Accra: A Taste of America

This past week, my team and I spent four days in Accra, the capital city. For most of us, it was our first time back there since we moved to Kumasi. It was very different than I remembered. It was very Westernized.

While we were there, we experienced many things including:

• A movie theater (we all saw 007, and some of us  also saw Bourne Legacy)
• The beach
• Shop Rite (a grocery store similar to the beloved Hy-Vee)
• Game (aka Walmart)
• KFC (it had fried rice instead of biscuits and mashed potatoes)
• a COFFEE shop (I had a mocha in case you're wondering)
• a Westernized shopping mall
• and lots and lots of air conditioning.

We were all so blessed by all of these things. We were all excited and outwardly more joyful than when we're at home in Kumasi. Those things were great, but there was still a few problems with it all.

1. I experienced mild culture shock. And I was still in Ghana. Shopping malls often make me sick; I hate materialism and the glorification of it. (Probably because I want to buy into it all and have to fight not to do so.) It stinks that Western culture has influenced Ghana in this way. Again, I experienced culture shock. What is it going to be like when I actually get back in America? Yikes. That will be hard. (Don’t worry; I’m still excited to come home.)
2. I experienced so much joy from those things. Not from the Creator of those things, but from those things that could help me momentarily escape my frustrations with life in Kumasi. I found comfort in the familiar rather than in the Familiar One.

I enjoyed our trip in Accra, and it made me realize those two things. That is a beautiful blessing. Thankfully, we’re back in Kumasi safe and sound. We’re back to random power outages and currently without running water in our homes. Back to the new familiar. And we have seven more months to experience these things. I have seven more months to brace myself for the big culture shock that will occur when I return home. I have seven more months (and God-willing many more than that) to grow in finding joy in Him alone, not in my circumstances or surroundings.

Accra was great. But home in Kumasi is somehow even better. And in all actuality, my location shouldn’t matter because I know that God is always with me.