Ghana, part 1: Travel

I am not really sure how I can do justice to my experience in Ghana using mere words. It truly was the trip of a lifetime, and God opened my eyes and heart to a whole new purpose and meaning in my life. I will make an attempt, feeble as it may be, to put this trip into words and hope that God will be gracious, as He always is, in allowing my words to convey just a portion of the blessedness that was experienced.

I also will not promise brevity, so be warned...they are more like mini-novels :)

I had been anticipating this trip for sometime, a year actually, and I will be honest that all of my anticipation was not positive. In the months and weeks leading up to our trip, I found myself becoming overwhelmed with sadness at the thought of leaving my sweet girl for 8 whole days. Prior to this, I had not been away from her for more than about 3 hours at a time, and I spend all day every day with her. I found myself crying as I rocked her to sleep many evenings just thinking about not cuddling her for such a long period of time. At the same time that I had these pretty intense feelings of sadness over leaving Micah, I knew that going to Ghana was what I not only wanted but needed to do. Since last August, I had been planning for this trip and preparing myself for it, and especially since last October when Chris and I started the Mercy Project, I was anxious to see it all with my own eyes. Clearly, I had a lot of emotions swirling around in my head in the weeks before we left. As He always is, God was faithful to me and provided me with the peace that transcends all understanding, and in the day or two just before we left, I felt so calm. I spent my time rocking Micah praying instead of crying and thanking God for her and for our opportunity to go to Ghana. I started getting excited to see the kids there and excited to take my kids to meet them some day.

So, when we woke up on Thursday, July 22, I was ready. Ready for a long day of travel. Ready to tell my baby goodbye and trust her to her very eager grandparents. Ready to spend 8 days with the love of my life. Ready to see how God was going to work on my heart. Chris and I left our house around 7:30am after hugging and kissing and praying over Micah.

We were off, so surreal. We met the rest of our 12 member team at Chick-Fil-A outside of DFW Airport for breakfast and to gather the troops. We were all so excited and anxious to get the week started. Besides Chris, none of us had been to Ghana before, so we were excited to see it and breathe in that African air!

We got to the DFW Airport around 9:00am for our 11:45am flight. We thought we were super early, but when you are checking in a group of 11 {Marcus met us in Washington DC}, nothing is very fast. After checking in, going through security, and getting {a very early} lunch, we boarded our plane to Washington, DC. I remember looking at Chris and saying "we're really going." We had a pretty long layover in DC before our flight left for Accra at 11:00pm that night. We had a good time just hanging out as a group and getting to know each other better. Chris and I put the group together, so we were the only ones that really knew everyone that was going. It's always fun to watch your friends meet and become friends. God is good like that!

It was finally time to board the plane for Accra. AHHHHH!!! I looked at Chris and others in our group, and I kept saying, "We're going to Africa. When we wake up, we will be in Africa!" For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to go to Africa, and I honestly couldn't believe it was happening! So, we got on the plane for our 10 1/2 hour flight {!!!} and were off.

We had a very yummy {seriously} dinner on the plane and enjoyed part of a movie. With the help of a sleep aid, I got about 7 hours of sleep...so nice! When I woke up, it was Friday, and we only had about an hour left of our flight. We were there, in Ghana! As we stepped off the plane, I was so excited. I couldn't wait to see what this other part of God's world was like. And, it didn't disappoint.

We gathered our bags and headed to check in at our hotel. The hotel we stayed at in Tema, the Crismon Hotel, was really nice...A/C, hot water, verandas overlooking the pool, flat screen TVs, etc. We then made our way to the Village of Love, the Touch A Life orphanage in Tema where about 25 rescued children live. Another group was on the last day of their trip to the Village of Love, so we got to join with them in playing with the kids.

We played futbol and hugged and loved on the kids. We enjoyed some great singing time with them that night, and it made our group even more excited to get to the Village of Life and the kiddos with whom we'd we spending our week. We got to sing some worship songs with the kids that night, and I shed my first of many tears for the week listening to them sing "God is so good" with all of their hearts! So beautiful! We ended the night early after a long day of travel and got some good rest before our early morning the next day.

We woke up very early on Saturday morning, gathered all of our stuff, and loaded the 15 passenger van for our trek to Kete Krachi. It took us 9 1/2 hours to get there, and a lot of our travel was on very bumpy dirt roads. I have to give a little shout out to our fabulous driver, Kingsley, who made dodging the potholes look easy and kept us from bumping our heads on the ceiling of the van! The travel was very interesting, but our group was amazing and handled it all with grace and a smile. We used the restroom on the side of the road and ate peanut butter crackers and yummy sweet bread as our meals. I would not trade the experience for the world and loved seeing the villages as we made the drive.

We finally arrived at the hotel {the 2nd floor of the Kete Krachi Credit Union}, and this hotel was a little more authentic taste of Africa, although still not "roughing it." We all couldn't wait to load back up and drive the 5 minutes to the Village of Life where we were greeted with hugs and huge smiles by 44 sweet African kids. It was truly awesome!!! I couldn't stop smiling and was totally giddy. I loved finally getting the chance to wrap my arms around these children I had been thinking of and dreaming about for many months. That night was spent eating some more yummy African cuisine {chicken and rice with red sauce...mmmm} and singing and dancing with the kids. It was a great way to kick off our week!