Posted by Jonathan on Apr 4, 2009 in
Ghana 
Chapel at Trinity Seminary, Accra, Ghana
I’ve never cared for Miracles.
They’ve always posed a problem for me. I’m a Christian and an intellectual, for better or worse.
While I’ve always believed in what C.S Lewis calls “the grand miracle”, the incarnation, that never made it any easier. I’ve even believed all of Christ’s miracles, often begrudgingly, but I’ve always had a problem with modern miracles.
Miracles present a problem for the intellectual mind because our post-modern programming tells us there’s an explanation for everything. We’re hesitant to say it’s God, because we know people like to make this stuff up sometimes.
Herein lies the tension. We want to believe, but sadly, we end up needing to prove our beliefs.
With that out of the way, here’s the story.
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Tags: Accra, Africa, c.s. lewis, Coincidence, Darko, Ghana, Living Water International, Miracle, Providence, Seminary, Trinity
Posted by Jonathan on Mar 31, 2009 in
General Welcome to Ghana.
Makola Market, Accra, Ghana
Over the next couple of days I will be posting stories from my trip to Ghana. I would have posted them while I was there, but as you can imagine, the Internet was spotty.
We arrived on the 23rd, which also happened to be my 25th birthday! Needless to say, this was going to be a pretty sweet birthday.
For those of you that don’t know why I was going, I’ll set the stage for you.
My dad is on 2 boards with Opportunity International, a Christian microfinance organization. The way Opportunity primarily works is by making small loans to, primarily, groups of women in the 3rd world. The loans can start as small as $50 and grow over time. Since the loans are often entrusted to the trust group, the repayment rate is extremely high, about 97%. The reason for this is quite simple, if someone doesn’t make payments on her loan, then the group will sell off that person’s work materials to make the loan.
Opportunity is a Christian organization. They believe that everyone that is willing to work hard should be able to get a loan. Christ called us to serve the poor, and the Bible talks about it over 2000 times.. This is our mandate. Big banks can’t service a $50 loan. How do you ask a bank employee used to $100,000 mortgages and loans to collect on a $50 loan? It’s just not the same. In Ghana, Opportunity serves about 60,000 clients each year. Worldwide, they have over 1.2 million clients. Check out their website at Opportunity International Site
The second organization that my dad works with is Living Water International. I am a huge fan of LWI. Living Water does basically only 3 things. They build wells, repair/refurbish wells, and health/hygene training. That’s it. But they do it really, really, really well. They drill and repair around 1600-1700 wells a year. Since 1990, they have built and repaired wells that serve over 6.9 million people…and that’s just up to 2008, by now, who knows? Check out their website at Living Water Website
The stage is set, on with the show!
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Tags: Accra, Birthday, Ghana, Living Water International, Makola Market, MFI, Microfinance, Microloans, Opportunity International
Posted by Jonathan on Feb 13, 2009 in
General So, I made it! Wednesday during the middle of the day, I received my acceptance email from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA!
I was pretty sure I’d get in, but you know how it is, you just never know ’til you get the email.
I will be getting my Mdiv so that I can become an ordained minister, and start myself a church. My goal (for now) is to start a progressive Baptist church. Baptists have excellent traditions and such, but the politics have become quite muddied over time, and our social justice needs to be revamped too.
March 19th is my last day at work, the moving truck comes the next day, and then I’m gone by the 22nd to Ghana. It’s a little over a month and a week away. It’s all starting to seem quite final. I’m starting to seal off this portion of my life, and it’s quite tough, moreso than I expected.
I realized that New York has had quite an effect on me. Quite a substantial one indeed. I didn’t realize it right away, but I’m starting to.
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Tags: Apple, California, Fuller, Ghana, Mdiv, Moving, New York City, Pasadena, Seminary