also honestly say I look forward to getting to work raising the funds we are going to need to keep Mission Resource growing here in Ghana. 

48 HOURS

Last night I slept in a village called Akplale, and, as I suspected, I had no way to connect to internet. Emmanuel and I did have a great dinner and a great breakfast and running water and electricity, so no complaints!

It didn't bother me (too much) to break my daily writing and posting streak. Although I didn't post, I DID write plenty throughout the day - taking notes on various clients of Mission Resource across several villages. 

I haven't had a chance to edit any of my photos yet, but I wanted to give my wife and kids a sense of what I have been up to these past two days. 

In essence, Emmanuel drove me several hours from his home base here in Tema and over two days we met some of the men who help him disperse loans and collect repayments. Those men in turn introduced us to dozens of the clients who are making good use of Mission Resource loans. We met small-scale pepper farmers, chicken ranchers, tailors, mat weavers, barbers, restaurant owners, taxi drivers, and shop owners. 

It has been an inspiring experience and I will have plenty more to say about these individuals in the future.

But since Emmanuel is driving me an hour and a half to church in the morning before we continue on up north a few hours, I am heading to bed.

So just a few photos for tonight, in no particular order, but it's fitting to at least start with a pic of Emmanuel:

TRANSITION

Today I crossed from Elmina, back through the capital, Accra, and then down the coast to the East to an area called Tema. The traffic took it out of me today. I spent at least six hours in a car but probably traveled only 120 miles or so. And I am beat!

The drivers we shared the road with this evening would have felt right at home on Haitian roads!

A little crazy.

I am now under the care of Emmanuel, Mission Resource's main man in Ghana. In the next two weeks we are going to cover a lot of ground, God willing. 

Here is the itinerary Emmanuel sent me a few nights ago by email: 

When I started looking up the place names on Google maps, I was stunned. Gbetsile is where I am tonight and it will be our home base, but we will be driving far north, too. At some point I will try to create a map of our path and post it here. 

We jump in early tomorrow, so I want to get to sleep. I am not sure how many of our overnight stops will have internet access. If I break my streak of posting daily, you will know why. 

MAKING THE HOLE DISAPPEAR

Most of us have a history of hiding from photos of ourselves - and not just those produced by photographers working for school yearbooks or the BMV. 

We demand veto rights over the photos that others post of us on social media. 

A camera can bring some deep insecurities to the surface.

So as I have taken pictures over the past week, I have tried to ask permission.

(I am not against occasionally sneaking a shot to get something un-posed.)

Ghanaians have been pretty laid back when I have asked to take their pictures. 

Today, though, after our final group meeting, I unintentionally produced a sad experience with my camera. 

A little boy in a Dora shirt showed some curiosity about me and we tried to communicate, but we had no words in common.  

So I pulled out the phone and started showing him his own image on the screen. He thought it was pretty cool.

Then we started to draw a crowd of other boys. The one in the red and white checkered shirt was a real camera hog! 

I would take a photo and then show them the screen and we would zoom in on various faces. And then take another photo. 

And then a little boy in white showed up and got in on the act. Here he is on the right, giving me the side eye. 

So then I took this next picture and showed it to all of them. 

And what a smile that kid in white had:

And here comes the sad part. When I zoomed in, he didn't see the beauty of his own smile. You know what he saw?

You can tell from the next photos.

The hole in his shirt has "disappeared". 

But so did his smile. 

Is it just me or is there something deeply heartbreaking about that ...

GOOD LIGHT

Today I got a few good photos and a couple of marriage proposals. 

I stayed in town today to tour with a loan officer named Samuel and his secretary, Maria. 

Our last of three meetings was held at 3:30 in a half-finished house being used as a parsonage/Sunday school classroom.

And the lighting was perfect! I only wish I could have taken more photos, but I was afraid of disrupting the serious business at hand. 

This was an all-female loan group and they were a hardworking bunch of ladies. You could see the weariness in their faces. 

But the same faces also displayed a quiet determination.

The lady below, Coco, is a fishmonger, buying direct from the Atlantic fishermen, smoking the fish over a wood fire for preservation, and then selling them on the street. 

She starts at 6:30 am and works until sunset. She says sometimes a batch of fish will sell in a day. Sometimes it takes all week. 

You never know.

Coco was left alone with her 8 children after her husband died. 

Can you imagine? Bringing up 8 kids on your own is tough. 

Which is why she asked me for help.

But she didn't ask for money - she had in mind a longer term commitment. She told the other women that she was going to take me as her husband.

(It turned out she is much more playful than she looks in the photo above.)

When I pointed out my wedding ring and told her I already had a wife, she thought for a moment, then said she could tolerate me having another wife! 

At this point one of the other ladies threw her hat in the ring as well.

But Coco said she would cook me a big meal tomorrow to prove she is good wife material and that I should ask my "first" wife for permission in the meantime.

What do you say, Melissa?

I should add that when Samuel asked me to close the meeting in prayer, I took the opportunity to explain that I am a man blessed to have a wife I love and the only wife I could ever want. But that I did admire them all and knew that God was smiling over their hard work on behalf of their families. 

Amen?

MY NEW HERO

I first met Stephen yesterday at the little church Conrad and I attended. He was personable from the first moment.

Today I had the honor of riding along with him for the day. Stephen is a loan officer for a microfinance ministry that is very similar to what Mission Resource does but under a different organization. 

I should have known that my assumptions were going to be challenged today when Stephen picked me up around 11:00 am and he was wearing a dress shirt, slacks, and ... boots.

The boots were a safety precaution. You see, we were heading 2 hours out of Elmina into some remote villages. And some of the roads aren't so great. 

Here's a photo of one of the better stretches:

In the backseat of his pickup truck, Stephen carries the saving and loan records of everyone he plans to see that day. He meets weekly with 17 different groups in 17 different villages. 

500 people altogether.

Today we made stops in Teiwankanta, Onomakwa, and Apokwa. The first two groups met in churches.

The final one met under a tree in the village center.

And Stephen offers them a safe, community-centered way to save money and to access small loans. This is what smooths out the tenuous finances of the poor. It makes it possible to buy a larger inventory for your little shop or to visit a doctor when a health crisis hits. 

There's a lot of bookkeeping involved.

But he says his favorite part - the thing that brings him joy and gets him on the roads day after day, is the chance to preach the Gospel and teach the Bible to each group, each week.

You can see the passion for teaching the Truth on Stephen's face. 

Each meeting took from 90 minutes to 2 hours, then Stephen and I would jump in his truck and drive - carefully - to the next location. We got home about 6:30 pm.

This sort of dedication week after week and year after year is pretty rare. And pretty heroic.

It's gotta be the Holy Spirit, because tomorrow Stephen will wake up and do it all over again.