life..

well, Im feeling less and less motivated to write on here.. because i feel like Im just living, and i dont see how that could be interesting to anyone at all.. lets see, whats happened these past two or so weeks? I went to the craft market with Chelsea and Kelsey last week to get christmas presents. that was exciting as always. "my darling.. come to my store".. and kissy noises to get your attention. This one lady basicaly forced me to buy this necklace. i didnt even want it. but i ended up gettingit.. because she forced it in my hand and wouldnt take it back.. so i now have a very random necklace in my possesion. Ive worked and done college applications for the past week or so, so I haven't been able to go into the city much. I went to one of our dayworkers churches last sunday, that was really fun. I liked it alot. The preacher was really good. One of our dayworkers-- Loveth went home on monday, that was kindof sad, and Dorothea, our small group leader is leaving on friday which will be sad. Im really going to miss her. You start to get used to goodbyes here though, which is kindof strange. My mindset is that I'll either see them later in this life, or later in glory, and I'm thankful for the time I had to get to know them. This weekend Im going up to Northern Benin with one of the dayworkers to his home town. Soo (from Korea, she's my room mate) Fabio (from Brazil) and I are all going.. it'll be really nice to get out into the country side again.

one of my room mates is sick--michelle, in case you want to know really random things. We only have 5 weeks left in Benin, and then we sail to teneriffe. Im really excited about the sail :) I need to make the most of the time we have left here before we go. I feel like Ive done everything you can do in Benin. Im not sure if I wrote about the prison, but Ive been trying to go there as much as I can, and ive gotten to know alot of the women there, it's been really cool. last night we all went out with dorothea for the last time :( it was really fun though. O! and another one of my room mates, Mel is leaving on friday. and we have 2 new room mates on sunday. I have lived with so many different types of people, I will be so prepared for whoever my room mate is in college! Well, im sorry this is so short and not very interesting, ill try to upload some pictures-- one is of my dining team.. o! and we had a costume dance party on deck eight.. and ill include a picture from that.. i hope you all have a marvelous week! :)

Ghana!

Friday:
Well we started our day off at the lovely time of 3:30 AM. Our group consisted of Kendall, Michelle, Chelsea, Laurel, Belinda, Mariechen, Tillman, Paul, Tod, Grace, and myself. It was quite a fun group actually. I am really struggling to figure out how to put this trip into words. It was truly incredible. I’m going to attempt to make my words make sense, which might be rather difficult. Okay. We had to travel for most of Friday (it took ten hours in total to get to Ghana). After we arrived we were met by a very friendly man named Prince. He had been a patient earlier this year on the ship, so the doctors and nurses knew him already. He was the person who showed us all around Ghana. We picked him up and he took us to our hotel, which was actually pretty nice. The beds there were HUGE just to give you an idea Chelsea, Michelle, Kendall, and I were all going to share one—and share it comfortably for that matter. Paul ended up giving up his room though so Chelsea and I shared one room and Michelle and Kendall shared the other. After we were all settled in we went out to eat at a “fast food” restaurant in Akraa. We were staying in Tema, but Akraa is the capitol of Ghana, and it’s very well developed. The roads and everything were pretty nice. It looked like a city in the states.. except African. J After we went out to eat we went to a gelato place! Which was quite a treat for us, I haven’t had ice cream (besides fan milk) in 2 months. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and slept better than we had all slept in quite a while. I never realized how loud the engine is on this ship until I laid down to go to sleep that night. It seemed so quiet.

Saturday:

The next morning Chelsea and I were awoken by a sick Rooster, ha. I’m not entirely sure what was wrong with it. But its cock-a-doodle-doo sounded more like cock-a-doodle-eeerr…. (Imagine a beautiful screeching noise there) it was actually really funny to wake up to. We went to this little pavilion where we were served breakfast which consisted of omelettes, cheese, and toast. It was really good. I don’t know why I just told you what we ate, I doubt that’s really exciting to read about. I apologize. Prince (who just got married in march) brought along his wife and some of his family members. ANYWAYS, after we ate we drove to Akaa falls which took about 2 hours. We hiked down to the bottom of the falls which was just beautiful. Then we hiked to the top of the falls which was really lovely as well. The water was really calm until right before it went over the falls. Then we hiked up to a miniature version of the umbrella rock and sat under it. The view there was beautiful. It overlooked a village in the mountains. It was so nice to see so much green and breathe in so much fresh air. Then we went to the botanical gardens. The queen of England used to have a house in Ghana (so we were told) and she kept a beautiful garden which they have preserved. There were a lot of interesting plants and trees there. I know I keep saying beautiful, but I don’t know how else to describe everything. We were only at the gardens for a little while because they were setting up for a festival later that night (which we would in fact be attending). We went to Boti falls which was a little bit more of a hike than Akaa falls. There were two waterfalls at the base, two rivers ran beside each other, but never came together until they both fell into this pool. It was really pretty. I’ll try to put up some pictures next time, but I don’t know if pictures can really capture how incredible it all was. After the falls we hiked/rock climbed across two mountains to the top of another mountain which had the umbrella rock on top! Where we climbed to the top and looked out at the lovely view. It was truly breath taking. I don’t know what else to say. We went to the festival after that and watched some African dancers perform. On our way home we were drivng down the mountain and a bus came zooming past us—almost hitting our bus and screeching around the curve. We all thought he was just a really crazy driver, but Grace suggested we pray for them.. just in case something was wrong. We prayed for them and then forgot about it until we got to the bottom of the mountain. We saw all these people outside of a bus on the ground screaming and crying. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but we finally realized they were praising the Lord that they were alive. The bus’ breaks went out—it was a miracle that they made it to the bottom of the mountain without an accident. God is cool huh?

Sunday:

Sunday morning we went to the canopy walk. Okay, so do you know those old bridges with the wooden planks and rope? We walked on those across the top of the rain forest, it was so cool. You would walk a little distance and then get to a platform in a treetop that had a really pretty view, and then walk again. It was really beautiful and really fun. I attempted to walk it with no hands. I succeeded for three of the bridges! Ha. That took up most of the day because it took a while to drive there from our hotel, but we still had a little time afterwards so we went to a castle on the Cape Coast. It was actually a fort where they kept the slaves until they were sent off in the ships for different countries. It’s really sad all they things that happened there, but the building itself was really pretty. It actually reminded me a lot of Greece. Not that I’ve been to Greece, but pictures I’ve seen of Greece. The ocean was really pretty. I wish I could describe everything to you, but I feel like in the end it would be kind of futile. It’s impossible to fully describe every aspect of our lovely little trip. After the castle we went out to eat and got ice cream again. O! I forgot to mention, Paul kept on trying to sell me to different street vendors for what they were selling, and outside the castle he traded me for 4 bracelets.. really? 4 bracelets? That’s all I’m worth? Ouch… He told me he wanted to make a thousand babies.. but I told him I don’t think that could happen… and I had to go.. so luckily I escaped that marriage.

Monday:

Monday morning we went to the market. The market in Ghana is much more pleasant than the market in Benin. No one yells at you to come into their store or anything, and they’re all really polite which is nice. After we picked up food for breakfast and some random fabrics we went on our way home. Our trip home was a little bit more exciting than our ride to Ghana. We kept getting pulled over and kept trying to distract the police men so they wouldn’t give us a ticket for random things.. people give you tickets here for the dumbest things.. so one time when we stopped one of the policemen kept looking at me, and then decided he wanted to marry me. He told me he’d be waiting for me till I came back, and he’d be praying for me everyday… Im sorry to disapoint you dear sir.. but i dont think I'll be coming back anytime soon. One policeman that pulled us over wasn't distracted so easily. He was rather drunk I do believe. He saw that we were white, and then proceeded to look for a way to fine us. He was trying to find anything he could, but everything was fine until our driver got our of the car. He was wearing Flip flops, which are apparently illegal in ghana. So he told us that we had to bribe him or he'd send us all to jail to wait for our court date, and we wouldnt bribe him, because it's part of the Mercy Ships rules, and because it's illegal. So we were waiting on the side of the road so he could tell us where to go, or that another officer could come get us... I was praying that we could just leave because i really wanted to get back to the ship, and not spend the night in a ghanaian prison.. and then out of nowhere a random man came up and told the officer to "let those people go" (like moses! ha... "let my people go") and then he just waved us away, so we pulled off as fast as we could! :)
We made it back alive and well, just slightly tired from our ten hour journey.

This week:
I slept in and rested on tuesday, and worked wednesday and thursday. On Friday I went with chelsea into the ministry sites, we went to the dental clinic, eye clinic, and the construction site. It was really interesting to see all the people we serve working at their different off ship sites. It made me realize that i sort of only pictured them eating. hahaha. I know that sounds funny, but i think in the back of my mind it was almost harder to just work and serve them because i had this attitude towards them like they never worked, but it was cool to see them all working. It's amazing all the different gifts God has given us.
Today I went to the prison and visited with the women again, I really like going back to the same place, you get to build relationships with each of the women. Chelsea and Kendall and I were holding this little girl who never smiled, and chelsea got a little laugh out of her. I was very proud of her. :) but when we left she started crying, it was kindof depressing really, but we'll be back next saturday.. tomorrow I'm going to church with one of the dayworkers--antoine. he works in the dining room with me. Im pretty excited. I hope you all have a wonderful week. :)

10/7/09

Prison

On Saturday I went to Prison. It was honestly a lot cooler than I was expecting it to be. I had had my heart set on going to the psychiatric clinic every Saturday but I decided to go to the prison at least once. Chelsea, kendall, Michelle and I all went. We unloaded from the cars into the street and waited on the people to come that came every Saturday (prison evangelists?) When they all showed up we filed in through the big metal doors into a room where a man just gave me a list of names and motioned for me to call them out (either he couldn’t read.. or our names were too hard to pronounce I think) Once all the names were called out we went to our different sections (I was in the women’s group). We walked into this big courtyard area (much like the psychiatric hospital) and it was packed with men… all the different prisoners. Now let me clarify something for you about the prisoners here—75% of of them are there without trial. In Benin you are guilty until proven innocent and sometimes it can take up to 2 years for you to have a trial, so many of the people in the prison were in there for crimes they never committed. It’s really sad. We were told that the police are bribed by people sometimes to arrest innocent people. It hurts my heart to see them in there for no reason. Its so unfair. We walked through the courtyard and went through an “alley” and we reached another metal door with a little window with bars over it, it was knocked on and we were allowed in—the women’s prison. Please remove any idea you have in your mind about what a prison should look like over here. There are no cells, it’s a courtyard.. with alley ways and “houses” there are no beds inside—just mats where they sleep. They are all given different jobs to do throughout the day to keep them busy. There are also a lot of children in the women’s prison—there’s no where else for them to stay, so they come to prison with their mom.
As always, when you first arrive at a ministry site it’s slightly awkward. You’re never really sure what to do. I prayed that God would help me, help me to love these people. That he would show me what he wanted me to do. Someone made the suggestion that we divide into groups of two or so and spread out. So I walked into the first “house” and saw two younger women inside with their children. I asked the woman with the older child if I could sit down next to her and she nodded yes. So I sat down on the matt next to her. She had a really cute baby girl who just stared at me and smiled some. There was another lady in the house with a new born baby, o yes, and one younger girl—about my age. I basically just sat and laughed at the children with them. I mimicked the different faces they were making and we just laughed. Michelle came in too, she was being followed around by a little girl who kept jumping on her. We decided to go out into the courtyard and listen to the message, but then the two women went back inside, so I went and sat in the doorway and just watched Kaylee play with this little girl. I love watching my friends play with kids. Michelle (who is my room mate if you didn’t know) was holding this little girl that didn’t like anyone it seemed besides michelle. She has quite a gift with children. I love getting to know all the different people on this ship. I’ve come to realize how many different gifts people have. I just think it’s so cool that we are all so different. I know that sounds really silly, but I am so glad that we aren’t all created the same. Anyways, after watching my friends for a little while I went back inside—and then the fun commenced! Kendall (one of my new room mates) came into the house, and so did Chelsea. They can both speak French (chelsea’s learning!) so I could finally understand what the women were saying. We sat around in a circle and just talked and laughed. There was one prisoner named Priska who was hilarious! She was trying to tell us that the little girl we were playing with had three brothers and sisters but we couldn’t understand her for some reason. So she said “her mother—(insert labor noises) 4 times!” hahaha it was so funny. They were talking about me but I couldn’t understand what they were saying so I just kept making weird facial expressions, which then resulted in laughter again.. then they would say something weird and I would start laughing. If felt like we had all been friends for a really long time. There was a little more confusion because Priska was trying to ask me if we breast fed back home, but I thought she was asking if I breast fed right now. So I said no, because actually I thought she was asking if I’d breast feed her baby for her.. hahaaha o dear, I said “I could try, but I don’t think it would do any good” It was quite a funny confusing situation. Then they said I looked like a singer they knew, and Chelsea decided to tell them I was, so Leah and I sang for them. Then Chelsea, Kendall and I sang and danced for them, Then The ladies joined in. It was so much fun. We were then told we had to leave, but I will definitely be going back. It was such an incredible experience.

Stepping out of the boat

As I told you last week my small group and I have decided to “step out of the boat” into the city of Benin to pray for the different people. We went in for the first time on Saturday. Priska, Dina, Chelsea, Dorothea and I all met on the dock and prayed that God would show us what exactly he wanted us to do today and who he wanted us to pray for. We walked down the street—just praying for the city of Benin and for the different people we saw. It was strange because usually there are a whole lot of beggars and crippled people on the streets, but that particular day we didn’t see any—the one day we were actually looking for them. We walked all the way down to the market and still.. no sign of anyone. Then we all started singing. Yes, I realize we probably looked like a cult, but we were singing “open the eyes of my heart Lord, I want to see you” It was so cool because then we saw a crippled man in the middle of the street. We all walked up to him and sat on the ground with him and asked his name and some other random questions, then a little crowd of curious men gathered around us and we asked if they wanted us to pray for them. We talked to them all for a little while and then prayed for each of them. Then we sang, I feel like I sing a whole lot more here, but that could be debatable. We then walked down the street on our way back to the street and prayed for the people we were passing when we saw another man who we went up and talked to—he looked to be crippled, but I’m not really sure if he was. We talked to a woman beside him and another boy, we just got to know the people and then asked if they wanted us to pray for them which we did. On our way back to the ship we lost Chelsea and Dorothea, they went off and played with some kids on the side of the street (they were walking behind us) we got back to the port and prayed again for the city and for the people. It was really cool to start building relationships with the people of cotonou and to actually pray with them. We’re going back out tomorrow and Tuesday.

Speaking of our small group: it’s been incredible. The girls that are in it—
Chelsea: she’s probably my best friend here, she’s my bunk mate, and we have the same working schedule, needless to say we spend a whole lot of time together. She’s our dining room team leader and she’s really great. She loves Jesus a whole whole lot. You can see it in everything that she does. She’s been an incredible encouragement to me in my walk with the Lord

Kelsey: She’s the newest arrival in our group, she’s really encouraging. I feel like God speaks to me through her in every small group we have. She always has a scripture or a quote or some amazing truth God has shown her that she can share. Tonight she talked about having a heavenly focus, I don’t know how to explain it really. I just feel like everything she says comes straight from the heart of God. She is such a blessing. She’s from The states as well, although I can’t remember which one :/

Dinante: She’s from the Netherlands, and her life is a really incredible testimony as well. I feel like she’s so full of wisdom. She passionately seeks the Lord in all she does. She’s really funny too, she and Chelsea were my first two friends on the ship really. Sadly she’s on the other dining team now so we don’t get to work together as much L

Dorothea: She’s our small group leader. She is also my room mate. J She is such an encouragement as well, I know I keep saying that. But it’s true about every single one of these girls. She’s so honest about what’s going on in her heart.. that even through her struggles she is a light to people. She is so loving, so compassionate. She made me cry tonight. She told me I was encouragement to her and I haven’t heard that in so long. I know that sounds silly, But I realized I have been so selfish lately that I couldn’t have been an encouragement to anyone. I was always bringing people down.. God’s been changing my heart though, and It was just really encouraging to hear from someone that they see a change. I want to be different. I want to be completely his. Tonight was a hard night for dorothea, one of the translators in the ward (shes an admissions nurse) was killed in an accident last night, so it was a hard day for her.. for everyone really. If you could be in prayer for daniel’s family, he has two children and a wife. O yes. Dorothea is from Switzerland. She blesses everyone around her with her contagious joy. She leaves on the thirtieth, which I don’t want to think about.

Priska: She is from Switzerland as well. She prays all day long which I think is really cool. She’s very honest about her struggles.. and what I love about her is the fact that she’s not afraid to yell at you if you’re being stupid. I was talking about my struggle with unbelief, and it was so so refreshing to just have someone tell me that I have a problem rather than sugar coat it. I said that when I pray for healing for someone I think I doubt in my heart, because if I fully believed God would and could heal this man and he wasn’t healed it would prove God wasn’t real to me. So she said “that’s your problem! You don’t believe! How can you pray like this and expect something to happen if you don’t believe?” Except in a swiss accent.. She’s really great. I am so thankful she’s in our group.

Irina: Irina is gone. Which hurts my heart. I miss her. She’s from Russia, except she lives in Poland. She was a new Christian, which was really cool to have in our group. She was always very honest about her struggles, and we had a lot in common which was nice. She really and truly desires to live her life for the Lord.

All these girls are such a blessing in my life—I put up a piture of us, this was before irina left.. our last small group all together L well I hope you all have a blessed day!

O and PS—we have three new room mates: Kendall: from St. Louis, Mel from the UK and Melanie from the UK. Melanie is only here a month, and I don’t quite remember how long Mel is here for.. but they are all quite nice. Our room mates all get along fine. That’s been a blessing.