Peace

As I try to reenter into the American way of life, I can't help but think about the last 3 weeks of my life.  I have hesitated to try and write anything on this blog for fear of losing the true experience and stripping it of all the importance it holds to me.  But, I have many faithful followers of this site and so much support that it would be wrong of me to leave you all hanging after the last post.

To try and describe to you a chronological order of events over the last 2 weeks of the trip is not something I want to do, nor do I think it would be very interesting....So I will write out of emotion, truly the only way I really know how.

The sound of children singing, the smell of goat and sunscreen, sweat, fufu, and bottles of medication, the choatic roar of the crowd....these are things that I wish I could bottle up and take back with me.  They are what I experienced everyday as my heart found it's peace in this beautiful country of beautiful people.  The smiles from a child whose eyes you've caught, the curious children who stand and stare, the strong mothers who carry their beloved on their backs...There is love here and it is clear to see.  There is also choas, depravity, poverty, and lack of opportunity.  Sickness, disease, wasting away....But if I can give just one person hope, love, understanding, acknowledgement, freedom, then it is worth every moment away from home, it is worth every drop of sweat, every stomach cramp, every dirty squatty I peed in.  And soon I find that this has become my home...Amazing how God can create your heart to find its peace and happiness in such far away places.

Of all that we experienced in Ghana what I close my eyes and see is people....People who come to you with hope and expectations that you will use your resources, your education, and your willpower to reach out and lift them up.  People who give you their love and their smiles, their happiness, their song, their dance.  People who give your heart a safe place to rest.  These are all God's beloved children...what is it that keeps us from them but ourselves.