Sweet, Sweet Spirit

This weekend we had a three day weekend. Friday was African Unity Day so we had no school. Lindsey, the new mini missionary, had just come in on Tuesday so Joy and I took her shopping on Friday to some of my favorite spots. I taught her how to barter with the people and told her the prices that she should pay for everything. It was a lot of fun. Then on Saturday we (Lindsey and I) had a great outting with Rob and Libbie. They took us to Boti Falls which are two beautiful waterfalls, I believe, north of us. When we drove up to the gate we didn’t really see anything that would lead to any kind of a waterfall and sat in the car going, "Okay, now where do we go." There was no one there and we were told this was a big tourist attraction. Then a man came up and said he would be our guide and was he ever! He guided us to the waterfalls which were exactly 250 steps down from where we were. It looked like the Garden of Eden! It was so beautiful! I could not believe it. The water falls are two streams that split of from the Volta River and fall about thirty feet from each other. One is called the male stream and then the other is the female. I don’t know why, they just are. After that Stephen, our guide, hopped in the truck with us and drove us to "Umbrella Rock" and then guided us to the "Three Headed Palm Tree." It was all in total Ghanaian fashion and I would not have had it any other way!


I was thinking about all the National Monuments that I have been to back home and they all have nice paths to them and some try to look rustic but are really not. Here, there’s no trying about it. They take you through the bush and the villages to get to these places. The palm tree is in some guys front yard and he has banded together and bamboo ladder that you can climb to take a snap in the tree. For the Umbrella Rock we walked through a village, then through the grave for the village, through the bush, down some rocks and then out of nowhere we are standing on this cliff looking out into the mountains! I mean it was breath taking, both the view and the walk.

The best part was nothing was planned that we did. The only thing we planned to do was to go to Boti Falls and the rest was just incidental. Stephen hung with us for about eight hours and took us all around, we even drove through his home town.

This was a tough day, it was my last Ghanaian church service. I cried probably for one half of it. It was really interesting because for the months of April and now May we have bought these little booklets that contain all the bulletins for the entire month. They have all the songs in them that we are going to sing and the speaker. But today they revamped the entire service and so they handed out regular paper bulletins and I know that it was all in God’s plan that they changed the service. Just this morning I had prayed that I would have the strength I needed to make it through not just this day but this week. One of the first songs that we sang was entitled "I’m Devoting All My Strength." The words are very few but very powerful:

I’m devoting all my strength
To serve my Saviour Jesus;
I am giving all my life
To please my risen Lord
Wordly things, I may lose;
Better Far, Christ I choose!
I’m devoting all my strength
To please my risen Lord!

I think the part of the service that touched me the most was when we sang "Sweet, Sweet Spirit." My feelings and thoughts that were going through me completely shifted the song from talking about church to talking about Ghana. It was really the last three lines of the chorus that made me tear up the most. Those are the words I will leave you with tonight. My eyes are crossing so I’m thinking its time for bed!

Without a doubt we’ll know
That we have been revived
When we shall leave this place!

Thank you for taking this journey with me!

Sarah