As I have shared before, I have realized how some people, such as my 12-year old host brother, tend to think they are less than Americans. They think they are not capable of doing many things that Americans can do. And they practically adore any white person, especially Americans. I have found this difficult to handle because, I want to be appropriate and accept the honors they grant me, but I also feel sad and embarrassed that they find me so important. Although I understand that I come from a position of power and cannot get away from that, I wish that people could understand that I am just as human as them. But people here really do think that white people are a higher form of human as evidenced by certain questions I've been asked or things that people have told me:
Do white people lie?
Do white people get angry?
All white people are rich.
White people are more intelligent.
We think white people are spies, because why else would they choose to come to a place like this?
And so today I realized that even my host father, who is a bible translator and has worked with several different Americans for many years, still thinks that white people are better. Today I tried to explain to him some of my discomfort with feeling like people thought more of me than I deserved. He didn't understand because, I realized, he thinks we do deserve the attention because we are white. As he has told me before, Ghanaians think most highly of Americans, then Europeans, and then, lower down on the list, are the Chinese. I told him that it would be easier for me if I knew that people were just honoring me because I am a guest, a visitor, that if I knew that a Chinese guest would be treated the same way. He explained that they give honor to white people because they were their colonial masters. I tried to show how this was not a good thing that the Europeans did. And he understood, but said that nevertheless, our culture is better, more worthy of praise. He explained that God made us black and white so that we could clearly see the difference. He made them eat fufu and us eat other food so that we would know we were different. And I said that yes we are different but it is good. God has given us different cultures because he values our diversity.
I presented my argument, my passion, my heart. My plea that he would see God's love for diversity. That deep inside we are no different. We all lie. We all get angry. We all get jealous. We all have sin. And we have all been forgiven and offered redemption. I tried to explain how each culture is also equal. Each has its good and bad parts. Each needs redemption. Each will be redeemed. That God wanted there to be diversity. I said how God knows meets us where we are. That he can't expect us to understand him through a foreign way. That he wants to be incarnate in your culture. That we need each other to gain a more complete picture of God. That I came here because I really believed that there were things I could learn from Akyode Christians. And that I am learning. He listened. But responded that yes, surely we are all equal as people in a spiritual sense. But materially, culturally, we are not equal. We are behind and trying to reach the good point that your culture is it. My heart broke. I realized that even though he understands that his music is good for worshipping God and that using my music doesn't make sense, he doesn't believe it for the rest of the aspects of his culture. I hope and pray that if anything is accomplished during my time here, it will be that I will be able to give dignity to their culture. And that they will accept it. That they will begin to see more fully the love God has for them as Akyode people and they will find the passion to make let Jesus into their culture and start his redemptive work instead of waiting for the day when they will be like Americans.
So I pray that God will keep my heart broken until they discover their worth as Akyode Christians.
"Heal my heart and make it clean.
Open up my eyes to the things unseen.
Show me how to love like You have loved me.
Break my heart for what breaks Yours.
Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause.
As I walk from earth into eternity."
-from Hosanna by Hillsong
Oh sweet girl
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