Black Stars

We just happened to sail into the African country of Ghana the day it played Uruguay in the world cup. We were secretly wishing that they’d win, but we ended up hearing the bad news that fell over the country like a veil of mourning, the Black Stars had fallen…

The Ghana Black Stars (the national team’s name) are quite a good parallel to the Ghana style of life and culture. A proud, independent, self-sufficient, yet extremely curious and friendly people, they benefit from a very rich and resource-laden country that has not struggled with the pangs of civil war like those around them. In Accra’s art center I had the pleasure of watching skilled men build drums right before my eyes: starting from a short log that they carved out, sanded, sculpted and equipped with a fresh goat skin recently dried, to a final product varnished and decorated. This of course, was right before I got swamped by men trying to sell me their wares, using every argument possible to make a few dollars..

I also had the privilege of taking part in an orphanage building project with a group from the ship.

A group of simple people already working at a small orphanage of about 30 kids have quite a larger picture: having only the first of a three two-story building project, they’ll be able to house a couple hundred orphans on a large piece of land when all the buildings are completed.

Sometimes these projects motivate me so much that I wish God would call me to stay and invest the next few years of my life to participate! Yet I do know that God has not called me to stay in Africa (well, not that I know of) so I just keep helping out and learning from these incredibly “bigger pictures.”

Africa is NOT what the media describes it to be. Of course, there are needy dependant people, terrible sanitary problems and many homeless children, yet there’s something else behind this continent… something I can’t find a word to describe, somehow linked to their culture. All I know for now is that sending money to these countries is not very effective: we need more people with a vision of the "larger picture," able to merge into the country's culture, bonding men together in order to rebuild these countries through their own people. They have what it takes, they have the time, they have the ressources, they just need a passionate motivation. If only they would turn from being nominal Christians to become a nation of true God-serving people, the transformation of this continent would be almost immediate and life-changing in the history of the world.