Happy Sabbath everyone!

The sun is down here in Ghana, and the Sabbath began about two hours ago (It's 8:18PM here) so I'm late getting this out by Ghanaian time, but early for y'all thanks to the 7-hour time difference in Oregon. 

I hope you have all had a wonderful week, and are excited to get together tomorrow and worship our Great God on His Sabbath Day! Please remember that tomorrow is the 3rd Sabbath and that services will be 1:00PM. 

We have had a most excellent week here in Ghana at the United Youth Camp outside of Accra. We are a few miles outside of the town of Oyibi, at a Seventh Day Adventist college called Valley View University. I thank you all for your prayers for the camp, and for the weather. It is the coolest temperature here in Ghana that myself or Paul has ever experienced in West Africa. The temperatures have been consistent, fluctuating between the mid-70's to low 80's with cooler nights. Of course that temperature should be taken with a grain of salt, because we're anwhere from 87%-95% humidity, so it's very humid, but the temperatures have been very pleasant for those of us of American persuasion.

The camp here in Ghana is made up of youth from 6 distinct congregations. For some of the youth, this is their first time at a United Youth Camp - as they recently came over in the new congregations that have developed in the north of the country, in Kumasi and Yeji. Aside from these new congregations - we have campers represented from Accra, Kwanyako, and Agona. We did not have any campers this year from our congregation in Winneba.

Of all of these congregations - Kwanyako, Agona, Yeji and Winneba are village congregations - the majority of the brethren are subsistance farmers, or work in a small handful of trades. Accra and to some degree Kumasi are towns with population of brethren made up of individuals with college educations, mostly solid jobs, and opportunity. 

The staff who are at the camp are mostly made up of those in the Accra congregation, which has helped significantly in getting to know them. One of the issues that we run across for those in the village congregations is their primary language is used most frequently, and their English is not as strong as those in the city. They speak Fante almost exclusively, which has made communicating and getting to know those from the villages more difficult. 

The campers had opportunity this week to learn to ride bicycles, play volleyball, learn how to use computers, make beaded keychains, and learn how to swim. Paul and I taught the swimming class, and we hired out a pool at a local hotel in order to do our instruction. We had a small handful of kids go from not swimming to swimming by the time the week was over - which is a blessing. Many Africans do not swim, and have a healthy fear of the water. Occasionally, you see stories in print or on the news here about a person who fell into a river, or a lake and drown, sometimes more than one who tried to help them... So anytime you can teach someone a skill that could potentially save their life, it is a good thing. For the youth from Yeji, it is a particularly helpful skill because their village is located on the shores of Upper Lake Volta. 

Paul and I have been teaching many of the Christian Living classes in the evenings related to the theme of camp, "Living God's Way Today". We've discussed the world and how it became the way that it is, the way of Give vs. Get, how we discern between give and get, how we decide between right and wrong and make right judgment. We've talked about how God's Way Works and He tells us to 'taste and see'. We've discussed what it means to transform ourselves, and not to conform to the world and its ways, and finally this evening - what it means to be a light. How they can go forward from this camp and shine brighter in their villages and cities. 

It has been a very uplifting and encouraging week.

The brethren from the Accra congregation will be joining us here at the camp for services tomorrow, and we're excited to host them. Paul and I have split sermons again, through Fante translation, which means for a 35 minute split sermon, you really only have about 15-18 minutes, and that is generous. Some of the phrases in Fante, I'm convinced take longer to say than they do in English. So when I finish this Pastor's Corner, I will be in sermon hack-n-slash mode, removing anything that is not essential in order to deliver only those points that are crucial for the message tomorrow.

We are all very much looking forward to the Sabbath when we can encourage one another as it discusses in Hebrews 10:24-25. Not giving up our meeting together, but coming together as a family of believers to encourage one another... to strengthen one another, and to show the brethren here that people do think about them. Paul and I's visit has been very encouraging to the brethren. It helps them to know that they are not on their own out here in Ghana, they have brothers and sisters from around the world, America, Kenya, Zambia, and many more who care about them. That is encouraging - and that encouragement is going to be needed more and more as this world gets darker.

Thank you for your willingness as a congregation to allow me to be able to serve the brethren in English-speaking West Africa. I am thankful for your patience, and for your ongoing prayers for me and for our brethren here in Ghana. Your prayers have made this trip possible, and God has heard your prayers and blessed it exceedingly.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sabbath, and I look forward to seeing you all soon.

With Love,
Ben