About the Glasses

As you have heard or read by now, we are taking 2000 pairs of prescription glasses with us to Ghana. These are older, used glasses that have been donated to various organizations, such as The Lions Club. The glasses are then sent to more volunteers that have equipment to measure the eyeglasses, one lens at a time, to determine the prescription strength of each side. This information is put in barcode label form on a plastic bag containing the glasses. This is how they look when we receive them.

Now let our FUN begin! We received several shipments of boxes that contained the glasses, the cardboard “trays” with inserts to be assembled, the bigger boxes that hold 2 completed trays, the plastic bags to help protect the boxes from water damage and then the HUGE duffel bags to help transport 2 big boxes holding 320 glasses.

We had lots of help, thanks to many volunteers who taped and labeled the big boxes, labeled the trays and each individual slots, trimmed the cardboard to fit the slots, put labels on the stem of each pair of glasses and another label to number the baggie. You think it’s done now… no, one more major step: scanning each baggie into our glasses inventory program with the number that is now on the baggie. Did I mention we were very thankful for our volunteers?!

When 2 big boxes are complete, they are placed in the HUGE duffel bags. The completed bag weighs about 45 lbs. There are 6 bags and 5 people going. This isn’t counting our luggage. Luckily we won’t be bringing the glasses back to the states with us!

We are also packing some homemade pillowcase dresses inside the duffel bags! Some of the ladies in our church have made some darling dresses mostly made from pillowcases and adorned with lace and fun embroidered applications and ribbon. We should have 60 completed dresses to take with us. How exciting for the little girls that will receive them.

Blessings,

Vicki
P.S. I (Mary) just had to post a pic of Vicki modeling some of the goods. :-)

Manny Is Going Home

Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for church Mary pointed out we only have two weeks until we leave for Ghana.  I knew the date was coming up fast but somehow the realization that it was only two weeks away seemed to have snuck up on me.  It’s less than two weeks now. 

But if it seems just around the corner for me it must really seem to be coming fast for Manny.  Manny is going home for the first time in over seven years.  He leaves this coming Sunday (March 4) one week before the rest of us.  At church yesterday Manny was commissioned for the trip since he will be leaving on the 4^th before the service.  At both services yesterday members of the congregation laid hands on him and prayed over him, thanking God for Manny, for what God has done with and through him, and for what God will do in the coming weeks in Ghana.  Manny took a few moments to also thank the congregation for all they have done for him over the past few years.  It was a beautiful moment in the life of the church. And though it was only a small event in the grand narrative of the Kingdom of God, it showed the earnestness and faith of the people of Andover in the living Christ and in his commission to us to go to all the nations and spread the Good News.

Manny next to one of the bags of glasses

When we met for our weekly team meeting last night we took a few moments to discuss the service that morning.  One thing that we all noted was the support and generosity of the people at Andover, not only in terms of financially supporting the trip, but also through your prayers, through the volunteers who have helped us prepare and pack the glasses and sew dresses, and through your presence in our lives.  We also recognize prayer and support is coming from outside the Andover community and we are truly grateful for that.

We also took time last night to tack a group photo of the team which has been posted to the blog.  You can see it by clicking HERE.

It won’t be long now!  Please continue to pray for us and for the people of Ghana.

Ghana Vision Trip Team

Todd Nelson, Vicki Lanham, Manny Otsin, Jason Aycock, Mary Aycock

A Tentative Itinerary

We’ve had a lot of people ask us just what we will be doing on the trip, when we are going, and when we are getting back.  Here is a brief itinerary for everyone.  We hope that you will pray for us every step of the way.

Manny will be the first of us to leave.  He flies out of Lexington on March 4.  This will be the first time Manny has been home in seven years, so he will be using the extra time before the rest of us arrive to visit with friends and famiy.

The rest of us leave Lexington one week later on Sunday, March 11.  That Sunday will be a busy day for us.  There will be a commissioning service at church (we’ll do one for Manny before he leaves) and we will head straight to the airport after the second service is over.  From Lexington we fly first to Chicago then to Washington D.C. where we change planes once again for our flight to Ghana. 

We arrive in Accra, Ghana at about 1:00 pm (local time) on Monday March 12.  Once we get off the plane in Accra we’ll board another smaller flight to Kumasi where we’ll be met by Manny and his family.  We’ll have the rest of Monday to unwind a little from all the flights and try to acclimate to our surroundings as best we can.

Collage of Accra Pics

On Tuesday we’ll spend the day in and around Kumasi, getting to know a little about the city and the people.  On Wednesday we’ll begin the first of our days in the villages of Bedassi and Oyoko.  In each village we will be holding vision clinics during the day and evangelism meetings in the evenings.  If you’ve read Mary’s post about Fuzzy Vision/Fuzzy Memory you got a glimpse of what is in store for these clinics.  We are taking 2,000 pairs of glasses plus the vision refraction machine and other equipment so that we can do vision tests in the villages.  The glasses are all used frames and lenses that have been donated for this purpose.  I know 2,000 pairs of glasses seems like a lot (well, yeah it is a lot) but we have to take that many so that we can be sure to have a representative sample for whomever may need them.  Look for more information on the clinics and glasses in a later post.

Wesley Methodist Cathedral in Kumasi

The clinics and the evangelism meetings will continue through Saturday.  We’ll be staying at the mission guest house run by Manny’s dad at night and driving to the villages each morning, staying until we finish each evening.  We are not sure yet what exactly to expect from the revivals but Todd and I are preparing to preach each night (four times total). 

On Sunday we will spend a good portion of the day in church (their services last just a bit longer than ours).  The rest of the day’s itinerary isn’t planned but we will probably just enjoy the Lord’s Day and experience worship and fellowship in a new cultural context.

We are not completely sure what we are doing on Monday yet.  In order to get a better price on airfare we decided to leave for Ghana a day earlier than expected, so we have an extra day on the trip.  We may go back to one of the villages or we may explore Kumasi a little more.

On Tuesday we will drive south for the coast to stay overnight in Cape Coast.  While we are there we’ll visit some of the local historical spots like Elmina Castle (built by the Portuguese in 1482) and maybe even Kakum National Park. 

On Wednesday morning we’ll make the short drive along the coast to Accra to head to the airport.  We leave Accra at 10:15 pm local time and arrive back at Dulles (Washington D.C.) at just after 6:00 am on Thursday March 22.  We’ll then fly to Chicago and then back to Lexington, hopefully arriving on time at about 3:30 pm.  

Please continue to pray for us, for the trip, and for the people of Ghana.

Measuring Success?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what will constitute “success” for this mission trip.  How will we know if the trip was successful?  The answer to that question is bound up in what we mean by the word “success.”  For those of us in the West, and especially here in the United States, success tends to be measurable; we are successful if we make a certain amount of money, if we own a certain number of desirable things (or the right desirable things), if we accomplish a lot of tasks at work (or a few really important tasks), etc.  It’s hard for us here in America to claim success if we can’t measure it somehow or if we can’t point to some specific tangible accomplishment; otherwise we’ve just been wasting time according to how our culture looks at things.

So, in terms of this trip we could count the number of glasses we give out to people who like me have a really hard time seeing without help.  We could count the number of people who attend the evening worship services in the two villages.  If anyone “accepts” Christ we could count that, or anyone who might ask to be baptized.  But what if a lot of people don’t come to worship?  What if nobody commits their life to Christ?  What if there are no baptisms?  Would that mean the trip was a failure?

It’s interesting when you are working on two different things and they end up intersecting in unexpected ways.  Right now besides planning for this trip I’m in my final semester of seminary.  The last academic class I’m taking right now is John Wesley’s Theology for Today.  This week I’ve been reading on Wesley’s days as a missionary in Georgia.  Wesley sailed with high hopes for his mission to America but when he left he looked like a failure.  Personally he went with nothing less than the “hope of saving my own soul.”  He also looked forward to preaching to and converting the Native Americans.  But after arriving in Savannah, Wesley had one bad experience after another.  His pastoral style wasn’t appreciated by the colonists, he made a mess of a romantic relationship with Sophia Hopkey (she married another man and Wesley refused her communion leading to her family taking Wesley to court), and his mission to the Native Americans didn’t bear much fruit.  Wesley left Georgia a year and nine months after arriving, looking to all like he had been run out of town.  Wesley and his ministry seemed a failure.

Wesley’s example got me thinking about Jesus and his mission to the Decapolis (Mark 5:1-20).  Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee and comes to “the country of the Gerasenes.”  When he steps out of the boat he is immediately met by a man who lived among the tombs, a man “with an unclean spirit”, a man who couldn’t be restrained even by chains and who was possessed by a Legion of demons.  Jesus casts the demons out of the man and sends them into a nearby herd of pigs causing them to run into the sea and drown.  What happens next is interesting though.  The people from the local town hear what happened and rush out to meet Jesus.  Instead of being overjoyed at the deliverance of the man by the tombs they were afraid.  Instead of inviting Jesus into their village they told him to leave.  Jesus turns around, gets in the boat and heads back the way he came, having never preached to the people, and only healing one person.  By our standards in the church today Jesus would be considered a failure.  I’ll let that sink in a moment…by our usual measurement of success Jesus would have failed in his missionary endeavor to the Gerasenes (much less if he were planting a church!)

So perhaps we should reconsider what success really entails.  Is success measured in quick measurements of people in worship, baptisms and confessions for Christ?  I say no.  One of the problems we face today is that we “measure” success instead of thinking of it in terms of relationship.  What if we thought of success in mission in terms of building relationships, not the number of people we led down the Roman Road? 

Let’s take another look at Jesus and that man from the tombs.  When Jesus was run out of town he paused a moment to speak with the man he had healed and told him to go and tell his friends what the Lord had done for him.  Skip ahead now to Mark 7:31-37 and you’ll see that after some time Jesus goes back to the Decapolis and now the people are no longer afraid.  Now they are bringing people to Jesus to be healed, and the more Jesus tries to get them to keep quiet the more they spread the news.  Jesus formed a relationship with just one man and that relationship bore fruit that was not harvested until a later date.

Now let’s reconsider John Wesley.  After being run out of Georgia he returned to England and eventually had his “heartwarming experience” in London.  Before long there were Methodist societies popping up all across England, people who were discounted by the established church were invited by Wesley and the Methodists to become part of the body of Christ.  Soon those societies made their way across the Atlantic to America.  Here, in what would become the United States, Methodism spread like wildfire and for a time became the largest denomination in the nation.  Methodism spread in part because relationships were formed in the Methodist societies, relationships which fostered a true and living faith, not nominal Christianity. 

Relationships.  For Christ and for Wesley relationships were essential.  Don’t get me wrong, relationships are not the only thing we need, for without grace, without the cross, without Christ we are lost.  But when we build strong relationships – relationships with Christ and with each other – then the church and our missionary endeavors will be “successful.” 

So how will we know if this trip is successful?  We’ll know if we’ve been able to establish a relationship with the people we meet in Ghana.  It’s that simple.  Through the relationships we develop the church will grow and God will be glorified.  We may not see the fruit of those relationships until subsequent trips, but if we are patient and if we discard some of our own cultural baggage that falsely tells us the criteria for success and failure, if we take the time to sow the seeds of friendship we will one day be able to feast together on the bounty of the harvest.

Fuzzy Vision/Fuzzy Memory

I once excelled in Math. In high school, I traded in a family vacation to Florida beaches to go to the state math meet. Best I recall, I didn't place too well, but my memory is getting fuzzy. I don't remember much about the event. I definitely don't remember much about the math.

Most of you know that the 4 days of vision clinics are a big part of our trip to Ghana. Perhaps you know that I volunteered to train alongside Vicki to be able to assist in the eye exams and operating the equipment.

Boxes, really big ones, have been arriving. I keep pushing them to the back of my mind and into the maintenance room at Andover. But, they can't stay there forever!

Today, I decided to be brave. I did more than flip through my "Kendall Optometry Ministries Optical Team Training Manual." I actually started to read it. I made it to page 4 - calculating spherical equivalents (SE). SE=S+1/2(C) unless C < -2.00. OK. So the math isn't that difficult. But Sphere, Cylinder, and Axis are unfamiliar to me. Even before you get to the "presbyopia add". I have no idea how we are going to pull this off. I know that unless God goes before and with and behind us, we won't.

That brings me to another big event for the week. We have been recruiting partners committed to praying for us in the remaining weeks before the trip, for our service during the trip, and for our adjustment on our return.

We are so grateful for those who have agreed to partner with us and support us by their prayers. We hope that you will, too! Without prayer, we will never be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepared for this trip. I know it'll take divine guidance for me to be able to take accurate measurements and record the right data to find the perfect fit to bless someone with clear vision. But, if the Great Physician can cause the blind man to see by putting mud on his eyes (John 9:6) , I guess he can help me learn equations and how to work machines. So, please pray for God's work and that our human weaknesses won't interfere with His great design for this trip.

And, if you are an optical professional, I am sure that there is still room on our flight for you!

Ghana: The People

As we gear up for this novel trip by the Church, most of us wonder what kind of individuals we will  be encountering. I do not want to spoil the surprise so I will be brief in my description of the character of the Ghanaian people. Granted, outliers always exist.

Ghanaians are a calm and collected group, hospitable and sweet in ways that cannot be described by words. Despite the prevalence of extreme poverty, most people wear smiles all day long. They are peaceful and loving.
Most of us love to bargain. In fact, it is the way of life at most market places. We never settle for the first price quote on goods and services. It is exciting to behold such a sheer display of wit and in some way humor, for anyone who has never seen such a spectacle.

FOOD

FUFU. Most Ghanainas love to eat FUFU. A mixture of plantains and cassava pounded together to form a thickened substance. FUFU is consumed with soup. The link below shows how it is made. Yams, rice, Kenkey are other examples of food that is consumed. Apart from FUFU, most meals are eaten with a sauce or stew of some kind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HFhruMRfcM&feature=related

Stay tuned for more......

Kofe With Yesu

If you know me pretty well you know that I like coffee.  Now, I’m not a coffee snob (yes, I put flavored creamer in my coffee) but I like it a lot.  If you happen to be friends with me on facebook you know Mary and I post about drinking coffee or needing to drink coffee all the time.  I blame Mary for this addiction.  Well, Mary and seminary both – too many nights staying up late reading books and writing papers which could not have been finished without the bitter bean – Mary just offered it as a better alternative to Jolt Cola, Red Bull, or NoDoz.

This is my favorite coffee mug.

I picked it up something like five or six years ago at a World Market store in Tallahassee.  What I like about it is how it shows the word for coffee as it’s written all over the world.  And maybe somewhere in that observation is the point the mug is trying to make.  Coffee is one of those drinks popular almost everywhere, unlike say…yak’s milk.  People enjoy coffee the world over even if it isn’t a drink indigenous to their culture.  You can travel the world over and order a cup of coffee and all you need to know is how to say it in their local language.  (In the Twe language of the Akan people of Ghana the word is kofe).

What you get may not be what you expect though and it may not be like American coffee.  They may serve it black or with sugar, it may come as straight espresso, it may be softened with milk or cream, it may have foam - the possibilities are as endless as the people and cultures of the world. 

Much like Jesus and his church.

Jesus and the Good News have been preached in every country on earth.  And as good Methodists we would affirm that God’s prevenient grace has gone before all of our missionary efforts to every people on earth, touching their lives through the power of the Spirit in ways we can’t begin to imagine.  The church has been established in every country on earth in one form or another.  In the year 2000 some 69 percent of the people of Ghana identified as Christian.  And though the body of Christ is present in every country there is, like coffee, much diversity in its various forms.  Christ is called by different names among different peoples.  His name is Jesus (pronounced differently if you are speaking English or Spanish), elsewhere he is Yeshua, or VIhsou/, or one of many, many, other spellings and pronunciations.  In Ghana he is Yesu.  And just as there is worldwide variety in how to speak the name of Jesus, there is more variety in the many ways he is worshiped. 

This is another reason I’m excited about this trip.  I yearn to see, and hear, and experience how Christ is worshiped by our brothers and sisters in Ghana.  I want to be stretched in my understandings of theology and worship.  Most importantly I want to discover more about the global body of Christ and experience his presence in new settings.  I want to learn from the global church and let them challenge my assumptions of what church is and what church can be.  In sharing how we know, understand, and experience Christ’s work in the world perhaps we might come a little closer to becoming that unified body Christ has called us to be and more fully realize there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:8).

Journey To The Center of The Earth

Since we’re all going to Ghana we thought it might be good to periodically post some information about this wonderful country so that everyone can get to know it and the people of Ghana a little better before we get there. We’ll start from a macro level and work our way down. The first question you might ask is, “Where in the world is Ghana?”

Well, if you travel southand east across the globe from the United States you’ll eventually come to Africa.

Ghana is located on the coastline of Sub-Saharan West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea (part of the Atlantic Ocean). Ghana lies between Togo to the east, Burkina Faso to the north, and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west. (It's the yellow country near the center of the pic below).

In Acts 1:8 Jesus tells his disciples they will be his witnesses “to the ends of the earth.” We aren’t going quite that far, only about half-way. According to one source I recently read, Ghana is the closest country to the center of the world. Now this claim may seem a little dubious given the fact that on a round globe any place you point your finger could layclaim to being the “center” of the ball at any given moment, but in terms of the map of the earth Ghana really can make this claim because it lies very close to the point where the Prime Meridian crosses the Equator. The Prime Meridian actually runs right through Ghana. The “notional center” of the earth (0°, 0°)is about 400 miles or so south of Accra, Ghana.

The country has a tota larea of 92,100 square miles making it about the size of Oregon. Within that space live some 24 million people of various ethnic backgrounds. (More on the people in a later post).

I’ve been looking at Ghana on the map lately and wondering just how hot it is. I’m originally from Florida so I understand heat and humidity, but Florida isn’t that close to the equator. The climate in Florida is somewhat subtropical but Ghana is definitely tropical. I just checked the weather in Accra (the capital) and the highs this week range from 87-89 degrees with lows in the mid70’s. That actually sounds kinda nice,but Accra has a sea breeze all day. In Kumasi (the second largest city in Ghana and close to where we’ll be) it is a little warmer with highs ranging from 91-97 degrees. That doesn’t sound too bad, but as we say in Florida, it isn’t the heat it’s the humidity. We’ll have to see just how hot it feels. It might take a while to re-acclimate to warm weather after living inKentucky for four years. In the meantime Manny promises his dad’s missionary guesthouse has air-conditioning.

Oatmeal in My Sink and Isaiah 41:13

I never thought I would go to Africa. I dislike being hot. I generally avoid the outdoors. I am scared of bugs. I am a bit of a germaphobe. I am afraid to talk with people who aren't like me. On my high school trip to Europe the shining white toilets (the standing as opposed to sitting kind) in Italy freaked me out. I was grateful that we only jogged through the corner of Italy on our way from France to Switzerland. I never thought I would go to Africa. Then again, I never thought I would go to seminary. God works in mysterious ways. As soon as I get Bono's voice out of my head, I'll remember how those relate. Oh, yeah, four years ago, Jesus bought our house.

Back in 2007, Jason & I held comfortable jobs at Florida State University. We both love being in school more than most anything else. At FSU, one benefit was free classes. So, why did we come to seminary? When I said, I’ll go “when our house sells” in a bad market when houses weren’t selling, Jesus bought our house. So right now when uncertainty creeps in, I can have faith that we are supposed to be here. Even in our rented house that isn’t equipped with a garbage disposal.

Back to Africa - at seminary I have befriended so many followers of Christ from all around the globe. I love to hear their stories and especially to eat their food. Communicating is still a challenge for me; I talk too fast and listen too slowly. But I have learned to love the ways Christ is at work all over the globe. And I hope I am learning to love the people all over the globe.

Going to Africa terrifies me. Everything from the immunizations to the village “restroom” facilities scares me. But, I believe that God wants to show me His love and the beautiful work that he weaves through his people of all colors and fabrics and cultures. It will stretch me, but I hope that this girl whose stomach turns cleaning oatmeal out of the kitchen sink will learn to love so much that outhouses and mosquitos won’t be so scary. I can’t wait to see how God will work on me. Even more, I can’t wait to see God’s work in the people in Ghana and be able to share it here! And I am so thankful that God is holding my hand through my fears. Isaiah 41:13

(Oh, and Manny promises that his dad’s guesthouse comes equipped with bathrooms and window units - whew!)