We get stretched. Sometimes it is with anticipation, excitement, and willingness. At other times, a soft prelude of anxiety plays in the morning before dawn — the stretching is coming.
Wednesday morning, we left our oversized luggage garden and began the trek to Northwest Ghana. Our friend Laurie picked us up at the airport and provided a spare bedroom. We know the accommodations and hospitality well, and take the opportunity to clean up, nap, and sort through the nine assorted bags of gear and gifts.
The hard work begins tomorrow, but we took a break to drop off some of our supplies and meet up with staff at the Philip Centre. The normally locked gates were flung open in anticipation. Bright Ghanian voices rang out immediately upon our arrival.
“You’re Welcome!”
Beaming smiles, sweaty hugs, and laughter suddenly teleported thoughts lingering in the suburbs of Chicago to the soul of West Africa – people. Even for frequent travelers, it is all too easy to be distracted by scarcity and see razor wire, unpaved roads, and open sewage in gutters. But abundance is everywhere – love, joy, and peace welcome us. I consider the abundance my heart pursues. Can I be stretched?
The colorful new banners mounted on the walls at the Philip Centre are splendid! Before long, the staff shows off the new studio, where music, videos, and podcasts are being recorded. The work here is more vibrant than the colors of Africa – full of enthusiasm and compassion. Wow.
This morning we fly to Wa, a city in the Northwest corner of Ghana. Ray has spent the last two days driving the old truck north from Accra to meet us. The rough roads have exhausted him. When we arrive, I will take the wheel for the remainder of the trip and give Ray a break. The entire journey will stretch us – physically, spiritually, and mentally. The 2000km path will traverse through some of the harshest bush in Ghana. A heat wave is approaching. Temperatures will often be well over 100F, and the rains are threatening to arrive. The prelude has faded. The stretching has arrived.
Beth and I are preparing. Today we will trade the daffodils, tulips, blushing magenta magnolias, and intense thunderstorms for the sparkling smiles, laughter, sweltering heat, and drum rhythms of northern Ghana.
Yet even as we untangle wires, pack camera lenses, and find our malaria pills – tasks listed on pages of spreadsheets that Beth and I have curated over the years – I find myself considering the unknown unknowns.
We are preppers – a spare microphone, lollipops, a sim tool, my journal and fountain pen. We page through the list of supplies we left in Ghana – soldering iron, mosquito netting, clipboard. We work to manage the known unknowns. If my laptop power supply were to fail, can I use Beth’s? When we get ill, do I have the right antibiotics? We attempt to pack for the unexpected. Yes, I can hear your giggles :-)
But in the darkness before dawn, as tasks loop and swirl through my thoughts, I consider how I have been prepped. My parents, church, schools, summer camps, friends, family, and of course my long list of often misguided adventures are all part of my prepping story.
Starting my first long distance bike trek, from Camp Good News on Cape Cod to Anderson Indiana.My first camp counselor job — there were no more cabins, so we pitched an old army tent on the beach for 7 weeks.Living in the hut built by my father in the deep jungles of the Yucatan, during Wycliffe training
Yet then, as I look back through the years, I begin to see a different storyline, one punctuated with reminders. A plot that is richer, deeper, and broader — the unknown unknowns are the plan.
2014:
On our second recording trip to Northern Ghana, when Beth and I were still trying to learn the rhythms and customs of the local communities, Ray received a distressing phone call. After a brief discussion, our plans changed. We loaded into the truck and bounced across the dry mud roads to Pastor Joseph’s traditional home.
Pastor Joseph, the morning after the attack.The elders, hearing Pastor Joseph recount the challenges of the previous evening.
When we arrived, we found him sitting with friends and elders from the church, recounting the events of the previous night. While riding his motorcycle home after an evening church visit, he was brutally attacked by men with a rifle. Leaving his motorcycle behind, Pastor Joseph fled into the bush, even as they shot into the dark. To everyone’s surprise, the motorcycle was recovered the next morning. We prayed together and made new plans.
2016:
Over New Year’s in Naperville, I alternated between fever and chills. Violent coughing spells finally pushing me into the hospital. A blood culture revealed grim news – I had a serious blood infection, and my heart was inflamed. We were just weeks away from a trip to Ghana. Flights were cancelled and Edwards hospital asked me to stay a while. A plastic tube, a PICC line, was inserted into the brachial vein near my bicep and carefully threaded toward my heart.
The IV port remained taped to my arm for a month. Each day I had an appointment for an antibiotic infusion. After the treatments ended and the tube removed, calendars were once again explored. New flights were booked. New plans made. In April, we traveled to Ghana.
2017:
On January 4th, with friends and family gathering and praying in the lobby at Edwards Hospital, a surgeon replaced my defective heart value and ascending aorta.
Rehab was quick, and by the summer, new plans and new plane tickets were assembled for another October trip. Yet once in Ghana, we needed a different kind of valve repair. While traveling north from Accra to Tamale to meet us, Ray’s Nissan Hardbody truck lost oil pressure and the engine overheated. A new engine block? Here, in the remote small villages of Northern Ghana?
Yet laying on the sunbaked red dirt in a local mechanic’s scrap shed was a Nissan Hardbody engine block. Within a few days, the engine block and pistons were humming away – all for the discounted price of $500, including labor. New Plans.
2019:
The Fulani are the world’s largest nomadic people group. More than 20 million Fulani are spread across the Sahel. While in a neighboring country, hosted by a Fulani community, we were shown the greatest of hospitality – food, fellowship, and friendship. We learned so much on that trip — “Don’t buy a fish in the river” and the six characteristics of the Fulani. While driving back to Ghana, our plans were in jeopardy. In 2019, the blog simply mentioned “The journey to Navrongo is a very long tale, best told in person :-)”. It is still best told in person, but including crossing a closed border, late at night, with the help of a friend. I admit my faith was weak, and yet the plans changed — they were perfect.
Punctures? Delays? The easy stuff….
2020:
Harmattan? Who even uses that word? Is it weapon wielded by a elf from Lord of the Rings? No. It is the wind that blows across the Sahara desert and into Northern Ghana. It can darken the skies with red dust and shut down airports. Plans? Wait until the Harmattan is over. How long? Ask the desert. Plans change and the work continues.
A dilated eye and a laser. How better to start a trip?
After prayer, frantic calls to eye hospitals, and a very kind doctor in Wheaton who was willing to repair Beth’s retina, plans changed. A few bursts of a laser and Beth was dashing out of the eye hospital. A friend had loaded all the bags into her car, and was waiting for Beth to emerge. We left my car in the parking lot, and our friend zig zagged through traffic. I looked at Beth, and we both pondered. Really? This was the plan? Laser eye surgery and a Mario Kart ride to the Ohare? We arrived at our flight’s gate with 30 minutes to spare.
While the beginning of the trip started with adversity, the end of the trip was hard. As Beth and I worked with Ray in Northern Ghana, we received a difficult text message from my mom — my dad was unexpectedly in the hospital, and then immediately moved to hospice. His message to Beth and I? “continue the work”. Dad passed away while Beth and I were in Ghana. His plans had changed, and he was finally home.
Prepping is useful, but Way Making is essential
We must prepare. Our church, friends, family, jobs, and adventures all contribute to shape and prepare us for the work ahead. I may see unknown unknowns, but I am not the Way Maker.
I’ve been pondering this beautiful verse:
I pray that as Beth and I board our flight later today, we remember that we can prepare, but the plan is not ours. There will be new wonderful things. Hard things. Adversity will join our adventure. But we can have peace. The Way Maker is doing something new — how beautiful.
