My first trip time to Ghana was quite an experience, and I left with a few major desires. In traveling to the Volta region in the East, I hoped to return to witness the majestic waterfall just off the road that I travelled past to visit the Bible translation project where four languages would be dedicating their New Testament translations for the first time in just a few months. Their joy and pure passion over God coming to them and meeting them on their heart level in their own language was overwhelming to me. I fought back tears several times as I conducted their focus groups. I love hippos and my life will not be complete until I see hippos and rhinos in the wild, so I would love to visit the northern part of the Volta river to witness hippos in action in Ghana. My last desire from my first trip to Ghana was to visit Cape Coast. This I regretted most from my first trip. I know Francis or Pastor Elorm would have accommodated my request to visit this location, but I didn’t want to further inconvenience them with the day’s journey to this necessary landmark. Upon returning, I insisted that I make the pilgrimage this time.

Elmina castle was the largest of three slave castles in Ghana and was the epicenter of the African leg of the transatlantic slave trade. This is one of the most important places I’ve ever visited and as I walked the haunted walls of this former palace of wickedness, I carried the souls of many friends and heroes of mine who will never be so fortunate to make this journey. It sits on the white beach overlooking the tranquil Atlantic scattered with wispy sail boats framed by palm and coconut trees. Kids played football in the gentle surf amongst the verdant crags. Fishermen repaired their nets as they kept an eye out for potential customers. What a peaceful and majestic place it was, it’s so hard to imagine that one of the most evil places in the history of humanity kept watch over this beautiful place. Walking through the halls down into the keep of the castle you could small the rawness and savagery of wickedness. There is a monument at the bottom of the men’s dungeon and as we approached it, the echoes of the wailing overwhelmed us and demanded a realignment of emotion for those out to sight see. Our Ghanaian tour guide appeared practically numb to this woman’s release of pain, emotion, anger, validation and triumph over evil, dehumanization and invalidation. You know that it was the culmination of many journeys that never took place and that she walked in the shoes of others unable to make this journey from across the Atlantic. The altar sits at the heart of the sealed tunnel entrance that led down to “Door of No Return.” As soon as slavery was outlawed by the British, the tunnel was sealed by order of the queen. Far from a noble effort, it was an important step to ensure that this decision was irreversible.  Men, women and children were herded down this walkway and either stepped into the ocean to drown or entered the hulls of the death ships bound for the Caribbean and Americas. I was surprised by how casual and lacking in knowledge the Ghanaian nationals were in the presence of such historic maladies against their ancestors. There are blessings in being shielded from that, but I think that it would also give them tremendous perspective and insight into their identity.  We walked through the door of no return and I wept at the injustice and sin that humanity is capable of. They closed the door as we huddled into the prison cell for those who fought back and rebelled, there was no light and absolutely no ventilation. It was essentially a mass living grave. The tour continued upstairs in the castle to the quarters of royalty, armies and slave traders. Francis told me that I had seen all that I needed to see, and I agreed with him and touched that he understood my necessity to visit this place. I left the group and wandered the underground chambers for a bit alone, allowing some of the gravity to fall on me and to spend time in prayer for peace, for love and for justice.

The past six or seven years have largely revolved around my own African diasporatic journey. I’m not sure why God has called me to this particular perspective, but it has been quite overwhelming. Oftentimes I feel as though I was born with the soul of a weathered African American male. I am aware of the blasphemous precipice that I approach in such claims, but I only claim that my spirit echoes Langston Hughes notion that, “my soul has grown deep like rivers.” My journey culminated with my peregrination to Kenya in November where I experienced the historic African affirmation in the Western world with the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the president of the U.S. The son of a Kenyan prince became the most powerful man in the world. The pride and joy was palpable. It was overwhelming to experience the impromptu celebrations and dancing in the streets, the homemade signs and t-shirts, paintings and graffiti adorning the matatu buses, buttons, stickers, he dominated the papers and the news broadcasts. They conducted mock votes, dramatic plays complete with African John McCain counterparts and lively Obama songs that we listened to driving through the expansive savannahs on our way to the coast. I don’t know that I will have the opportunity to be part of something so historic ever again.   

This spirit was shared in the excitement I sensed repeatedly throughout various regions of Ghana when they expressed that God was no longer a foreigner to them. now that they have their language written down and subsequently the Bible translated in their heart language. I feel that same longing for identity and affirmation in French Africa who feel neglected by the gap created by the English language. God has drawn me to the African experience for some reason, but it is my hearts cry to see those who are marginalized, have been oppressed and whom this world has pushed to believe that they are inferior, be empowered and restored. The gospel is restorative and God is a god of justice. Love is an extension of justice, and I desire love in its fullest. That is why I am a peacemaker, I don’t believe in war as a means to love or justice. God called us to love our enemy and do good to those who persecute us. How do we expect evil, hatred and sin to attain justice and peace? Love, God’s love is the only thing capable of shaming evil and hatred of humanity because it can never truly be defeated . 

In January, amidst the chaos in Kingston, I hurried to finish my second focus group of the morning so that I could tune in with the rest of Jamaica to proudly watch their African brother being sworn in as president. I missed the first part of the inauguration, but I caught enough to draw tears to my eyes as I sat there with my brothers and sisters at the West Indies Bible Society. It was overwhelming to me and as they panned across the men, women and children, particularly African American’s. It was beautiful to see the full spectrum of people across all ages who felt hope. People are looking for hope; that is the God shaped vacuum that exists in all of us. (which cannot be filled by anyone but Christ) My heart leapt for joy. All of Jamaica stopped, as I’m sure most of the world did. I sat eating my curried goat grinning from ear to ear as I joined Jamaican brothers and sisters watching CNN bring story after story from the National Mall drawing the attention of all those who passed by or wandered in. Jamaicans claimed him in the same way that the children of Ghana were so proud of him. The Ghanaian presidential elections were drawing close in Ghana when I visited in November and the kids said they wanted to be president of Ghana some day, just like Obama. Having a black president does not eliminate racism and mean that everyone’s equal and there is no struggle. This man has Harvard degree’s and is hardly your average citizen, but there is no denying the remarkable bridge that was crossed that so few people could have imagined coming true at this point in history. It still brings a smile to me and I hope that Barack is blessed to be able to be president apart from this economic crisis which has consumed our nation, and the world.

Ironically it was this issue that largely brought him into the office and it could be the very thing to starve him and drive him out in four years. I don’t think I truly realized the extent of the economic crisis until a man in Ghana pleaded with me that their project for the Old Testament be funded. The Volta region in Eastern Ghana fears the economic crisis will cut off their financial support from abroad, “We need the Old testament in our mother tongue. I know that the hand that feeds us is hurting and I just pray that we can receive the rest of the Bible in our language, we want the full Bible.” I sat there thinking about how often my bible sits around gathering dust, how many different versions I have, and I take it for granted that God speaks to me on my level, my language, into my heart. Hearing so many people talk about the first time they heard the Word in their heart language, and I keep feeling like I want to experience that experience, but I’ve had that available to me for years.