On the Road Again...

It’s 5:30 a.m.  I have been up since 4:17 a.m.  I am now in the backseat of a little Nissan (maybe) station wagon, cab number 153, windows open, fumes rolling in, loud, large truck horns honking, in stop (jerk) and go (jerk) traffic.  The sun is just starting to rise and the street vendors are already hard at work, hustling their rears off selling mentos, maps, milk, bread, washcloths, toys, water, anything and everything you might need, but are too busy to stop at a store to get.  Car-side delivery for 50 peswas or one Ghana cedi—about 35 to 70 cents in the U.S.  The balancing feat performed by some of these vendors—Pringle cans and other snacks piled three feet high on the tray precariously tilting on their heads—is amazing!

School boys and business men dressed for success await a van or a bus to deliver them to their daily routine.  Young girls (not as many as the boys) also headed to school, business women wearing heels and flats walk along the packed red dirt to undesignated bus stops for the next leg of their journeys.

Ladies in blue jumpsuits and orange vests are sweeping and raking trash at the side of the road, collecting it into what looks like 25 pound rice sacks and disposing of it at unknown locations.  I look at the paper and plastic and other garbage just past them and at first think. “What’s the point?” before I realize how much worse it would be without their efforts.  Every little bit really does count! (Have I mentioned you can send a dollar, one buck, into Point Hope through the end of the year to help us make a “Drop in the buck-it”??)

We are 30-35 minutes into the drive, headed into Accra to meet up with the National Director of Point Hope Ghana (Chris), who will then drive us to meet the Vice President of an international company.  He has agreed to meet with us for 30 minutes.  We will introduce Point Hope and explain our mission and vision and he will decide if they are willing to consider donating funds to help us build out the clinic to better serve the medical needs of all persons, Ghanaian or refugee, who live in the Buduburam district.  I’m a little nervous, honestly.  But we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength and this is God’s program, we’re just fortunate enough to be His hands and feet here.  With us, or without us, His work will be done, so I’d just as soon it was with us! 

Knowing this, I pray and write and ride, taking in the landmarks  (yep, I do see the solid-gold-mirror-windows-still-under- construction business building) on the way to the Fiesta Royale Hotel.  (Our cab driver had picked us up and pulled onto the main highway before he informed us that he wasn’t sure where the Fiesta was and could we help him out!  Who knew that going to the shopping mall last week, when we passed the Fiesta, would help us—strangers in a strange land—direct a native to a local hotel? See, Gerald, I knew that mall trip was worth it!)

At 6:30 a.m. we arrive at the hotel.  Safe and sound.  Our meeting isn’t until 9:30 a.m.  We go have breakfast (which includes BREWED coffee, not instant, which you can only truly appreciate after drinking Nescafe for two weeks straight!), Chris meets us, we talk, we drive, we pray, we arrive. 

At 10:45 a.m., we leave.  I still don’t know God’s plan.  But we were given an hour and we were well received by an American named Jeff who told us we were doing good things, not just bettering the lives of an indigenous people, but also the lives of those who had been displaced in a foreign land.  Actually his exact words were, “You are doing God’s work.”  Now, you know we agreed!  From this point?  He’s going to talk to his people and we’ll keep talking to Ours. 

Comments

[Erin]

My prays are with the plans God has for the funding to help build the clinic so it can serve the medical needs of all persons, Ghanaian or refugee, who live in the Buduburam district. I honestly love reading what you write, it makes me so anxious to read what you will post next!