AFRICA

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To the Edge of a New Nowhere

When I’m far from anywhere, down to my last gasp, I call out “guide me…”

Ps 61:2 The Message

In Texas, rural areas are referred to as “the sticks”. Growing up, when describing where our country cousins lived, suppressing laughter, we used our best southern accent, “oh, they’re from the sticks”. Until I traveled to Africa – I had never seen “the real sticks”! Places so remote, that on the journey there – your mind wonders if at the end of the road a pot of boiling liquid above burning logs awaits you - dinner is served!

I began my third journey in Ghana with a Sunday meeting at two remote villages several hours from the capital city of Accra. There were no signposts and no indication of where we were going, only the ever-onward leading of the village pastor (James Tetteh). The road turned into a narrow dirt-covered path and all semblances of civilization soon disappeared. When we made the final turn into a cane field the tall stalks enveloped the truck. There was nowhere to go but forward, no turning back, no way to turn around. Just as suddenly as we were lost in the brush – the foliage ended and spread out before us was a village. The houses are built from the red earth they rise up from – one continuum “from dust you were formed”. The children ran freely, mostly naked to make the 110º heat bearable. Most were without shoes, but all wore broad smiles. So far removed from my life 20,000 miles away, surrounded by books, and collections of oddities from around the globe, it was hard to take it all in. How does this picture fit in with that life?

On the road someone asked if he could go along. “I’ll go with You wherever,” he said. Jesus was curt: “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best of inns, you know” Luke 9:57-58 – The Message