“Are there any mangoes ripe yet?” I asked Pastor Mbarra in disbelief. The mangoes have been getting bigger over the last few weeks, but the only ones I’d seen thus far were still pretty green. “No, there are no ripe mangoes yet,” he replied. “Then why have I seen little boys picking them all this past week?” I inquired. “They just don’t have the patience to wait for the fruit to get ripe,” he answered.
 
Oh, what a shame! It’s hard to beat a fresh ripe mango for juiciness and delicious flavor. Each of the fruits on the trees has the potential to yield this sweetness…but that will be found only as we wait for perfect ripeness!
 
May we have the patience to wait on God’s timing in every area of our lives, but especially when we are sent out into His harvest field – the world of unsaved souls. Only as we wait on Him will we experience and share with others all the sweetness that God intended.

Yesterday I accessed my email account and learned that Smyrna’s director had been hospitalized for chest pains. It was worrisome to read the scantiest of information and be an ocean away, unable to consult the normal grapevine for more news, make time to visit my friend in the hospital, or call his family to communicate support. All I could do was pray.
 
As I considered the implications of my mental resignation to the fact that my only option was to pray, God convicted me of once again minimizing the importance of prayer. Prayer is THE best gift I have to offer in such a situation, and I need to gladly embrace the opportunity that God has given me to actively participate in the lives of people who are separated me from such distance.
 
So too may you embrace the opportunity that God has given you to actively participate in the lives of those who are experiencing prison, torture, and other forms of persecution for the sake of their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. May you remember them each and every day before the loving throne room of our God.
 
Smyrna’s Director has been released and is recovering at home. Please continue to pray for his complete healing.

Americans are familiar with uniforms: members of the armed forces and police forces, package delivery service workers and restaurant staff – all wear uniforms that clearly identify their employer. But perhaps Ghanaians are even more familiar with uniforms, as all public and private school require that children come dressed in specified clothing. At a glance one can tell whether a child attends a government school, an Islamic school, a Presbyterian school.
 
As I observed all the different uniforms around me each day, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was wearing any uniform that clearly identifies me as working for Christ, as learning from Him. Colossians 3:12-14 tells us what we should dress in as Christians:
 
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
 
Wow – are we daily being clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love? If these qualities are reflected in our lives, we will surely be identified at a glance as children of the one true God!

Every two to three Saturdays, the morning radio announcements include a public notice that the electric power will be turned off for the entire region from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (although generally the power stays off until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening). Americans would never stand for such an arrangement, but the patient Africans accept this inconvenience along with so many others in their challenging lives.
 
Of course, the scheduled outages are only part of the “problem” here – there are many more unscheduled outages. Two features I’ve observed of every power outage, whether or not it’s planned, are:
 
1)      When there is no power, I cannot do my normal tasks. I have no internet connection, no light in the office, and limited time on the computer, assuming that my laptop battery is charged.
2)      Without power, I am very uncomfortable. Fans and air conditioning do not work without electricity; and they’re pretty necessary for comfort when the temperature is soaring into the 100s each day this time of year.
 
As I considered the recurring condition of things here, I couldn’t help but think of what happens when we allow ourselves to be spiritually drained. When we neglect prayer, we lose our source of spiritual power, with sad results:
 
1)      We cannot accomplish the tasks to which God has called us. We might be able to do some things in our own strength, but our own work will lack the effectiveness and the lasting impact of God’s work.
2)      Without the power of God in our lives, we will not enjoy the peace and happiness that He meant for us to experience, no matter what our circumstances.
 
May we develop the habit of faithful prayer so that we will experience God’s uninterrupted power supply in our lives!

Even the simplest mosque is divided into two rooms. The divider may simply be a curtain hanging from a string, although it’s often a wall. The partition separates the front of the mosque from the back – the men’s prayer section from the women’s.
 
Praise God that in Christ all walls of separation have been torn down. There are no partitions between different ethnicities, between men and women, between different social statuses. We serve a God before Whom we all stand equal. May we continually thank Him and praise Him for His impartiality in dealing with us!

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” – Hebrews 4:13
 
Is that an alarming verse? David expressed the same theme when he asked in Psalm 139, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” and recognized that no matter where he went – the highest heaven, the deepest sea, the farthest shore, the darkest night – God would be present.
 
The only reason we would be distressed by God’s constant presence would be if we had something to hide. “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” – John 3:19-20
 
As I was meditating on these truths earlier this week, I realized that the context in each case reveals that God’s continual presence is meant to bring joy rather than apprehension. In John 3:21 Jesus says that “whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Our lives are meant to be joyfully illuminated and testify to the fact that God is working through us. David was in awe at how God surrounded him behind and before – “You have laid your hand upon me.” The author of Hebrews goes on to say that we can “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
 
We were created for fellowship with God, and how sweet it is when we can live before Him in clear conscience! May we keep that pure heart before Him so that we can enjoy all the blessings He intended for us in our relationship with Him!

Jesus said that to follow Him, we must hate our parents, brothers, and sisters. This command always flummoxed me (“Aren’t we supposed to love our neighbor? to honor our parents?”) until my little brother asked me one day whether we were literally meant to hate our family members. As I prayed for wisdom on how to answer him, God gave me a beautiful word picture, which answered my brother’s question and mine!
 
We know that light bulbs can brighten an entire room: by their illumination we can read and engage in numerous activities after the sun sets. Yet we know too that after we have been outside in the strong sunlight, and we enter a lit room, everything seems dim by contrast. The light in the room is not inadequate, but it cannot compare to the brilliance of the sun. So too must our love for Jesus be so overwhelmingly intense that all other loves are dim in comparison.
 
When preparing to come to Ghana, my #1 worry was leaving behind my family, since I love them so very much. We’ve always been close, and I simply couldn’t imagine a year apart from them. Again and again the Lord evaluated my heart and challenged me to make sure that HE was first in my affections, so that obeying Him would make all else pale in comparison.
 
My journal records that on the day I flew from America, I waved good-bye to each beloved family member, “and I dearly love each one; but I realized with a little thrill as I continued standing in line that I LOVE MY JESUS MORE!” There is no way I could have spent eight months on the field thus far away from my family were it not that my love for Christ – and more importantly His love for me – sustains me.
 
God sweetly reminded me of all of this Sunday – and I didn’t realize until later that the reminder came on Valentine’s Day: what a precious appointment! With my whole heart I can say that Jesus is my Best Friend and loves like no one else. May He always be first in my heart…and in yours!
 
He’s fairer than lilies of rarest bloom
He’s sweeter than honey from out the comb
He’s all that my hungering spirit needs
I’d rather have Jesus and let Him lead

While the east coast is experiencing record-breaking snowfalls, the likes of which I have never personally seen, Ghana has been experiencing its typical heat for this time of year. The highs where I came from and where I’m living now are both supposed to be in the upper 30s today; but that’s in Fahrenheit in the States, and Celsius here in northern Ghana – translating into temperatures that will soar into the 100s in this part of the world!

As I considered such extreme weather conditions on either end for the month of February, I couldn’t help but think of heaven, where the weather will be perfection! And as I thought about this wonderful heaven that’s awaiting us, and then looked around at so many beautiful people who are suffering in an inhospitable environment now, and will be damned to an eternity of suffering after death, my heart broke. Am I burdened every day with a passion to reach the lost around me and see them come to Jesus, that they too may spend an eternity with Him in that marvelous heaven of His?

Lord, don’t just let my heart break: may I be moved to action!

“On the way home,” I journaled last April – in a land where the weather ever got cold enough to support growing daffodils – “I was concentrating on I know not what – driving, blowing a [bubblegum] bubble – then saw a flash of color in the corner of my eye, and saw the daffodils only in a quickly receding reflection. Oh, I do not want my life to be like that, distracted by the trivial and regretting in retrospect that I’ve somehow missed what is truly important!”
 
I stumbled over those lines this morning, and quickly evaluated the ways I am spending my life these days. Which of the activities which comprise my daily schedule will lead to regret later in life, and which will gladden my heart – and more importantly, God’s heart – when I look back at them decades later? Will it really matter what dress I wore on a given day, or whether I had to eat something I didn’t particularly like for a certain meal? Will it matter that speaking to someone about Jesus was outside of my comfort zone, as long as I obeyed when the call to speak came?
 
May our lives be consumed by what is truly important rather than by the trivial!

Last week I sat in the back seat of a taxi with a schoolgirl of perhaps 11 or 12 years. Her uniform would usually have fallen just above the knee, but carelessness had allowed the hemline to fall back a few inches. In her childish innocence, she was completely unaware of the skin she was revealing.
 
I took brief note of the situation – and rejoiced, because even though northern Ghana is predominantly Muslim, it is not subject to Sharia law, the code of rules that governs the most fundamentalist Muslim states. If this region were ruled by Sharia law, you can be sure that my little taxi companion would be very aware of her body and of what was and wasn’t showing in any given situation. It’s very likely that she would be reprimanded or possibly prosecuted for the physical position she’d thoughtlessly adopted.
 
Please pray that God will protect every part of Ghana from adopting Sharia law. The people here are so warm and friendly, and to have that openness squelched by religious fanaticism would be heartbreaking indeed.