Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Hi Folks,

This is a note from Hope.
Why?, you may ask, Why do Daryl and Hope feel compelled to keep taking teams to Ghana? Well, to be absolutely truthful, only God knows ( the whole story, anyway ). The part I know goes something like this.... There is something special ( magical ?, mystical?) about gathering together a group of people, who may not know each other, removing them completely from their comfort zone, working them til they drop ( almost), adding a huge dose of prayer, and seeing ( being part of ) what happens. It feels a lot like family, all the good things about family. And I have to say this year's team is one of the most amazing we have ever worked with. They already feel like family ( and we started out knowing them the least of any team ) and we haven't even got to Ghana yet. So, that is the North American side of the equation. Ghana feels more and more like home every time we go. This will be our 4th mission. The people there have let us into their family and they love to share their country with us. The country itself is beautiful and sometimes ugly or sad. It is such a place of paradox it is impossible to understand it with a North American brain, but once I let my preconceived notions of "beautiful" and "successful" and "comfortable" go, I find it impossible not to love every moment of my time there. It is an experience I think all people should have, certainly all young people before they are done school. So we ( God) has rounded up the 18 of us from an unlikely combination of places in our world and in our journeys through life and we are going to an unlikely village in Africa to play soccer (!) with school children and mix concrete and dance for hours in church (really!) and I can hardly wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blessings,

Hope

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Team Posts ...

Mikaela says,
I want to go to Africa to strengthen the friendships I made before. And I happen to like helping people and we do a lot of that when were there.

(Mikaela will be 15 when we go and this is her 3rd mission to Ghana)