Are you excited?

"Are you excited?" This is the question I remember being asked over and over again when I was getting ready to leave for HNGR. I never knew how to answer. Yes, I was excited. I had known about HNGR since I was little and had wanted to do it myself for nearly as long. I was finally going. My life would change and I would not be the same. I would learn so much and find community in another place with another people. But I also knew that HNGR is not just rainbows, that there would be struggle. There would be something called culture shock that we would all experience and it wouldn't be fun. So I was also intimidated. I knew that I did not really know what I was getting into and that the growth would be through struggle, that relationships would take time to grow. So I felt mixed.

I got to Africa, to Ghana, with a knot in my stomach and sleepy eyes. I met the man who is my father here and felt overwhelmed with the fact that I would actually have to live here. For 6 months. I was scared and homesick and very, very hot. But I found this man, Emmanuel, to be kind and understanding and I saw hope. And so life continues. Each day, learning more about the culture, meeting new people. Feeling that I would never make friends and that 6 months is a ridiculously long amount of time.

I travelled to my town, Nkwanta, and entered into a completely new way of life. Dirt roads, motorobikes, concrete houses, women with babies on their back and pots on their head. And many children staring and smiling at me, the "obruni." (what Ghanaians call a white person). I was and still am a novelty. I went into my house which is very nice for Nkwanta as I am blessed to have a toilet and even a shower. But everything starts to hit you and you realize that you are not in America anymore and how do you live life here? How does this work? What do you do? The men are busy talking and the women are busy cooking and you are told to sit. Sit with the men and so I listen to them talking in various languages I do not know. And they welcome me and then continue to talk. I talk to my host siblings and mother and they laugh at the thought of me wanting to help cook.

But they are starting to get used to me and I am starting to see life here. I am learning one word at a time, I am meeting people one handshake and one "you are welcome here" at a time, I am feeling out my place here little by little. And people are so friendly and kind and smile and give me reason to laugh. I am recognizing that their laughter at me is because I am absurd. I do not make sense. Why do I try to carry water on my head like they do? I am white. But their laughter is not unkind and somehow it encourages me to keep going. I am develping relationships and finding joy and hope and peace in this context little by little. And God is here with me. And somehow it all is good.

So now the question is "Am I excited?" Am I excited to be here and enthusiastic about what I am doing? The truth is that I am still scared by the thought of 6 months. But each day I see more and I know that I am doing this "learning by doing thing" that I was so excited to do. And I give myself, my emotions grace and keep going. So I am excited to see what God will do with this, with me, while I am here!