Soon I will be home! Tomorrow is my last day in Saboba; I'm both excited and sad at the thought of leaving Saboba. Today I spent the morning working in the lab...well I use the term working loosely. I mainly sat and was entertained by Jacob and Nikki. Isaiah was also in the lab, but he is a really quiet, shy man who works really hard so he basically just worked around us. Jacob is a huge Celine Dion fan and knows all of her songs and he is not ashamed to just start belting out a Celine Dion song. You just haven't lived until you have heard a Ghanaian man singing Celine Dion from the heart. He and Nikki sang a duet while I recorded the whole episode. While they were singing the wound care nurse walked in and he of course started singing "Young Love". Seriously, I couldn't have set up a funnier scene than the three of them singing together. I wish I could upload the video to this blog but I would arrive home before the video finished loading because the Internet connection is so slow. It takes hours just to upload pictures.
The people of Saboba have completely made this trip for me. Pastor Jidoh taught me everything there is to know about eating dogs. When I told him that people in the U.S. spent hundreds of dollars grooming their pets, he promptly announced that he would send a resume home with me. He promised that he would take good care of the dog and would even take care of the burial...in his stomach of course!
I don't know if I have mentioned Pastor Jonah before. He is such a great man of God. Jonah heard that a neighboring village had never heard of Jesus. He and another man promised that they would go out to the village on Sundays to teach about God. Even though Jonah is a pastor, he receives no money from his church; he supports his family by farming. He doesn't have enough money for a motorcycle to travel to the village but he is able to borrow one from a friend. Jonah is a man who gives money willingly and he never holds anything back. He managed to save enough money to buy land to be used for God's work in the future. He just completely acts in faith and feels that God has a strong purpose for his life. There have been many nights when Jonah has walked into the house and sat down with his bible to teach Nikki and I. He will retell the sermon from church. The people here have church Sunday morning and night, Wednesday night, and Friday night....and we complain in the U.S.
It is amazing to think that less than 100 years ago there were no churches in Saboba. The people had never heard of Jesus or God. Christianity has really taken off here but there are still issues that need to be resolved. Many people still practice sacrificing to the lesser gods. These lesser gods can be anything from a tree, stone, or special place. You can be walking down a path and will see a gift left on a stone next to the path. That was a sacrifice to the lesser god. So many people believe in God and will even attend church on Sunday but they still practice sacrificing to the lesser gods also. They just believe that God is over the lesser gods. The people will sacrifice things like fowl, goats, dogs, or cows. The churches are trying to teach the people that this belief is wrong but they are making slow progress. It was actually addressed in Sunday school this week. A woman brought up that people would attend church but make sacrifices when they returned home and that this was wrong. Thankfully there are men of God who are teaching the truth. It has taken many weeks for me to understand that this was being practiced because on the surface it appears that everyone goes to church and believes in God. One major advantage is that there are only two white missionaries here, Bob and Dr. Jean. The people are completely taking the lead on spreading the gospel and teaching the truth. I have met many men who are true scholars of the bible and are constantly studying. Just like Pastor Jonah, they are always eager to share what they have recently studied in the Bible. I've been challenged by them!
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