OK – so last week I promised that I would write about my trip to Ghana. I’m going to do my best to be concise, but it was a 17-day trip, so I’m not sure how concise I can be.

I went with a group from school. Beeson requires us to complete three internships. One of them has to be have a cross-cultural component. You can either complete an entire semester-long internship, OR you can go on a two week trip to a foreign country and get your credit that way. Which one would you choose? I, obviously, went for the two-week trip.

Instead of giving you a blow-by-blow account of the trip, I think I’ll start by including part of a paper I wrote before we left:

Inevitably, when I tell people I’m going to Ghana, their reaction is one of anxious enthusiasm. They know that this is an amazing opportunity for me, but they also fear for my safety. The news is filled with riots and demonstrations in Kenya, and if Kenya is in turmoil, the rest of Africa must be as well. “You know, Africa isn’t known for its political stability,” they say. Even if I explain to them that Ghana is one of the more stable countries in the continent, I can tell they don’t believe me. “Don’t drink the water…or eat the food,” they caution me. I tell them that I have to eat something, and no matter how many granola bars or water bottles I stuff into my luggage, it won’t be sufficient. My mother, knowing that mosquitoes eat me up like crazy, points out that my chances of contracting malaria are higher than others. Thanks for the reminder, mom. These are just a handful of the concerns I hear. They range from the downright silly to the deadly serious. If I’m honest with myself, I will admit that these fears are not just the fears of my friends and family. They are my fears as well.

When I woke up this morning and turned on the news, images of burning churches in Kenya filled the screen. It’s not that far away from Ghana, just a hop, skip, and jump across the continent. Uneasiness filled the pit of my stomach as I packed the rest of my belongings. Surely, everything will be fine, at least I think it will. This is the biggest judgment of the country I will have to lay aside. The notion that it is dangerous for me to be there pervades my mind. Even if I take every precaution necessary, I am still afraid that someone will snatch my money in the market, rioters will burn down a church I am working in, or I’ll catch a disease from a loose chicken on an overstuffed tro-tro. I constantly have to remind myself that their way of life is not wrong, it’s just different. They are not uncivilized: their civilization simply looks different than mine. Aspects of Ghana that make me raise my eyebrows, like overcrowded cities and animals wandering around, are just part of their way of life. There is nothing wrong with it. Political riots break out in the United States, and there’s no guarantee of my safety here either. These are the things I try to remember.

So I went, and lo, and behold, I survived to tell about it. We spent the first half of the first week hearing lectures from various African theologians, church leaders and missionaries. Then we started the trek around the country. Hang on, let me get a map for you:

We started in Accra, down at the bottom of the map. Then we traveled to Ho, in the east. From there, we drove to Kumasi, in the middle of the country. We left Kumasi and went to Mole National Park, in the far north. After visiting the park, we drove to the small village of Carpenter, not on the map, but between Mole and Kumasi. Then, we traveled south to Cape Coast before heading back to Accra and flying out. How’s that for travel?

The country was beautiful, but impoverished. Most of the people there live on less than $1 a day. Don’t get the impression that all of Africa is mud huts and loin cloths. Accra is a city of 4 million people, and Kumasi has over 1 million people. There are definitely urban areas, but when we started driving around and visiting the rural areas, things started changing.

There is so much to say, and right now, I am just too tired to say it all. So let’s do this. In the coming weeks, I will write about my trip to Ghana in sections. Your next installment will come Friday.

Until then, grace and peace.

Two years ago, I spent 17 days in Ghana.  It changed my life.  At least, it changed it for a little while.  And then life got busy, and I became semi-obsessed with unimportant things, like how many people visit (or don’t visit) this site every day, reading blogs, and otherwise wasting time.  I have allowed myself to be consumed by the mundane, and I have forgotten about the extraordinary grace that I have received.

It’s so easy to take things for granted.

But one look at Ryan’s pictures reminded me that because I have been given much, much is expected of me.  I should write Emmanuel, my Compassion child, more often.  I should encourage others to sponsor a child, and I should revisit the journal I kept while I was in Africa.  Some lessons have to be learned more than once, you know.

When I returned from Ghana, I wrote a series of posts about the trip on my personal blog.  I’d like to share some of those with you over the next few days.  For some of you, these will be reruns, but maybe I’m not the only one who needs to be reminded of lessons that God has taught me in the past.

And someday, I hope to go to Ghana, and meet Emmanuel, and blog about it just like Ryan’s doing.  That would change my life all over again.

Three months ago, I took a writing hiatus and disappeared for a little while to prepare for the birth of my daughter and give myself time to adjust to our new life together.  Yesterday, we celebrated her two-month birthday, and today she reached a milestone.  Her first round of shots.

This morning we woke up early and packed the diaper bag.  I strapped my daughter into her carseat and loaded her in the car.  When we arrived at the office, I signed her in and sat in the waiting room with her as she cooed and grinned at me.  My heart was heavy.  I knew that my happy child would be upset and crying by the time we left the office, but I also knew that the shots were in her best interest.

The nurse weighed her, and the doctor checked her out.  The time for the shots arrived before I was ready for them.  My daughter gripped my index finger in one hand and my husband’s in the other.  She laid on the examination table in complete submission and trust as the nurse held down her legs and gave her the first shot.

For a second, I thought she wouldn’t cry.  Then her face contorted in shock and agony and she shrieked in pain.  I’ve never heard that sound come out of her mouth before.  The crying got louder with each shot, and my heart ached for my baby girl.  She had just experienced pain for the first time in her life, and I had voluntarily subjected her to it.

On the ride home, it occurred to me that sometimes God signs us up for pain that he knows is necessary for our own well-being.  In those moments, all we can do is cling to his finger for dear life and keep trusting that he knows what is best for us.  No life worth living is painless, and however much we may wish that we could spare ourselves the discomfort, sometimes the pain is necessary to get us where we need to be.

My daughter, by the way, is fine.  As I type this, she’s laid across my lap smiling and cooing at me again.  She survived the temporary pain.  All is well.

Life has been busy lately.  So busy, in fact, that I haven’t taken the time to sit down and write here as often as I would like.  With a baby set to arrive in just three weeks, baskets of pink onesies and fluffy blankets have swallowed me.  I’ve been getting her room in order and and hosting family and having a baby shower, and life has been insane.  In the midst of my normal, everyday life, I’ve been consumed by writing projects.  I’ve got articles coming out in ec and myMISSIONfulfilled in September, and another article coming out in the December issue of ec.  I’ve also signed a contract to write Sunday school curriculum for Clarity Publishers, and I’ve completed one of six lessons.  I’m trying to crank out a couple more lessons before it’s baby time.  All of that explains my recent absence.  If you don’t hear from me again for a while, it probably means that the baby is here and I’m getting used to life as a new parent.

But regardless of all that is going on in my life, consuming my time and occupying my thoughts, I am still called to be about the business of God.  Last week I wrote a Sunday school lesson to teach other people, but this week, the truths of the lesson keep popping up in my life.  It seems that I need to teach myself the things that I wanted to teach others.  It’s far too easy for me to lose sight of God in the middle of my busy-ness, and I was on the verge of turning down a wonderful opportunity to serve him because the timing is inconvenient.

But last night and this morning, I’ve realized that it will never be convenient to serve God.  There will always be something else pressing for my attention.  For too long, I’ve made excuses.  I waited until summertime to sing in the choir because I couldn’t attend practice during the semester.  I waited until I graduated from seminary to teach at church because I wanted to give it my full attention.  I waited until after school to have a baby because I couldn’t imagine doing both at the same time.  I like to plan and organize my life, but for a year now I’ve been praying for God to open doors and create opportunities for me to serve him.  Now that he has opened them, I’ve wanted to run away because I think the timing is lousy.  It’s funny how God works.

God knew that I needed to write that Sunday school lesson to remind me of the truths I thought I was teaching others, when in reality, He was teaching me.  All the while I typed away, encouraging people to claim the lessons for themselves, but I had never made them my own, and I’m learning that when God has something to say, He will say it loud and clear.

On October 2, 2008, I wrote in my journal:

Never stop teaching me your ways, Father.  Help me to be a person who reflects your beautiful character to the world.  Looking back over the last year makes me look forward to the next.  What will it look like?  Where will I be?  Will I be a mother?  Will I be writing?  Will I be teaching?  Lord, you know.  I rest in your consecration and anointing.  I am uncertain about the future.  Frustrated by the difficulty of being a woman in ministry.  Intimidated by all the other writers out there.  But Lord, I know that I don’t have to prove myself.  If I do what you have called and gifted me to do, it will be undeniable.  Oh Lord, may you find me faithful.

Some of those questions have been answered.  Life now looks very different than it did last year, but it is good.  I will be a mother very soon.  I’m writing.  And now, I have the chance to teach regularly.  These are the things I prayed for, and God has been faithful to answer those prayers.  I just needed to be reminded of that.  It is still and always will be my prayer that as the Lord teaches me, he will find me faithful.  Even now.

I’ve been writing for myMISSIONfulfilled, a Woman’s Missionary Union Web site geared toward young women, for the past couple of months, and I wanted to point you in the direction of some of the articles in lieu of posting a real entry.  Happy reading!

Ancient History: How Archaeology Enhances Our Study of Scripture.  Archaeology has made the news a lot lately as talk about the ossuary of James and the discovery of the Gospel of Judas has brought it to the forefront of our attention. But archaeology is more than bone boxes and controversial ancient documents. . . . It can actually enhance our study of Scripture.

Parthenon, Shmarthenon: Paul’s Speech in Athens.  Thoughts of ancient Greece bring to mind gods, goddesses, philosophy, the Olympics, and the Parthenon. Paul’s words about idolatry weren’t spoken in a vacuum. He was looking right at the Parthenon when he talked about temples built with human hands, and still he proclaimed the superiority of God.

Losing My Voice: How the Psalms Helped Me Find It.  When I was so frustrated with God that I didn’t know what to say, Psalms gave me the words I desperately needed and taught me how to pray again.

As I turned on the news this morning, images of President Obama touring Cape Coast Castle in Ghana and speaking to the Ghanaian people greeted me.  Just a year and a half ago, I walked through the same slave fortress and saw the same sights, and viewing them on TV brought the memories to the forefront of my mind.  In honor of Obama’s Ghanaian visit, I thought I would post a journal entry I wrote shortly after returning home about my experience at Cape Coast.  It was a sobering and powerful time, and I will never forget it.

For some background information, Cape Coast is just one of several slave fortresses along the African coast. It was a holding tank for Africans while their handlers waited for boats from the Americas to arrive and carry them out.

When we arrived at Cape Coast, I didn’t really know what to expect or the proper way to react. I took several pictures there, but none of me because I didn’t think it was appropriate to smile happily like I was at any other tourist destination. This was a slave fortress. People suffered and died there.

I cannot describe to you the conditions of the dungeons that they held the slaves in before the boats arrived to carry them away. It was horrific. No light, save for tiny ventilation windows far above. A rough-cut channel running through the middle of the floor for urine. Troughs along the edges for feces. I know we’ve all heard about the conditions before, but hearing about it and walking around in it is another matter. I have no words. This photo is from the female slave dungeon. It was terrifyingly dark, except for one window.

As I walked through the dungeons where so many died and thought about the inhumanity of it all, I wondered what the African American students on our trip were thinking. I kept wondering if they were seriously disturbed by their surroundings, knowing that their ancestors passed through dungeons similar to those. And then I started wondering about my own ancestors. Did they own slaves? Did they go to church and give glory to God while they bought and sold human beings alongside fabric and crops? These are the things I wonder.

No one woke up one morning and decided it would be a good day to start selling people. It just…developed…as Africans brought other Africans to trade with Europeans for guns and dishes and other such meaningless items. And the Europeans took them. Somehow it escalated, until over 12 million people were shipped out of Africa, all the while their European handlers worshiped God in churches above the very dungeons that swallowed the Africans. Somehow they justified it, thought it was OK, and it scares me to death.

Sin can get so out of control. We are all absolutely hopeless. Slavery and genocide are just two highly visible examples of the wickedness of humanity. If we allow sin to go untreated and compromise God’s standards, what will be our slavery or Holocaust? These weren’t heathen men. They were Christians who told themselves that what they were doing was alright. What are we supposed to do with that? There are many questions to consider and concerns to raise.

One of the most poignant moments at the slave castles came when our guide led us to the “Door of No Return,” the door that led to waiting ships. When Africans set foot out that door, they never set foot on African soil again, and when he opened the door, I was shocked by the brilliance and vibrancy of life outside it.

I couldn’t believe that life went on as usual outside those doors. And that’s when I understood that we have to get over the demons in our past. Life goes on, and we can look back and learn from our mistakes, but we don’t have to let them paralyze us. God is gracious, merciful and kind. Despite the sin and wretchedness, there’s also beauty and love in this world.

As we turned around, we walked back through the door into the fort and did something none of the slaves were ever able to do. We returned to our lives, and we kept going.

Nearly eight years ago, I took Intro. to Philosophy at Mississippi State with Dr. Michael Clifford.  He scared me.  I had heard that he could be rough on Christians, and when I saw the first assignment on our syllabus, I knew I was in trouble.  In one paragraph, answer the question “What is the meaning of life?”.  I swallowed hard and dreaded the assignment, but that night, I sat down at my computer (the same one I’m typing on now, if you can believe it) and wrote the following words.

To understand the meaning of my life, you have to understand my God.  I serve a holy and mighty God, and the sole purpose of my life is to glorify my Lord and Master; I live for nothing else. My life revolves around developing a deep and personal relationship with the One that I call Savior.  Life on this earth is just the beginning of our existence; I will spend eternity in heaven with my Father. Maybe this sounds strange to you.  Maybe it sounds familiar.  Can I prove this to you?  Well, no, I can’t, but I also can’t believe anything else is true… It would be a sad world if we had no reason for living.  If everything ends at death, then what is the point of life at all?  I have found truth in the teachings of the Holy Bible, and it is the standard I follow.  I live my life by faith, trusting that a God higher than anything we can ever imagine has my life in his hands, and he knows what’s best for me.  So, if you ask me the meaning of life, I can only give you one answer, and that is to serve my God.

I thought I could turn in my paper and escape without him knowing who I was, but to my horror, when I arrived in class, Dr. Clifford asked for volunteers to read their papers aloud.  When crickets chirped in the background and no one stepped up, Dr. Clifford looked straight at me and told me to stand up as I read my paper aloud.  My hands shook and my voice trembled, but somehow I managed to choke out the words of my paragraph and sit down as quickly as possible.

Silence followed, and then Dr. Clifford said, “Well, I guess we are in the middle of the Bible Belt,” before calling on someone else.

I think I would be better equipped to handle the situation now, but when I was a 19-year-old sophomore in college, my professor intimidated me.  I was relieved that he didn’t rake me over the coals right then and there, and attending his class twice a week for the rest of the semester was the last thing I wanted to do.  But I kept going to class and completing assignments that included debating the existence of God, learning about Plato’s ideal forms, and reading Rene Descartes.  In that class, I heard Karl Marx’s famous quote about religion being the opiate of the masses.  I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and learned the intelligent design theory, and by the time the semester ended, I emerged with faith intact and an A on my report card.

But at the beginning of the semester, standing in front of Dr. Clifford and proclaiming my faith was one of the most difficult things I had ever been asked to do.  As I look back at the words I wrote for that class, I’m reminded that they are still true for me today.  The meaning of my life hasn’t changed over the past eight years.  I still live to bring glory and honor to the God proclaimed in the Bible, and although I’ve got a seminary education under my belt and I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about the issues we talked about in that philosophy class I would still answer the question in the same way.

What about you?  What do you think is the meaning of life?

I spent the first five months of my marriage cooped up in a 750 square foot apartment watching the Food Network and HGTV all day long.  I couldn’t find a job anywhere doing anything. I couldn’t remember who I was or what I was doing.  Prior to the wedding, I had commenced work on a Master of Divinity degree in Texas, but when my fiancé, who lived in Mississippi, struggled to find a job anywhere near me, I took a deep breath, finished up the semester, packed my bags and moved home.  It was a voluntary decision, but when I became the woman who followed her man instead of the woman who followed her dreams, I lost my identity.

I transferred schools and resumed classes just one school year after I left Texas, and soon got caught up in the busy-ness of school life.  I was back on track with my calling and dreams in sight.  When people asked me about myself, I had an answer: “I’m working on my Master of Divinity.”  My identity as a student was restored, and I had a nametag for people to read: “Leslie Ann Jones, seminary student.”

The problem is that I graduated from seminary in December, and my nametag vanished.  People give me a strange look, so I imagine, when I tell them that I’m staying at home to write.  But didn’t you just finish your master’s degree?  Why don’t you get a real job now that you’re through with school? their faces ask.  I’m back in the same boat I jumped into four years ago, but now I don’t have the promise of returning to school to cling to.

The truth is that after spending 21 years of my life in school, I don’t know who to be when I’m not the person taking tests and writing papers.  I’ve spent so many years completing assignments according to my professor’s specifications that I don’t know how to be a self-motivated, self-assigning freelance writer.  Sometimes it’s easier to pull the frayed edges of my old self tightly closed around me—maybe I’ll get a PhD—than it is to try on a new self, and I’m beginning to realize how much I have to learn about who I really am.

I’m learning that I am not defined by what I do but by who God says I am.  My identity does not lie in what’s written on the nametags I wear but in what’s inscribed on my heart.  God’s word tells me that I am his precious child, an heir alongside Christ Jesus and a recipient of his promises.  He has written his words on my heart so that I may know not only who I am but, more importantly, whose I am.  I am his.  He has bought me with a price and calls me by name.  He was there before I was born, shaping me and weaving me together in my mother’s womb.  He counts the hairs on my head and knows my thoughts, my dreams, and my deepest desires, as well as my fears, my failures, and my insecurities.  He created me for the purpose of bringing glory to his name, and he has called me and gifted me so that I may lead others to his throne.  My identity will never change because it has been given to me by a God who is timeless.

This lesson has been so hard for me to learn.  Four years ago I thought going back to school would solve my identity crisis, but it only postponed its reappearance.  I’ve always felt tremendous pressure to succeed, and for 26 years, I have gauged my success by the reaction, praise, and occasional disapproval of others, but the more I pursue this business of writing, the more I realize the danger of allowing others to give me an identity.

Not too long ago I pitched an article to a regional magazine that has previously published my work.  I carefully crafted a query letter and sent it off expecting a positive reply, but the rejection letter I received threatened to do me in.  Why did I think I could do this? I wondered.  Who cares what I have to say anyway? Later that day I began scouring classified ads so I wouldn’t feel the failure anymore.

I almost let one little letter tell me that I am a worthless failure.  I don’t know why I forget God’s timeless words of truth so easily and choose to listen to the words of a three-sentence e-mail instead, but I’m slowly learning to click delete, take a deep breath and start over with my identity as a child of the king intact.

I’m sad to say that when I read an article or catch a newsflash about a politician cheating on his wife, I’m not all that surprised.  Yesterday, when South Carolina governor Mark Sanford admitted that he spent the weekend in Argentina with another woman, calls for his resignation sprang up immediately.  Whether or not Sanford survives this scandal is yet to be seen, but when it comes to politicians, how they behave behind closed doors is directly related to their fitness for the job.

When things like this happen, disappointment and disillusionment  reign.  It’s difficult to read reports of deception and see the wife standing by her husband’s side (although in this case, the Sanfords have been separated for two weeks).  I’m all for practicing grace and issuing forgiveness, but when it comes to politics, integrity is a major issue.  If the governor (or president or senator or mayor) cannot be faithful to her spouse, then her word loses value and becomes almost meaningless, which even Governor Sanford recognizes.

According to another New York Times article, Sanford voted for Bill Clinton’s impeachment after the Monica Lewinsky fiasco, saying,

“He [Clinton] lied under a different oath, and that’s the oath to his wife . . . So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.”

It’s interesting, and sad, that a man who felt so strongly about Clinton’s infidelity would be unfaithful himself.  It just goes to show that no one is immune from sin’s pull.

Last year, Christianity Today ran an article about virtue and the presidency.  In it, writers Daniel Taylor and Mark McCloskey proposed that virtue far outweighs policy when it comes to politics.  Basically, they said that if a politician has integrity and practices virtue, we can trust him to make the right decisions for us and our city/state/country.  According to Gandhi, before a person can accept a position of power, she has to first of all be a good human being.  From that, all other job functions flow.  The writers make no qualms about their stance:

“Competence without virtue is poisonous.  It simply makes one more effective at doing wrong.  Furthermore, being virtuous is, in itself, an expression of competence.  Since virtue is a requirement for leadership, a lack of virtue in a leader is a sign of incompetence and grounds enough for rejecting that leadership.  Virtue is a personal matter, but it is never wholly a private one, certainly not in a President [or governor, for that matter].”

If a lack of virtue discredits someone from taking a leadership role, then the people of South Carolina have some serious decisions to make.  Does Governor Sanford’s infidelity and rendezvous in Argentina signal a lack of virtue?  What do you think?

Time will tell what will happen to Governor Sanford.  Whether or not he will keep his post is yet to be seen, but in the future, we would do well to choose leaders who practice virtue in their personal lives.  It’s a good indicator of integrity.