We arrived in Ghana last Saturday, July 3rd right around 12am. This was only a few hours after Ghana lost to Uruguay in overtime and was knocked out of the World Cup. You may be thinking: "Why are you mentioning this?", which is excusable only if you are from the USA. You see, soccer is to almost every country around the world what baseball, football, and hockey combined is to us Americans. After observing the rabid fans on board, I've observed the World Cup as the Super Bowl on performance enhancing drugs. I'm assuming some perhaps may know this already, but we (the U.S.) actually did really well, finishing first in our division, upsetting world class (at least to them) England, Algeria, and Slovenia. But then first round of the knock-out stage, we lost in overtime to...Ghana ironically. So all of that to get to my first point which is that we arrived to a saddened Ghana. Saturday was also a day which I was scheduled to go out with a small group to hand out flyers to people about the Logos Hope. Tema is a very industrial town with a massive shipyard. While walking around that day, I noticed a strange mixture of African culture with a pinch of Westernization. Ghana is without a doubt more "advanced" than Sierra Leone. So much in fact that it is hard to believe we are only a few small countries East.
The next morning, the ship's doctor (Germany), a lovely married couple with two kids (Netherlands), and myself went to visit Miracle Life Church. They were all very welcoming to us and enjoyed what we had to say. During the beginning when our whole team stands in front to introduce ourselves, where we are from, and what we do on the ship, all 500 people seemed to give us their undivided attention. When it was my turn to say my name..etc, I cracked a little joke, mentioning I'm from a country that was knocked out of the World Cup by Ghana. Roaring laughter and applause practically shook the church.
The couple did a presentation which explains the ship in detail and linking it to the Gospel. Then the doctor performed a mime dance to the worship song "I Can Only Imagine", and lastly I went up to share my testimony about how God called me into missions with an aim to encourage others who may have that tug on their heart and to follow that call. The church's worship was your expected African style with a lot of loud singing and energetic dancing (as seen above).
