In 2008, I took my first trip to Ghana, West Africa. It had taken a few years for us to get UW – Platteville’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders up and running, so it was exhilarating to take our baby chapter’s first footsteps into adulthood. The professor acting as our advisor was a Ghana native and did his best to give us a good idea of what to expect, and my mother and sister had shared as much as they could about their three-week trip to Kenya a year earlier, so I felt that I was as ready as anybody could be to experience Africa for the first time. However, anyone who’s been to Africa can tell you that nobody comes home unchanged.
We flew into Accra, the capital of Ghana, and many parts of it are nearly indistinguishable from any modern city in the developed world. That made the living conditions we witnessed in other parts of Accra and the rest of the country all the more shocking. Most of the country lives in literally third world conditions: no reliable source of potable water, huts made from mud or scrap metal, no sanitation, etc. Sometimes the disparity between the “haves” and “have-nots” was astounding. The best example of this that we saw was a scant plot of corn being farmed out of an old building foundation right next to a giant new mansion.
The most difficult experience for me to come to terms with was the night we told our van driver to just go wherever he felt like taking us for dinner. He ended up bringing us to the most high-class joint in all of Ghana. It was odd enough for me, with fairly humble beginnings myself, to be eating at such an incredibly ritzy and expensive establishment, but it was difficult not to be thinking about the meager dinner our friends in the village would be having. The real gut-wrencher was looking out from the seventh-story balcony our dinner table was at and seeing the state of the city and people around us. We could see anything from the presidential palace to the worst slums in town. Immediately below us, we could see businessmen in nice clothes buying all they could afford for dinner: a meager bowl of rice from a street vendor in the slum. All at once, standing there at the balcony railing, everything we’d seen and experienced made me catatonic for a while. Even though we all tried to have a good time at that dinner, I am pretty sure that at one point or another, every one of us took a turn ending up in a trance, staring out across the city for a while, pondering the ways of the world and our place in it.
When faced with all this, the living conditions, the disparity, the people’s attitude, it’s impossible not to wonder, “What can possibly be done to even begin to make it all better?”
(Submitted by my son, Nick. He has too many cool pictures for just one post, so I might just have to put out more of his pictures tomorrow.)
Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory." He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you. Luke 22:19-20 (The Message)
As I am writing this, my husband and I are anticipating going to a neighbor’s house for a simple get-together this evening. We will share fellowship and many stories, all over plates of delicious food. I don’t know what kind of food, but it will be good and there will be plenty of it. That is what we do here in America and in most other countries around the world. We don’t gather with family and friends unless there will be eating.
The same thing went on in Biblical times. The feast of Passover was just that – a feast. Actually, it sounds like it was a four-course meal and each course had its only special meaning.
When Jesus and his disciples were celebrating Passover, he instituted a new meal for them to observe. His very body and blood. They didn’t realize the significance of this until the next day, Good Friday, when their teacher, their friend was breathing his last on the cross. The meaning of simple bread and wine became something so much different then.
Lord Jesus, may we always remember you, not only when we partake of the Lord’s Supper, but when we eat any food, drink any beverage, don any clothing, or even when we breathe the air around us. You are with us everywhere in everything we do.
(From now until Easter, my Sunday blog will be taken from the book of Luke, looking at the last days to the last hours of Jesus’ life on this Earth. I pray that I can share something meaningful with you. This week's picture was taken at our going away party for Val just a year ago, before she left for 6 months in Kenya. She and Nick's girlfriend created a menu of East African foods. Umm.)
Some days, I just rather give you a picture than write. When I do that, either I am just busy or lazy or feel that the picture just says more than the words, which is a terrible thing for an aspiring writer to say.
How many times have I journeyed to the tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula just to go through Fort Wilkins? That short vacation in 2003, with just my daughter and my mom, had to be at least the fifth. But that’s all right, because I will never get tired of imagining I am wearing a beastly hot long skirt, with an apron no less, hauling a basket of dirty laundry down to the edge of the lake. Maybe I am not into historical romances, but I am all over the historic stuff.
The day after Fort Wilkins, on our way home, we stopped at another place paying tribute to Michigan’s past. The Shrine of the Snowshoe Priest between Baraga and L’Anse. A 35-foot-high bronzed statue of Father Frederic Baraga rests on five arches, one for each of the five missions he founded. He naturally has a fascinating story, which I won’t cover completely. But let me say that he arrived in the UP in the 1830’s, ministered to both the Native Americans and the copper miners, covered a lot of ground on snowshoes, and became the first Bishop in the UP in 1853.
In 1950, the Bishop Baraga Association was formed with the goal of having him sainted. The shrine was built because all saints need a shrine, but as near as I can tell, the Vatican hasn’t yet made up their mind on Father Baraga.
We didn’t get to take an official family vacation in 2003, but I can’t just stay home all summer. I planned a three day get-away with my daughter Val to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. And at the last minute invited my mom to go along.
Our first stop was the family-famous McLain State Park just past Houghton in the Keweenaw Peninsula. I know that I have written about this place before, and I will write about it again (already have our campsite reserved for this summer). The long sandy beach, the amazing sunrises and beautiful sunsets, all on that massive body of water known as Gitche Gumee. I just am so in love with it.
Check out this picture. Leading the sheltered life I do, I have never seen this sign anywhere else. Oh, they probably have a foot-washing station at all the big beaches. But here in the upper Midwest? Let me know if you’ve seen one before.
After Val’s feet were clean and dry, we visited the Laurium Manor Inn in Laurium. It is a cool big old house and a Bed and Breakfast, too. I keep thinking I should stay there some time with my husband, but now that I have him into camping with the dog, I don’t know if there is any going back.
The Day of Unleavened Bread came, the day the Passover lamb was butchered. Jesus sent Peter and John off, saying, "Go prepare the Passover for us so we can eat it together." Luke 22:7-8 (The Message)
Have you seen the movie The Ten Commandments? The epic by Cecil B. DeMille with Charlton Heston as Moses? Remember the ten plagues, the locusts, the frogs, the boils? The last plague was the death of the first-born throughout Egypt. The Israelites, slaves in Egypt at the time, were God’s chosen people so they needed to be spared from this plague. They were instructed to spread the blood of a lamb on the sides and top of their door so that the angel of death would “pass over” their household. The lamb was to be a one year old male, either a goat or a sheep, and was to be perfect, without blemish.
The Passover became one of the major Jewish holidays. And so, during this particular year in the life of Jesus, he met with his disciples to celebrate the Passover feast.
The disciples didn’t know it at the time, but the Passover lamb was always meant to symbolize Christ. Back when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, God had planned that just as they would be freed from their bondage by the blood of the lamb, we would be freed from our sin by the blood of Jesus. Even the doorframes where the blood of the Lamb was spread takes on the shape of the cross where our Lord was crucified.
Lord Heavenly Father, You developed the best plan for all of our lives, from way before we were even born. We may not see it every day, but help us to realize that You know the meaning behind all that goes on around us. Help us to understand Your plans and see that Your perfect way is the only way.
(From now until Easter, my Sunday blog will be taken from the book of Luke, looking at the last days to the last hours of Jesus’ life on this Earth. I pray that I can share something meaningful with you. The included picture this week was taken by my daughter Val in Saikeri, Kenya, last summer.)
