Purple

I snapped this picture about a year ago. I was visiting some people in Muslim area of town. The Muslim quarters are great places to go. In regards to photos they are full of color. Veils, different color fabrics, ethnic faces, everything is just perfect. If the reader wants to see other photos of purple just jump on over to iheartfaces.

The Attack of a Crazy Woman

This last week added another new experience to my wife's list of Africa moments. It all started with our youngest daughter hurting her foot about four weeks ago. She had a puncture wound from a small piece of glass that became infected and need treatment. Each morning about 8:00 Patty needed to pack her up and head off to the hospital for new bandages and medicine.

Well on the particular day of our adventure, Patty set out and had Ella on her hip, since she was not able to walk. As they approached the junction, Patty remember that a crazy woman had been living near the junction for the last few days. For this reason she tried to cross over to the other side of the street. But, just as she tried to do this, a larger truck drove onto the road and parked beside her. There was no were to move. She either had to turn her back on the crazy lady or keep walking forward.

As Patty approached, the crazy woman, (totally unclothed except for a bolt of cloth around her waist) she began to approach Patty. (I might write a post someday about the decent into madness. A person here sees a lot of crazy people, and most of the time they can tell how crazy the person is just by their cloths and actions. Anyway back to the story).

At first Patty thought that she was just going to ask for food, but as she approached, she got a wicked light in her eyes, and reached out to grad Ella. All at once, she was pulling on Ella arm, trying to take her away from Patty. Patty told her to stop, but the woman was not listening. Just then the truck driver drove off, and all the ladies near the shops began to scream and yell. They were all to afraid to help. Patty tried to hit the woman, but she just keep pulling Ella's arm harder. Her was Patty in a tug-o-war with a crazy woman and Ella was in the middle. Patty and Ella were trying to pull away, but the crazy lady was using all her strength! Patty just kept on hitting her and trying to get away.

Suddenly as everyone was screaming and Patty was about to loose hold of Ella, a man came running up. He was dressed in business clothes and carry a leather messenger bag. Well, like David with his sling, he started running and wound up that bag and let it fly. He hit the crazy lady right up side the head and sent her flying.

The man told Patty and Ella to run. At this time all the ladies came over to comfort and she is Ella was hurt. Just then the crazy lady came back. Like a Yankee batting star he line-drived her in the shoulder and knocked her down. The man had to hit her about three times, and finally had to use a stick to chase her off into a distance gutter.

After a few minutes and a few tears, everyone was better. Patty thanked the man and headed off to the hospital. Luckily the crazy lady is gone, and no one is worse for the wear. Patty has had a few interesting experiences over the years with crazy people. But each time we are reminded and thankful for the chance to live in a country were people still help each other and are not afraid to act.

Fuel-less Fire

Read this chapter in a book I was reading the other day and thought that it was a very good insight, here is the chapter:

The story of Moses and the burning bush is mother's knee story-telling material in most Christian homes. Popular interpretation puts the emphasis on the marvel of a bush unconsumed in the midst of enveloping fire. And why not, for isn't this a contradiction of fixed natural law? A desert bush with its leaves and twigs, cobwebs and bird's nets, is combustible, a natural fuel supply for the desert Bedouin. Yet the fire rejects the bush as its fuel resource and blazes on unfading and completely self-sustained. The miracle is not so much in the bush as in the fire; yet the bush somehow has attracted our attention and closed our minds to anything more. God was not primarily trying to show Moses the bush, but the glory that can ignore, yea reject, the fuel potential of the bush and yet burn on. God is introducing not the burning bush but the fuel-less fire.

Before attempting further interpretation of this unfed fire, we must examine the context. God's revelation to Moses is not given apart from the context of his experiences. The focus is on a disillusioned man. Moses was a man in whose heart a fire of zeal to accomplish God's great mission had burned fiercely forty years earlier. Now he is a man of lost vision, faded passion, and waning purpose. His inner fires have burnt to ashes. It had been his hope to right the injustices being meted out to his people by the Egyptians. But, for all his impressive natural abilities and high degree of training, he had impressed neither friend or foe. Confronted with exposure, he had fled to the wilderness, his mission unaccomplished. Certainly a self-sustained fire could never be applied as symbol of the man himself.

Moses knew from his own experience that he would never again be able to trust his own emotions to supply motive power for spiritual work. It is at this point he is confronted by the God of the fire and hears him declare: "I am... the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I have seen the affliction of my people... and I have heard their groaning and am come down to deliver them." God is showing Moses that the fire of his covenant faithfulness, of his compassionate concern was not the feeble, fickle flame that Moses may have imagined because of God's long delay in delivering his people. HIS fire had burned on, regarding and needing not human passion to feed it.

In 1965 the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, a fellowship stemming out of China Inland Mission, celebrated its centenary... Hudson Taylor built the structure of the China Inland Mission on God's faithfulness. He claimed: "There is a God! He has spoken in His word. He means all He has said, and will do all He has promised." One ground for this confidence was the text, "Have faith in God," which he interpreted rightly to read, "Hold God's faithfulness." He had confidence neither in his own faith in God, nor yet in the accumulated faith of hundreds or a thousand workers to sustain the work. A thousand people could have faith in some bridge and be proved wrong because the object of their faith was unable to fulfill their expectations. There had to adequate assurance that God would accept responsibility for the involvement of literal obedience to his command. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness," he has promised, "and all these things shall be added unto you." The decades of CIM's witness surely demonstrate continuing fire of God's faithfulness.

The Broni and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad... Attitude

I keep thinking of Judith Viorst book this last few weeks. I felt like Alexander, and keep wanting to say to by self, "I think I will move to Australia!" It has been one of those weeks, or should I say months. Patty had a miscarriage at the beginning of the month. The house flooded, after the water came on at night and one of our sinks was left open. I had my malaria come back after many late nights of work and cleaning up the house. The computer crashed and it took two days to reload everything. Then Ella's foot got an infection that turned into blood poisoning from a punter wound. Also our Ghana football team was robbed by a cheating hand ball in the World Cup which would have allowed them to go to the semi-final and maybe to the finals.

But... I realized the problem was not the problems, but my attitude! I was looking at the wrong things, like Alexander does in this story. Though there have been a lot of hardships, we have been blessed in great ways. I realized yesterday, that God is allowing some of these things to help us to grow in patience. Also I realized that satan is attack and trying to use thingsto keep us from advancing in our work. He wants us to get our eyes off of God.

So in response to this Broni's terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad... Attitude. (Which I did have many times this last two weeks), here are a list of all the blessings that God has poured out this last few weeks.

Our youth activity had 25 teens at it. They loved the new games and the preaching time was the best that it has every been. Football Sunday was a great blessing and had many people attend. There are two people on schedule for baptism, and more requesting to be part of the next group to be baptized. The last two Wednesday night meetings have been so full of adults that there has not been enough room for all of them. Bismark said that if it continues he will built a small structure to allow us to meet near his house. On Thursdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays new people have been attending and have returned (which does not happen always). The house did flood, but of all the things that got wet, only two thing were ruined (books). The computer did crash, but I had almost everything backed up, and I was able to find a round about way to safe the other things before it crashed. Also after two years of my computer not working well, after I formatted the hard drive and reloaded everything, it is working GREAT! And if Ghana had won, probably many people would have died in celebration, since Ghana did not win, they did not die!

World Cup Final Sunday

Sunday was the World Cup Finals (think Stanley Cup, Indy 500, Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, March Madness, Kentucky Derby, and every other sporting event in American all rolled into one-- that's how big it is here!)

Two weeks ago the church decided to have early on the day of the final match. Our evening services start at 7:00pm and the game was starting at 6:30pm. Though Andrew and I know and believe that the church and Christ are the most important things, we also believe that at times it is advisable to help young Christians in their obedience. Some times a missionary does not have to make a conflict when there does not need to be one.

For this reason, Sunday was our world cup day. The Bible study had its normal Sunday morning services, after this there was a picnic and games. At about 2 o'clock we started our 'evening service'.

It was so much fun. The people taxed themselves as they like to say here (took a collection to pay for things). The group bought cokes and meat pies for everyone. Also the children had Kool-aid (jolly juice as they say here) and sandwiches. I have to admit the sandwiches were great. Dora, one of our converts, volunteered to make all the sandwiches for the children. She made panninis! They where wonderful! There were so many left over all the adults got to try some. Also some of the men of the church (this is a pretty big deal here culturally) cooked extra food for everyone. They made bonbara beans, togdani (a starch made out of millet) and stew. Everyone really enjoyed the food!

After the food and fellowship. It was time for games. In honor of the world cup, Andrew and I dawned our Ghana jerseys and were the referees. Most people here play the same five games over and over again. Many times this leads to people that are very talented in these games, but this makes for poor groups activities. Since one person will dominate and the rest will be left out. So I always try to come up with simple new twists on old favorites to make things a little even. For this reason we all played indoor Foosball on Sunday.

The meeting room was cleared out and four ropes were strung across the room. Two goals were set up, and the people were the players. Each team got one offensive rope and one defensive rope. They had to hold onto the rope with both hands, and could not let go.

It was great, everybody love the game! Here are a few pictures of the activity-



After playing and cleaning up, everyone stay for the second service.

Tribute to Ghana Black Stars

World Cup 2010 Comment: Don’t cry for Ghana
There are reasons for comfort...
By Kingsley Kobo

We saw tears and felt pain last night when the only surviving African team at the World Cup, was eliminated by Uruguay at Soccer City Stadium.

Many reasons to lament, many reasons to curse.

If Ghana had been defeated during the 90 minutes of play, or even during extra time we could easily call Uruguay the stronger side. But as it happened, we can’t say that they out-played the Africans and so deserved the victory; or that Ghana played badly and deserved to be beaten.

No! The Black Stars shined, staging a worthwhile battle against the South Americans.

Uruguay got underway with a robust intensity hoping to intimidate the Blacks Stars early in order to cut into their throat and leave them gasping in despair – like Brazil did to Chile in their 3-0 win in the second round – but Ghana withstood, dragging along the Charruas until their superiority complex was gradually replaced by ambiguity.

When Inter’s Sulley Muntari fired home a shot, which left Nestor Muslera stretching to no avail, Uruguay knew they were in trouble. Even when star striker Diego Forlan evened the score with a free-kick early in the second half, Ghana didn’t cower.

We were beginning to envisage a long night with fear and hope warring in our souls. Forlan and Luis Suarez, whom many tipped could change the destiny of the evening, remained constantly dampened by Ghana’s tactics and cohesive production.

During extra-time, we saw a more combative Ghana, menacing Uruguay’s defence in search of a goal to seal victory, but at the height of their arduous effort, Suarez’s unprofessional hand ball robbed the Africans of a winning goal.


Don’t blame Asamoah Gyan for wasting a golden opportunity of breaking the jinx that has always limited African teams at the quarter-finals, but salute the effort of these youngsters who came from nowhere to reach this stage of the competition. Everybody can miss a penalty, after all, hitting the crossbar showed how well he had aimed his shot.


Using hands to parry a goal-bound ball showed how reduced and feeble Uruguay had been during the dying minutes of the game. Ghana had pushed and pressed them to an extent that they had to apply an unconventional means of defending and fending off danger. And to demonstrate how badly they needed the save, Luis Suarez was lifted shoulder high by his mates as the hero of the evening during their bliss celebration after the game.

I am not here to blame Suarez, he and his team got their lot – a red card, a penalty and a possible two-game suspension – what I’m trying to point out is that Ghana deserve kudos for rocking the two-time world champions Uruguay down to their knees.


When a boxer reaches for a knife to fight instead of his fists, it’s a sign that he has been over-powered by his opponent. Ghana won somehow last night.

End Note- I love this picture- here are some boys playing football (soccer), this is the true spirit of African football, it is our game.

A Word Fitly Spoken...

A story is told of a young man, sitting by the river bank, discouraged since he could not swim across the river. An elderly man walked up, rolled up his pants, and then walked across the surface of the water. The young man was in disbelief until another elderly man arrived, rolled up his pants, and also walked across the surface of the water. Eventually, a third elderly man arrived and did the same thing! Finally, the young man decided to try for himself. He rolled up his pants and tried to walk across the surface of the water – only to sink and be carried away by the swift current. The three elderly men looked back and replied, "If only he had asked us – we could have told him where the stones were placed to cross over the river safely!"

When approaching oral cultures, proverbs can be regarded as these sturdy, time-tested stepping stones placed by the elders to move people from the river bank of unbelief or young faith to mature faith. - - W. Jay Moon.

These last few months, the Lord has shown me the important of learning and using African proverbs. In the seven years that I have been here, many times as people find out that I speak Twi, one of the first things they ask me is if I am able to speak proverbs.

I have learned that it is a very important part of communication and is seen as a sign of wisdom and the ability to properly communicate. My wive has recently bought me a book of Akan proverbs. It contains over 8,000 of these proverbs in Twi and English.

The more that I work with the people here the more I see the important of these proverbs. They are the way of saying the truth when it would be hard to be blunt. It is a way for people that cannot read to remember what was said in a easy way. Also it opens a storehouse of understanding into the way the people in this culture think.

Luckily the Akan people have one of the strongest recorded history of their local proverbs and saying. A missionary recorded the first group of African proverbs every written in the 1890's and his people group was the Akan. This effort has greatly helped the Akan people in there use and ability to remember this verbal tool of the culture.

Some examples of Africa Proverbs-

"When a frog comes out of the river and tell you there is a crocodile inside, it true!" Meaning- heed the voice of experience

"A log may soak in a river, but it will never be a crocodile." Meaning- not matter how long a fake tries, he will never be the real thing .

"A long rope is easily entangled" Meaning- to much talk ends up in trouble

"The old women feeds the chicken, so the chicken can feed her" Meaning- people can do good things because they know good will come out of it in the end.

"If the head is present, why then is the hat wore upon the knee" Meaning- when an older person is present it is not appropriate to give the responsibility to a younger person.

"An alligator solves its problems in the river and not in the forest." Meaning- there is a proper place and time to solve any problem.

"It is because of hurried eating that the monkey did not grow fat" Meaning- a person that does not sit down and plan things well and does not do things right they will not gain anything.

"The benevolent husband cannot give his wife as a gift" Meaning- a man cannot give some things no matter how good he is.

"The left hand washes the right, and the right washes the left" Meaning- "I scratch your back you scratch mine", but without the idea of it being for a bad reason. People need help.

"Monkey play by sizes" Meaning- young children should know their place and be respectful.

"The man who does not tell his neighbor that there is sickness in the soup, will not sleep at night when the neighbor is cry in pain" Meaning- when a person does not tell a friend they are doing wrong, in the end it will effect them also.

"When the elephants fight in the bush, it is the grass that suffers" Meaning- when parents or leaders fight, it is the children or followers that suffer the most.

"The length of a frog can only be determined after it dies." Meaning- don't judge a person's live until it over.

"In the village of the blind, the one eyed man is king" Meaning- those that do not know better will be lead by those that are not the best choice.

"If nothing touches the palm-leaves they do not rustle" Meaning- were there is smoke their is fire.

"A loose tooth will not rest until it's pulled out." Meaning- a matter will not be solved until it is dealt with.