I arrived back from Ghana a couple days ago, so my jetlag is just about resolved. My soul-lag, however, lingers. I love children who live half way around the world, and they love me. My soul is stretched across the map as part of me lingers in Ghana while the rest of me is back here in the states.
I had the privilege of leading a group of Lipscomb University Marriage and Family Therapy Masters students on a Mental Health Mission trip to the Touch A Life Care Facility in Kumasi, Ghana. The trip was epic. We learned so much from this venture and bonded as a team. We also developed relationships with children and adults in Ghana that are going to last a long time.
The mission was to provide some clinical assessment, inquire about important relationships in the lives of the children and to listen to their story. WOW!!! Our eyes were opened and our assumptions rattled as we got an amazing and tender look into the lives of these children. What we found was a resilience that was strong and the incredible ability to hold in tension what might seem like conflicting attachments.
I am inspired by the children and Touch A Life and the incredible staff on site. There is so much love in that place.
I am also inspired by the Lipscomb MFT students who took two weeks of their lives to invest into this mission. The two weeks’ investment resulted in a lifetime of memories.
I will be processing this trip for the next several weeks. Some of that processing will make it here to the blog.
