Buy

Today Steve & I finally got money changed and now can buy stuff!! The joy of cedis in our pocket was too much and the local trade was a glad recipient. My first stop was to the local dry cleaners [I know it sounds pretentious, but I spilt orange juice down myself on the plane and I was scared it would ruined my Ralph Lauren blanket…I’m not sounding any less pretentious am i?!]. Next was a local restaurant to pick up someone’s food for lunch, and then the gas station for a can of coke that Steve had been craving and finally a street vendor selling yam chips, chicken and fish. I was told that to prevent illness, not to eat from the street vendors. As the sauce for the chicken was poured into a black plastic bag and passed to my company, I understood why. After the days sessions, we went to the local market to pick up a box of biscuits and a crate of drinks for our movie night [Paul Gibbs will be glad to know that we are watching ‘Kingdom of Heaven’!]

My tour guide [aka the token Ghanaian person to take with me so I wouldn’t get ripped off] was Josephine. Aged 26, she has been involved in various missions across Ghana, and the Ivory Coast, making her well travelled for a young village Ghanaian. For several months she has been asking Father to show her a mission she could get involved in longer term, but she couldn’t verbalize what she was looking for. On Sunday, as the Pais promo video played in her church [Harvest Chapel International] she was suddenly confronted with the thing she was looking for. And after the service, she joined Pais.

As we walked she shared her life story; her passion was literally spilling out on the dirt road. At times with her fast Ghanaian drawl, it was hard to understand exactly what she was saying, but her excitement came through as clear as anything. She even recruited her friend Henry that same day to join as well.

Today’s schedule:

-       The Creed & the Vow Ceremony

-       Schools: Divinity – The Holy Spirit – Sebrina Miller

-       Schools: Doors – Mawunyo Debrah

-       Apprenticeship: Team – Steve Miller

I didn’t put the times down because the schedule went out of the window. Not in a disorganized way, but in a “Father God, we’re just following you kind of way”. Minster Isaac & his wife Pastor Hannah [leaders at Royalhouse Chapel International who have visited America previously] did an impromptu welcome talk in the morning as they hadn’t been able to come and visit the team yet. The Creed and Vow Ceremony, though we had less apprentices than most nations, was just so prayer filled that we couldn’t stop. My Holy Spirit talk ended up starting at noon…enter 40 mins of me speaking followed by words of knowledge, words of wisdom, speaking/interpreting tongues, prayers, affirmations, emotional healings…when I realized the  times was 1:50 we decided we needed to have a break…since no one had eaten since breakfast since 8am!! Father’s spirit was just so tangible…you could feel it…there was such power and an excitement to seek God..and imagining taking that power into schools and impacting students lives.

In Mawunyo’s doors talk she said something so amazing:

“I feel like Pais:Ghana, if it was lined up with the other Pais nations, would get asked the biggest question because it has the biggest opportunity”

And she is so right. The schools are so OPEN to Pais coming in, to preaching within them…assemblies to literally a thousand of students at a time, lessons, visits to an orphanage, missions into the local villages…There is so so much that these guys have been entrusted with, such a great harvest of students and children in front of them, ripe for the picking, ready to hear a word, ready to have their lives changed and transformed. Ready to be brought hope and love.

But we can’t force them into the Kingdom. We can’t pay them to enter. We can’t do their dry cleaning to get them there. We can’t buy their love. So we have to use the opportunity wisely. Strategically. Spirit-led.

But when it happens…when it all comes together…

BOOMTOWN is the only word I can think of.

I am soooo excited to leave for no other reason than when I go, their work out side of the conference room begins!!