Happy Things

1.  The Boy and his bike
   He had a bike in America but no good place to ride it. Occasionally I took him to the church parking lot or to a park so he had a smooth surface, but that didn't happen often enough for him to gain his independence on two wheels. Still, leaving his bike behind was sad.
   
   
   And then we arrived in Ghana and there was a little bike just his size waiting for him. The decal on the bike is a rocket, the perfect choice for the child who loves space things, and he fell in love with the bike immediately. It doesn't matter to him that the one pedal has been replaced with a piece of wood and that the other pedal is in half; he has a bike to ride!
   
   
   

   
   Not only did he gain a bike but also a beautiful place to ride, and within four days of us being here, he was riding it without training wheels. Now when he starts his day he says, “Guess what I’m going to do! I’m going out to ride my bike and catch a lizard.” And he’s off for another happy morning.
   
   I noticed his skill is improving daily. There is a little slope going to a storage garage and instead of following the slope, he thumped off the side, dropping off six inches for the sheer adventure of it. He also called me out this morning to watch him turn tight, fast circles, leaning hard enough as he did so to scrape his pedal on the cement. This “mother of boys” thing is getting scarier all the time.
   
2. Hot water!
   
     We showered in cold water for days and then I happened to notice a ‘thing’ on my kitchen wall.
    “Hey, what is that?” I asked John.
   “It looks suspiciously like a hot water heater.”
   And it was. We need to turn it on each time we use it (which isn’t often), but at it is nice to know we have one if I really need a warm shower instead of a cold one.
   
3. Playing in the Rain -something that doesn't change by a move overseas.
   The water ran cold from the downspout, but Tyler loved it anyway. Sophia didn't get brave enough for the downspout shower, but ran around in the rain until she was drenched. This is rainy season, supposedly, but we've only seen one rain since we are here. Wells in our area are drying up and the leaves on our orange trees are curling. The rain, then, was something worth dancing in.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Bogiant Bakery
   On the edge of Achimota Market is Bogiant Bakery. It is clean, inviting and modern enough to give you a printed, itemized receipt. The only thing missing is coffee, tables, and a power source for my computer. But what it does have almost makes up for its lack. They sell beautiful wheat bread, an item you never see sold along the streets. They also have tea bread which makes delicious egg sandwiches. Tea bread is shaped like French bread but much softer with a powdery top and a hint of nutmeg. In northern Ghana six years ago, tea bread was plentiful and was one of the foods I was looking forward to this time. I was disappointed, then, not to find it sold all over the place; the Bakery is the only place I’ve seen it, thus my deep appreciation for Bogiant.
   
5. The eggs from the worms in our oranges should be easily digested by our stomach acids.
   There are six orange trees on our property which are still providing us with oranges. We picked a heaping bushel of them on Monday and juiced them. We tried to be careful to cut out all the worms with their little nest of eggs but the eggs blended in with the color of the oranges and I wasn't sure I got all of them. Apparently I didn’t, for when I opened the container of frozen fruit slush I made using freshly squeezed juice, I found a dead worm lying on the top. If I missed worms, how many eggs are in there? The second batch we strained through cheesecloth. The good news is that this isn’t a species of worms that grows within you, even if you ingest their eggs (or the worm itself).
   
6. The Broom worked!
   We were in town over lunch, which is a happy thing altogether. I love a good excuse to get lunch on the town. This time we needed food on the go so the children split an entire bunch of bananas between the two of them. To go along with the fruit, we stopped by a stand to buy meat pies. Meat pies are interesting because sometimes you find meat in their filling and sometimes you just don't. This time the little stand surprised us by selling hot dog-sized sausages wrapped in the same flaky dough meat pies are made from. While I was overjoyed to patronize the woman's innovation, the dough-wrapped-sausage might have been a bad choice to feed two preschoolers in the back of a truck. When they had finished, it looked like someone had put crackers through a fan and aimed it in the backseat. Upon our immediate arrival home, I took out our broom in lieu of the vacuum we don’t have and swept out the truck. And it cleaned up beautifully.

Children.

They peer over my wall and knock on my gate.

They holler at the white children,

calling their names and garbling the one into, “Tyloh” 

and mimicking the baby’s pronunciation of hers, “Sosia.”

They ask for oranges. Lots of oranges. Today we pitched some over the wall as we were picking them from two of our six orange trees, throwing them to the voices across the wall.

They laughed and stashed them in their clothes.

Then they asked for more, disguising their voices

and lying because they wanted more oranges 

but Madame Sara said, “But I already gave you two.”

“That was my friend asking,” said the same voice. “Give me three orange!”

Children.

There are little ones playing together.

The two little girlies are pretending to make supper and feed their babies.

One, our guest, is blonde as can be. The other is brown-haired and she is mine.

So is the boy who watches them boy-like, then makes some manly concoction of his own.

But not for dolls.

Ho no! His is for himself.

Children.

I wondered what in the world I was doing, taking these children of mine across the world.

Weren’t they going to hate it all?

I looked at them from the comfort of my American home and wondered.

I even cried a little.

Weren’t they going to be hot all the time?

These are the children who fuss about being hot and grow miserable when they sweat.

Wouldn’t the strangers who lean into their faces trying to getting a reaction from them scare my little darling who has such a big personal space and who was timid around her own, loving grandpa she rarely sees?

These are children who thrive in normalcy.

If the crib side was lowered for her nap, it nearly ruined her sleep 

because she always slept with it up.

And he, the big, brave brother, panicked one day when the van got started before his seat belt was fastened. What was he going to think in a land where car seats aren’t?

And the food. Oh, the food.

These are the children who hate mashed potatoes,

and macaroni and cheese,

and cheesy potatoes,

and egg casseroles

and pudding.

Whatever will they do with food of those textures

but that are fermented and served with a spicy soup?

Parents told me children are adaptable, trying to reassure me.

But I hadn’t seen my children be adaptable.

(Unless you count the Little One eventually adjusting to the crib side being down.)

I was worried how they would do.

And then we moved.

You know my children?

The ones in my imagination crying because they had no car seats

are laughing.

They bounce nearly uncontrollably off the seat on ill-maintained roads

where humps have formed new contours and where bumps make the shocks grimace.

They watch each other and laugh.

They are laughing in the taxis and smiling in the trotro (taxi vans).

They wave out the windows, delighted that so many people wave back.

The child who cried in his bed in America because his back was hot

comes to me grinning, asking, “Are my cheeks red?”

“Yes, they are very red. Why is that?”

“Because I’m trying to catch lizards, that’s why. Feel my hair.”

I can see that it is wet from sweat and decline. “Ew, no thanks!”

He laughs, his eyes sparkling. “It is because I’m playing so much.”

There have been no tears because he’s hot.

Not even when his back is forming little red bumps all over.

Surely the people will make the Littlest One scared.

I mean, she cried when her very own uncles pick her up.

 “How ah you?!” someone asked her in that forceful manner of theirs.

She looked away shyly and quietly said, “Doing well.”

The woman didn’t hear.

“Look at her and say, ‘I’m fine.’” I coached. (‘Fine’ is the appropriate answer here.)

She obeyed without crying.

The people cheered.

She looked up at me and I smiled, proud and astonished all at the same time.

There are more hard things to grow familiar with.

The children asked why we weren’t turning the lights on

but we couldn’t; the electricity was off. . .again.

We explained to them that it wasn’t our turn for electricity.

Ghana shares its electricity with its neighbor (Togo) and there isn’t enough to go around.

So we are sharing.

That made perfect sense to a five and three-year-old 

who are learning to live peacefully together.

They took our word for it and went about their day.

The house felt dark and un-homey to me, almost gloomy. 

Then I walked into the room and saw them playing.

He was sitting on the couch, looking (squinting?) at a book.

She was by a window, playing, and talking quietly to her toys.

They didn’t seem to mind the dusky house.

That was the day we bought spring rolls as a treat.

I was drooling over them before we ever got them home.

But when we bit in to them, we were disappointed to find they were filled

with spaghetti noodles and nothing else.

Tyler asked, "Is this cheese?"

It wasn't.

But he thought it was a great way to eat pasta.

And he ate it happily.

(However, I noticed ‘Banku,’ the fermented corn dough didn’t go down so great.

Next time I’ll need to make my own soup that isn’t so spicy it makes our noses run.

Maybe then they can get past the texture and enjoy the soup, at least.)

How are they doing so well?

It could be that all those parents were right when they said God did a little miracle

by making children adaptable.

Or it could be that their adjustments will still come,

that I was looking for their hardest things in all the wrong places.

Or it could be that God has been answering the prayers of all the people

I asked to pray for the children (and their mom).

Whatever it is, I’m so grateful to God for these days

when my children are so happy

--even in Africa where I thought it was going to be hard for them.

Thank You, God, for exceeding my expectations.

A Different Tomorrow

The four of us, back in the Other World a week before our move

An agricultural poster on the wall of the jet way promised, “Tomorrow will look nothing like today.”

If it hadn’t been for two heavy backpacks slung one across each shoulder and if I hadn’t had a three-year-old by the hand to help her keep pace with the pack of travelers surrounding us, I would have been tempted to take a picture of the understatement I had just read.

Although the poster was all about agriculture, I couldn’t help but think it was pertaining to me. “Today” I was in America. Tomorrow I would be in Africa. “Today” I was in A/C, surrounded by people who understood me and my culture. Tomorrow I would be a minority. “Today” I could find Wal-Mart independently and purchase nearly anything I needed. Tomorrow I would need to be led around like a child to find the most basic of items.

The poster was right.

Our overnight, 11-hour flight was as uneventful as any mother of a five and three-year-old could wish. For a month or more I had been collecting fun things like Tricky Dogs, a Magnetic Doll House, books, stickers, and other quiet toys, so, to the children, the flight was one big party. They love flying; but they don’t love sleeping on flights, even overnight ones. I gently tossed the suggestion to Sophia that now might be a nice time to take a nap (it was well past normal bedtime), but she looked at me in surprise and said, “Well, I need to draw.” There are downsides to having too many fun things in the backpack.

Eventually tiredness won and both children slept for roughly four hours until we landed in Accra, Ghana. And in Accra, it was morning, ending the children’s night in an abrupt burst of sunlight when window shades were opened and their parents shuffled them out to a waiting shuttle.

At the entrance of the airport, we were screened for fevers by the Ebola Team, then asked for our Yellow Fever immunization cards, a mandatory vaccine. I was pleased we had them at the ready. I was even more pleased that the lady at the Lancaster travel clinic told us that Ghana now recognizes the Yellow Fever vaccination as lifetime protection. “The manufacturer has always said it was, but there were a few countries who didn’t recognize that. In June of 2014, Ghana officially began to honor the Yellow Fever vaccine as having lifetime protection.” She smiled, happy to be the bearer of glad news. John and I tucked our Yellow Fever cards back in my purse, thanked the helpful travel nurse, and saved ourselves both the pokes and the cash.

Unfortunately, Ghana must have forgotten to tell its airport personnel about the vaccines’ new status. “But this one is old,” the woman protested when she read the date of my Yellow Fever vaccination.

John and I informed her by turns that her country now recognizes the Yellow Fever vaccine to be lifetime protection. “It changed in June 2014,” I said, pleased to remember the date. This was momentous. She should know about it.

She was unfazed. “You come. You come.”

We had no choice but to follow the woman back the way we came, past the lines at the Ebola screening, and into the airport’s health clinic located near the arrivals’ entrance. They were ready for people like us. The lady behind the counter charged us $10 for the vaccines and motioned for us to come to the curtained off cubicle behind the counter where we were vaccinated immediately, thus protecting us for two lifetimes, according to the travel nurse. I was glad the children’s were current; it would have been too bad to start their life in their new country of residence with dreaded shots.

All of our luggage arrived intact and Brother Ross was waiting for us. We drove past street sellers with water sachets in trays on their heads or phone cards dangling from outstretched hands. We drove down a freeway, newly finished, and turned onto a bumpy dirt road that hadn’t seen a grader in years. The red dust filtered into the pickup and dusted the dash. Tyler leaned out the window and waved at anybody that would look his direction; Sophia uncontrollably bounced off the seat on a particularly bad bump and resorted to snuggling against me for protection. We drove through a gate of a city house Ross’ family had kindly prepared for us. We were home.

The airport poster was right. Today looks nothing like yesterday.

Our house is a beautiful one nestled on the outskirts of the city. It has a large courtyard with two mango trees, six orange trees, a palm nut tree and a coconut tree. The oranges were just harvested last week and produced enough for the former resident (another American) to can 30 quarts of juice, all squeezed by hand. 

The courtyard also has a dog named Sassy which is our reluctant inheritance. She is nervous around us and scuttles away when we open the door or crawls on her tummy towards us when we call her, tail safely tucked between her legs. “Other than an apparent case of schizophrenia, she seems to be a nice dog,” John said, relieved that our daughter didn’t need to be terrified of her new pet. It is hard to be scared of something that only runs away from you.

The house itself is large, suitable for hosting guests that pass through Accra. Aside from sporadic electricity and perpetual dirt (the children’s knees and feet were black from playing on floors that had been cleaned the evening before), living here isn’t going to be much of a change from our lifestyle in the States.

If we lived in a neighborhood where our house, a rented one, was nicer than its neighbors, I would feel guilty for living this comfortably in Africa where many people still live in mud huts with thatched roofs. But this is the city and in the city mud and thatch are scorned. Our house with its tiled floors, indoor plumbing, and ceiling fans in every room is not uncommon.

But living in a pretty house with electricity doesn’t ward off feelings of being far, far away from That Other World where everything is familiar. We need to do grocery shopping and have no idea where to go -or worse, what to purchase. Our internet service is fed via little prepaid cards that also need to be purchased. But where?  There is a market close enough to walk to, someone said, but I have no idea what direction to go. And how far is it? Should I plan to buy everything I can fit in a market bag, including heavy things like oil and sugar, or is it far enough to walk that I’ll be better off buying smaller things that weigh less, like tomatoes and lettuce?

And how do you make friends in the city? In the villages, where John and I have lived before, we were continually surrounded with friends, whether we wanted to be or not. But the city has enclosed compound walls surrounding the houses. Our neighbors are creatures we know are there only by the wash slung onto our razor wire or the cry of a child.

Uncertainty isn’t relegated to the adult world. Sophia walks around the house with her fuzzy blanket from America wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She feels insecure, too, hugging the familiarity of the blanket she has slept with for years to ward off the strangeness of the new world we brought her to. It is all in the learning curve, I know that. I had anticipated the children feeling homesick.

But I didn’t anticipate myself being overcome with wave of homesickness on the first day I arrived. I had made this move to Africa before, after all, and thought I knew what to expect. Yet when night fell on a city where we know next to nobody, can’t find our way around, and haven’t a clue where anything is, I felt lonely. Sad, even. Jet lag caught up at midnight and in spite of having little sleep the night before, I was awake for over an hour, listening to the night noises of a city. I didn’t have a blanket to wrap myself in like Sophia, nor did I want one in the heat. The only familiarity I wanted was home. But home might as well have been a million miles away. I prayed, as I often do, inviting God to pervade my little world and eventually I fell asleep.

Morning came. The sun cast cheerful beams into our windows and the electricity had kindly stayed on. The final dose of encouragement I needed came when I checked our email for the first time since we left home. Stephanie J. Leinbach is in the hospital with her young daughter who is undergoing surgery for epilepsy and expressed what I knew to be true. Her words, written at an apparent low point, stirred me to faith again and my lagging spirits were bolstered.

She said, "I can't rely on my feelings. I'm learning that my feelings leap to conclusions based on the here and the now. Feelings are useless at getting me through hard stuff; it takes faith. And faith looks back at God's faithfulness and forward at His promises, and that gives me the grace to live in the here and now, despite my feelings. 

"I cannot despair. I cannot fear. I cannot flush drugs (meant to control her daughter's epilepsy but also alter behavior) down the toilet.  Even if I feel like it.

"I must hang onto God's promises and trust that he is in control. He's already written this story. Now I need to live it with grace."

The tomorrow may be different but the God of tomorrow is the same.  

The Economy of Heaven

I cringed inwardly. Selling our vehicles in preparation for moving to Ghana meant taking a bit of a financial loss. So did other things like selling our bedroom suite and some appliances, thanks to depreciation. But they needed to be sold and we tried to be as fair as possible with the pricing on the items being sold. 

Yet something in me was cringing and I verbalized my sentiments to John. "This move is expensive!"

"It is expensive." No arguing about that. "But you need to remember that everything we are 'losing' is really our eternal gain, according to the economy of heaven."

Our conversation morphed into a glorious reminder of a Heavenly Economy that took away all sting of our expenditures. Instead of being a financial loss, this move is an eternal gain. I wanted to share our excitement with you and after I started this blog post, John preached a message on it. Apparently it was brewing in his mind, too. 

Here are our thoughts on Heavenly Economics:

Jesus told us not to lay up treasures on earth where rust and moth destroy (Matthew 6:19-20). We can simplify our life and refuse to get caught up in earthly investments yet forget to invest in heaven, neglecting Jesus' words that say "lay up for yourself treasure in heaven."

Earthly investors are wise. They deprive themselves to be able to invest heavily in their earthly account. They look for ways they can free up a few dollars to turn over into their account. Shouldn't the investors in a heavenly kingdom do the same? The accounts that earthly investors are working with are subject to failure; the Bank of Heaven is secure with incredible returns promised. The hundredfold Jesus mentioned in Mark 10:29,30 is a 10,000% return on your investment. 

The good thing is that the poorest among us can invest. No large outlay is required, for Jesus said that even a cup of cold water receives its reward (Matthew 10:42). The widow who dropped two small coins into the offering at the Temple was commended for giving more than the rest, for she had given all she had (Luke 21:1-4). 

The best way of investing in heaven is by investing in lives of people. The poor, the lame, the naked, those in prisons, the blind, the widows, and the orphans are all categories the Bible tells us to reach out to and by helping them and ministering to their needs, we lay up treasure in heaven. Investments in heaven, then, require no cash but even the poorest who has time or talent to offer can invest in people. 

I don't know how the reward system in heaven will work. I only know that Jesus told us to lay  up treasures there and told us how we can do that. Prayer, done in sincerity and alone, receives its reward. Giving, done not for show but in true love and compassion, receives it reward. 

In light of all that, our move to Ghana isn't expensive at all. It is a beautiful opportunity for us to lay up treasure in heaven. 

"Mommy, are we poor?"

We packed our belongings neatly into boxes. We disassembled beds, sold large pieces of furniture in order to fit more boxes into our storage shed, and eventually ended with an empty house. The children played happily with their cousins, several miles from the upheaval their house was in. I was glad for them; my brain was starting to feel fried from all the decisions staring at us from out the boxes and I wasn't the one trying to play toys in that mess.

But blessing though the babysitting option was, the children needed to be able to say goodbye to the the only home they have ever known. I took them back to the house (we were sleeping at my sister's) and the three of us walked through empty rooms one last time. "Let's tell this room goodbye," I said. The children laughed and waved to each room as they chorused, "Goodbye, bedroom. . .goodbye kitchen!"

When the tour was finished, the Littlest One looked around and said, "But where are our beds? And we have no chairs!" Insecurity was written all over her face as she got her fleecy blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders though the day was warm. I held her close and explained the moving process once again. "We have a new house waiting for us in Ghana. We'll have chairs and beds in that new house. . ." Then we left and she played happily with her cousins for the rest of the day.

That evening when I crashed in exhaustion into the rocker, she came over to me with her blanket for some snuggle time. She looked beautiful to me, sweet girl, but then her face took on an empty look, the same expression I had seen in our bare living room earlier in the day.

"Mommy," her voice was so sweet and little. "Mommy, are we poor?"

She knows about poor children. She has seen pictures of them wandering about in a rain forest, crying, with no home to return to.

Poor children have no home; suddenly she was feeling like she qualified.

She doesn't understand that though we might not be rich in this world we are anything but poor. She doesn't know how blessed I feel. I have two of the world's dearest children and one amazing husband. I have peace in my heart and hope for the future. My children have cousins and grandparents who love God. We have each other (one of the few things that doesn't change by moving overseas) and an eternity together with God to look forward to.

No, dear child. We aren't poor at all. We are one of the richest families I know. The 8 x 12 shed that houses basically everything we own in this world is almost worth laughing over when you compare it with the eternal treasures that make our life worthwhile.

Proverbs 10:22a says, "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich," and we, my child, are rich.