Dear Friends,
It’s a marvel to me. I sit in a West African bus at idle getting cold from indirect air conditioning, seated in a seat more comfortable than any vehicle Trailways, Greyhound or airline has offered me previously in this life. I listen to a radio talk show as impassioned Ghanaians discuss the impractical threat previously made by ECOWAS member states about invading Côte d’Ivoire to resolve a renewed political crisis. Meanwhile I watch a bright LED clock flicker toward an anticipated on-time departure - despite the fact that more than half the bus seats are yet to be claimed. One of two LED television screens prepares to display a local African film production to entertain the passengers during the 5.5 hour trip between Kumasi and Accra. I even look for an electrical plug beside the magazine rack in the bus, mildly surprised it was not there for the bus fare of GH¢20.00 (~$14.40 U.S.) !
Amazing.
Why am I here? What’s going on? Isn’t West Africa a place of poverty and suffering? Yep, it sure is. On a comparative normal curve type distribution, Free Will Baptists have been working among peoples in their called country of service, Côte d’Ivoire, who’d be plotted about where Appalachian communities’ plot on an American normal curve distribution of income. That French speaking nation of such great promise 35 years ago, the then marvel of West Africa, is now divided because the same power system that brought it’s ephemeral and scintillating growth now shows its’ true drab colors. The nation re-tears apart once more over which strongman should lead because foundational beliefs of power, pleasure, and pride have not been transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the world unites in support behind one or another of the worldly leaders struggling to dominate, and the stakes and risks continue to heighten for the former bedazzling jewel of West Africa and our brethren living there, I sit on this bus. I prepare to celebrate and testify to the Life of the man that God used to bring me to this world and this place; I prepare to leave West Africa for one week with family and friend in Michigan. The contrast between life in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana could not be better represented than this bus.
A trip of similar distance, Bondoukou to Abidjan, would cost the same amount of money. I would be cramped with people struggling to stay alive and who would have less than a third – maybe even a quarter - of the personal space I now enjoy with outstretched feet on a footrest. The vehicle would probably be a beat-up, worn out, and poorly maintained Toyota or Nissan transport van rattling along with 18 or 20 cramped bodies on near bald tires, not this apparently well maintained quiet passenger bus of modern convenience, Asian decor, and curtains. Why? Ghana has less money rolling through it than Côte d’Ivoire – even considering the war. As we pull from the station within 4 minutes of the appointed time, it’s evident to someone who knows the relevant gospel message – these people really seek God’s advice for their daily lives.
A woman in front of me reads a pamphlet on having a personal quiet time with God. Passengers who are well dressed and groomed, evidently content and well nourished (neither over nor under nourished) besides her have been talking and texting, sharing life’s conversation with God as we pull away from the station. Even the few Muslims with whom I’ve spoken ardently seek to understand what God has communicated to men. That LED TV movie brought laughs to many as God was taught just in making characters suffer various ignominies of personal, business and family destruction in their lives after they made very self-serving prayers to Creator God for the deaths of others. This entertainment was followed by an advertisement to sell a DVD mocking an evidently abusive preacher seeking money for praying over a flat tire and other man-given dominion responsibilities while leaving a trail of destruction in others’ lives. Do Ghanaians have it all figured out? Do they understand everything God has said here? No. But they believe He has. What they have figured out is being used to build their society as they seek to solve some of their unsolved social riddles that are yet to be brought under the gospel understanding.
If this use of gospel seems confusing, reconsider your understanding. Lots of church goers pass through this life in this generation thinking the gospel simply means that if I accept that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, I get to go to heaven. That’s not the whole of it. It’s not even the crux. The gospel – the Good News – is that God has spoken to men. It’s that He’s spoken definitively and used means to clearly identify for us the way, the truth, and the abundant life that He designed for us. Jesus was preaching it before He died. He reinforced the message after His resurrection of validation. It’s the message of real hope. Men need not live in doubt as strongmen do their best to discern right from wrong for the rest of us. God Himself has spoken. He Himself guides us to identify it though this life of sin imposed testing. Living in clouds of doubt is not even for the birds and the lilies of the field, as Jesus once phrased it.
That’s the real difference between Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire these days – as it’s the real difference between all cultures which experience blessing and cursing in this age. Ghana is rejecting strongmen, slowly but surely, as Divine revelation is deliberately being used to place historical understandings of God’s communication to men as the source of human laws. Côte d’Ivoire seeks one strongman to come and make life better by writing the law the way thought best, copying from others’ experiences rather than taking God’s communication for granted reality. This is the retelling of the old story. Its’ results are known. They’re being seen again in this time, in this place, among these peoples. Church members and missionaries have all lived through it, most not seemingly unawares of this historic and Satanic deception being replayed that holds Ivorians captive to poverty and despair. As a result, mercy will be called upon to help make justice possible here – as it did at the cross. To bring real change to Côte d’Ivoire, as in Ghana, others need answer the call to this test of loving sacrifice again to confront the deceptions rather than using or abusing them for some other man-word dominated kingdom copying.
I’m glad to leave Debbie and Corbin here, rather than Côte d’Ivoire, as I travel to honor the terrestrial life of a man who taught me to see God in the real. Earl Anderson put flesh on Biblical precept. He taught me to trust the God who moves the men. I learned from him patience and the quietness that I do exercise. I learned not so much to not judge others’ sacrifice, but to instead discern lessons from their experience and better live in the light of eternity as a result. I absorbed a confidence of daily living in God’s presence from him listening to Tiger baseball while occasionally working together on cars, tables, the garden, or playfully being ‘whooped’ at checkers and ping pong. Today, I celebrate his life as he’s entered the presence of THE LIFE and travel through Ghana where people are discovering the God he knew. He left me, and many others still here, the richer for his passing time among us. May we all be so blessed, or even greater still. You can read more about that man at this link: Earl D Anderson Tribute .
What marvels God does. What a marvel He is. Marvelous.
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