Thanksgiving

     Today is our first Thanksgiving in Ghana. It's really strange to have all the food preparations going on and not be doing some of the traditional things I've done for years, but I'm thankful to have had the chance to enjoy those times God has given me.  Usually on This morning, I would be sitting in a tree-stand waiting for a deer to pass by, or at the lake crappie fishing. Those had become my Thanksgiving morning rituals. 

This Thanksgiving day, I am getting ready to teach creative arts to some students in a classroom in Africa. The path God lays out before us can lead to some pretty unexpected destinations! But I am thankful to be on this journey... probably the most difficult time of my life.

And there are "little" things I'm thankful for today. Thankful to have pure water in little bags so we can drink when we are thirsty, and not have to carry it in buckets. Thankful to not have to worry about whether that water has things in it that would cause Montezuma's revenge. Thankful to have plenty of rice for meals that fill our bellies when I know there are so many empty stomachs around. Thankful to have an awareness of these things. 

I'm thankful to have electricity to charge laptops and cellphones, so that we can send emails and post Facebook messages. Thankful to have internet that is slower than the old dial-up at home, so that I can communicate with family and friends.

Thankful to have family that loves God enough to support me and my family being away from them. Thankful that they recognize that Gods calling in our lives is more important than being together on holidays, even though its hard. 

Thankful that God would ask me to do the hard things. Thankful that He knows what He is doing, even when I don't..

Thankful to have a different perspective of how small I am in the world, and how big He is.

Give thanks, for He is good. His love endures forever. 

Cayle

A day in the life-Faith Roots Academy

Here are a few pictures from a day at Faith Roots Academy!

Maya, Jason and Emmanuel

The bus is loaded!

Taking a break after Phys.Ed. 

Doing some dancing and cheering during a class football match.

Maud ready for the day!

KG 1b  Class

Sir Lucky teaching P5

Madame Janet teaching English and reading skills in P4

Trip to Volta, Part 2

In this post I want to talk a bit about Delali and the difficulty of the issue with him specifically. I said in my first post that I felt like he was an evil man, and I think that is true. Do I think he is outside the reach of God's grace? Not as long as he is still breathing. But having said that, we get to the issue of "What can we do about this?". One thing that I learned this past weekend is that the issue of child slavery and trafficking is very complicated. Even though its morally and ethically wrong, and a majority of people would quickly agree with that, dealing with the issue is not quite so cut and dried. Let me try to explain.

We do know that Delali has multiple wives. Exactly how many is unclear. He has 18 children, all of whom live with him. At least one of his wives has died, leaving only him as guardian for several of the children. He is obviously feared by the other people who live there, and we know that he uses some of his own children to fish as well. We also know he is willing to use his own, or anyone else's children for his own gain, regardless of the damage it may cause.

The information that we were able to get suggests that there may have been another non-profit rescue organization there at some time. Johnbull also knows that the non-profit has been known to pay fishermen for children, sometimes without doing any investigating to find out where the child came from or where their family might be. When we arrived at Delali's house, it was pretty clear that he was expecting money. It was also our feeling that Delali could not support all of his family and have the things that he has from his fishing income alone. His house is the only one in the village with a metal roof. I also noticed a motorcycle and a generator. Most other families couldn't afford these things, so it leaves us wondering how he could afford such things. Again, we are talking about someone whose annual income is about the same as what an average American worker would earn in a couple weeks.

So here is the big question. What should be done? Our first reaction...my first reaction is that this man should pay. He should not be allowed to get away with this. But if he is arrested and jailed, what about the 18 kids and wives who he does support, even though it may be barely. It's not quite an easy decision now. But there is no question... he can't be allowed to continue what he is doing. 

I said before that this ultimately is a heart issue, and I'm not sure anyone but God can change this man's heart. And what about those organizations that actually do go into an area like this and pay to get kids out of this situation, thinking they are helping? Many of them are only concerned with numbers that look good for a fundraising campaign.

"Look, we rescued x number of child slaves this year- Won't you help us get more?"

Ultimately, they are creating a worse problem by using this practice. So I'm praying that God will show us wisdom in how to proceed. I'm praying that God will change Delali's heart. Maybe by the fact that we refused to pay for any children will show the people around him that we believe in a higher cause. Believe me, we drew quite a crowd at his house before it was all over. I'm also praying that justice will prevail for the children at the lake. God sees each one, and I trust that He is in control.

I would ask that you pray these things as well, and also be aware that just because an aid organization has impressive numbers does not mean that they are truly being effective. I know that the idealistic American view of ministry and missions is often wrapped up in statistics. God is not impressed with statistics... just love and our humble submission.

Cayle  

Trip to Volta, part 1

As I write this, we are on the bus, bouncing and weaving our way around huge potholes, sometimes slowing to a crawl to navigate them. We pass children, some in school uniforms, and some wearing raggedy cloths, waving as we go by. We stop along the road in a small village to buy some yams from a group of women carrying them in large tubs on their heads. We've been driving for almost 2 hours, and soon we will arrive at the ferry crossing at Dambai, where the bus will drive onto the ferry for the trip across Lake Volta, Then it will be roughly another 7 or 8 hours ride back to CORM. It's been a dizzying few days for me. We left CORM at midnight Friday and drove all night. It's now Monday morning, and I think I've had maybe 8 hours of decent sleep in the last 3 days. On Saturday,we crossed the lake in a small boat to reach the tiny fishing village of Adakope, spent a couple hours there, and returned in the dark, in the middle of thunder and lightning. 

And we returned without the two boys we had come for.

To be honest, I'm still trying to make sense of the whole trip. It's been quite an experience. Since I'm writing this to try to give an account of our trip to you, but yet keep it short enough to be a blog and not a book, I'll boil it down to one thought I've had this morning. 

The heart of man is deceitful and evil. 

Yeah, I know... that is no secret. We see it in every corner of the world, in so many different ways.

Let me back up for a minute and explain what happened(I think) this weekend. We came to the tiny village in a remote part of the lake to rescue 2 young boys who had been working as slaves for a fisherman named Delali. The groundwork for this rescue had started nearly three years ago. Several visits to the lake to talk with people in the village had yielded the information. There were already kids living with us at CORM that had come from this same village, and Delali had a reputation as a very hard, devious man. Two and a half years ago, when Dawn and the team from our house church had come to Ghana, they made the trip to this same village, and saw these two boys. They were not in good physical shape then, and had obviously been working on the lake then. The story was that they belonged to Delali as repayment for the mother's funeral that he had payed for. Their parents were both supposed to be dead, and the boys were to work off the debt. After several trips to discuss the issue with Delali, and then getting one of his own family members involved to put pressure on him to release the boys, our trip to make the rescue was set up. Delali, apparently out of fear of being arrested, agreed to a meeting and said he would give up the boys.

Fast forward to this weekend. When we arrived at Delali's house, it only took a couple minutes to realize that things were not going to go as expected. I'm not going to take time here to lay out all the details, especially since I don't think I understand them all anyway, so here is a short version of what happened. After he tried to give us three other kids (who were his sister's children!), he then said the boys were not there.   He tried to deny that they even had been there, until we showed him pictures of the boys from one of the previous visits. After much more discussion and a couple tense moments, we learned that one of the boys was at another house nearby. 

The bottom line is this: The boys were actually his brother's children. Why this didn't become known from previous trips, I don't know, but Delali had woven a web of lies that stretched even to some of his relatives that had been contacted for information. He and his brother had been fighting(for a long time apparently), and he was trying to give away his own nephews. Again, there are so many raveled ends to this tangled mess, I don't have it all straight. The sad truth is that there is more going on here than just a fisherman trying to make a living. What we finally realized is that there had been other NGO's (Non-Government Organizations )there as well, and we were now learning the painful truth behind what happens when some of these "well meaning" organizations try to rescue kids by paying for them. Delali has found that he can make money by selling the kids to these NGO's, and he thought we would pay for these boys as well.  He had told the boys that he had already sold them to us and that we were coming to take them.  They were obviously terrified. His brother(the boys' own father!) thought we were going to take them, he had been told that we already "owned" them. What a sad mess. These boys were being used by a man with an evil heart for his own financial gain, and as weapons in a family feud. I can't tell you how disgusted I was at how easily he offered up other children in their place. 

Again there are so many more details to this story, but in the end, we are returning home without them. We can't take kids away from their families. Even though the boys may be living in a tough situation, their father is caring for them. Even in an extremely poor part of the world where there is little money, the love of money corrupts the heart. 

So as I try to find a comfortable position to sit in for the rest of the ride home, I'm kind of in a mental and emotional limbo. Still trying to make sense. Bouncing around between disappointment, sadness and anger. Wondering what God is doing. Thankful that we learned the truth about this situation before we had actually taken kids away from their parents. 

It's a messy world... Lord may your Kingdom come.

I'll have a few more posts about this in the next week or so. 

In His Strength,

Cayle

The Comparison Game

So this is the blog that I intended to write when I started the last one and got detoured!  

Once again, I find myself amazed by how God remains faithful to us even when it may seem  that He's not paying attention. I've prayed on more than one occasion that God would show me a deeper sense of purpose here. And its actually been through this process of blogging and sharing my thoughts and experiences that God has answered and given me a greater awareness of the impact I can make on people through my ministry here, and with this blog. I have been amazed to find that people actually read this!! So I continue to share my story...my life, with you.

Something that I have learned on this journey is that regardless of how or where you minister, its easy to get caught in one of many traps. Traps that Satan uses to trip us up and get us off our game. The last blog was sharing one of those traps- the trap of getting caught up in the good things we do, only to allow them to become ultimate things that take the place of God in our lives...uh, yeah,...thats idolatry. 

So here is another trap we face.

Getting caught in the snare of comparisons. Comparing our abilities with someone else's. Comparing our knowledge with someone else's. Comparing our gifting, or the way we pray, or the way we worship...it can go on and on. I have seen in my own ministry to others how destructive this can be. 

We all want to measure up. Everyone likes to be praised, or get affirmation from others. Even when we are unselfishly trying to serve, we still want to know we are doing well. But quite often in life, we evaluate our effectiveness or success by making comparisons with others. In ministry, I believe this is one of the most dangerous traps the enemy can use against us.

There are probably more, but I think there are two basic issues that will attack us when we compare ourselves to others, and if we allow them to gain a foothold, they will crush us. The first is what happens when we compare ourselves with others who we believe don't do quite as well as we do. We think,"I'm doing better than them, so I must be pretty good". We begin to believe that our value and effectiveness comes from our superior abilities. It then becomes easier and easier for us to point out other peoples shortcomings, so that we feel better about ourselves. The result is someone who is puffed up with pride and arrogance, and we know how that can affect a ministry.  It becomes all about numbers and outdoing someone else, or having the newest, cutting edge ideas. And sooner or later, it goes from "look what God did" to "look what I did".  As God gets shuffled to the back seat, Satan grins and does a fist pump. We have probably all seen this happen... maybe even to us.

The second attack comes from the opposite side. And, as I have always tried to be very transparent with my own struggles when I write this stuff, this is the one I have a difficult time with. This attack comes when we compare our abilities with those who we perceive to be better than us. If I had to guess, there are many of you who struggle just as I do, with this same thing. Maybe you sing or play music, and when you hear someone better, you feel inadequate.  Maybe as a pastor or leader, you see another ministry growing faster, so you feel discouraged. In our personal walks with Jesus we look around and see people that seem to pray better, know scripture better or worship more freely and we feel like maybe we are not quite good enough. And here is quite often our response. 

         We try harder to be someone we think God will be more happy with. 

         And after a little while we burn out and find that we don't feel any better about who we are, and begin to doubt our effectiveness. We begin to doubt our calling. Maybe we even begin to doubt our faith. And so we withdraw, drop out, give up and throw in the towel...

because of a comparison...

The wrong comparison. Making this kind of comparison causes us to try to be someone we are not. We try to measure up to standards that we may never be able to match, and we end up trying to be someone different than who God created us to be. 

Our standard of comparison should not be other people, but Jesus. The cool part about that comparison is that He made it really simple for us. The standard is just so high, Nobody can measure up to Him, so its not a competition! But here is the amazing thing about his grace. He created us and shaped us with a purpose. 

        Psalm 139 tells us that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made". 

        We like to throw that verse around a lot, but I don't think we always believe it. It means that God actually had a plan when he created us! He created us with specific gifts and qualities that He wants us to use in our calling, and he doesn't want us to try to be someone else. That wont make Him love you more.

So I have been working on using the gifts that God has given me, and staying true to who I am created to be. I'm not trying to be someone I'm not equipped to be. And I have found that its much easier to be who I am, instead of someone I'm not. That is exhausting! God has called me and my family here because we have unique gifts and abilities that He wants to use for His glory. We are all pieces in Gods puzzle, and every piece has its place. If one of those pieces is trying to occupy a space it wasn't made for, the picture wont be complete!

So how about you? Has the comparison game hindered your calling? Has it hurt relationships? Caused you to feel inadequate and ineffective? How about getting back to who God made you to be, and fix our eyes on Jesus, not the person next to us?

Cayle

When the tank is empty.

     I found that after I started writing this post, I needed to go back and rewrite this opening, because the main point shifted from my original thought. I started out writing about the various traps we may be susceptible to in the midst of our ministry calling, and what I thought was just going to be a side-bar became the main idea. I seem to be continually learning about what it means to be on mission, and how to live out my calling. It is definitely an ongoing process.

    This will be aimed more towards married folk, but one of the things I've learned is that while God may have given me a specific calling here in Ghana, that calling did not discontinue or supersede the calling I have as a husband and a father. In those relationships, I am bound by covenants that are modeled for us in Gods covenants with His people, and we know that God does not break his promises. So He would not call me to something that would cause me to forsake the very covenants that He established. God called me to be a husband and father long before he called me to Ghana, so while I can work very hard at this new calling, I cannot do it at the expense of my family. And this can be complicated and hard. Believe me-I know. For Dawn and I, leaving our families and Caylan, our oldest daughter, was no easy thing.  I think this is exactly why Paul wrote the following in 1 Corinthians 7. (my comment in parenthesis.) 

        

       "Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. (Single, with no children!) But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another."   1 Corinthians 7:6-7

      

       Now while I understand that Paul is talking about physical desires in the context of marriage vs. singleness, I believe he is also saying something else that may not be very popular, but its true. In a ministry context, marriage complicates things. Having a family requires certain commitments that must be balanced along with our ministry. Paul is not saying those things are bad. He even says "this is not a command...its just some wise advice" He is saying that if you are single, and God calls you to ministry, you can "go and be" with a much greater freedom. He recognizes that while marriage and family don't excuse us from our callings or make ministry impossible, they do require being committed to things that could make ministry callings more complicated. He is in no way saying we should ignore those responsibilities. And listen... This isn't just a foreign missions thing. This issue can trap anyone, single or married, in any kind of ministry, which includes every believer, since we are all called to some kind of ministry...wherever we are. 

      I'm aware that in addition to being on mission to the people here in Ghana, my calling to love my wife as Christ loved the church, to be the best dad I can and raise my daughters up to be Godly women, is no less important here than when we were at home in the states. 

      It's really easy to get caught up in the work of ministry, and be so busy doing good that we neglect those we love. It's easy to get burned out doing good, especially when we are trying to run on the fuel of our own human effort. We will burn up all our own fuel. And then what happens when Dawn needs me to be her husband, or the girls need me to be their dad, and I'm empty?  The answer is that my ministry will suffer, and my relationships will suffer.

      So here is what I have learned. First, it is Jesus who says "Come to me, all who are weary, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light". He is saying "Let me fuel you... Stop trying to do it all on your own." And second, we occasionally need to slow down and recharge. Spend time building our own relationship with Jesus. Spend time with our family. Husbands and wives, spend some time with each other! And that is what Dawn and I are planning. In a few weeks, we are going to take a couple days off and get away, for the good of our relationship, our relationship with our Heavenly Father, and our relationship with our family. 

       What about you? Are you trying to run on empty? Maybe you need to recharge as well...for the good of your marriage or family...and your relationship with Jesus.

Something to think about...

Cayle