Back in the USA - 2008

We successfully jumped the pond via Delta in a little less than 20 hours from check in to bed sheets.  It’s the little things that you appreciate first like drinking from a water fountain (wait…they have drinking fountains), like nice T-Roll (toilet paper), and the dry, clean air.  Of course there are the smells, of fresh coffee and of food long ago forgotten.  There is the loss of the natural connection you feel to other white skinned people when you are the minority, and then you see the refreshingly familiar smile from an obviously West African traveler, it reminds you—as if you needed it—that you’re not in Africa, and already missing it. And then there are the mirrors, or realizing its been a long time since I’ve really seen my face in a mirror.  OK – so we had small poorly lit mirrors in our house, but wow, do I really look like that?

Oddest moment in travel: being served Chicken and Gari foto, and a Voltic.  Gari foto is a starchy Ghanaian side dish made with gari (dried Cassava) and red sauce; Voltic is the largest bottled water producer in Ghana.  Second oddest moment: Anna and Suzanne dressed exactly alike and only discoverig it after all the bags were packed and loaded.

This week we will be concentrating on the four Rs, Rest, Relax, Re-stocking and Re-enculturation.  I’ll be preaching the next two Sundays trying to sum up two years in twenty minutes.  Pray that I don’t ramble too incoherently, but just enough to show our gratitude.

By the way, if you would like us to come speak to your mission committee on our work, and the on going mission to Africa, let me know [click here].  I would love to come and share our passion and begin a dialog.