Strawberry Swing.

Enduring (and actually enjoying) the 10-hour drive from Lake Volta to Tema with Rachael Wise and sweet, sweet Moses.

I was in Ghana last week. I went for work and we had the most incredible trip. (Check out the Touch A Life blog for day-by-day recaps of our adventures while we were there.) While we were there, we were blessed with the opportunity to rescue the most amazing 12-year-old boy. Moses was supposed to released from his slave master on Lake Volta in September but, due to a series of miscommunications (including an instance regarding the slave master and his family's mysterious disappearance, in which they took Moses and the rest of their trafficked children to an uncharted island), we were unable to place him in one of our Touch A Life programs until last week. 

Moses was frightened when we saved him. Despite the abuse he's faced while working on Lake Volta as a trafficked child for the past four years, he cried when he left his island. I suppose that's because life on the lake is all he knows. Within minutes, though, Moses sensed that the people who were taking him away from the island were trustworthy, and the hugest grin spread across his face as he boarded the boat that would take him home. His life will never be the same.

There were two instances in which I thought God must have been smiling down on Moses. The first was when I was sitting on the front porch of the Village of Life (one of our programs that provides vocational training for 14 to 18-year-olds we've rescued off of the lake) reading a book while the sun set. I sensed a presence behind me and, lo and behold, sweet Moses was shyly standing there. I gestured for him to come sit on my lap (he doesn't speak English yet, so we communicated mostly through hand motions) and he obliged. I set down my book and gazed into the hazy, purply horizon. As Moses happily snacked on a Tootsie Roll pop, I thanked God for that moment. "Surely," I thought, "this is what heaven must be like."

The second moment when I tasted a glimpse of the Kingdom was on our drive from the lake back to Accra/Tema. The drive is, to put it lightly, heinous. It is ten and a half hours of pure torture. I am not exaggerating when I say that the drive is traumatizing. On our way up to the lake, our driver was being so crazy that our vehicle demolished two goats crossing the street. Seriously, we pancaked a little baby and destroyed the hind legs of its mom. Too much information? I can't say I feel sorry for you since I was the one who actually saw it...

I digress. All of that was to say that I was not looking forward to the return trip to Tema. But an added bonus to this drive was that Moses was with us. He sat next to me on the ride home and thought it was hilarious when we'd fly over bumps during our five hour trek on dirt roads. He was giggling, playing with our cameras and grinning like a crazy man. It was beautiful. The best moment, though, was when, as he sat next to me, he flung his arms around my waist, cuddled his head into my chest and fell asleep. Moses had finally reached a level of comfortability with me that allowed him to feel safe, an emotion I'm sure he rarely experienced on the lake. Just as sweet Moses was drifting off, Coldplay came on my iPod. And nothing could have encapsulated that beautiful moment better than the lyrics that played at that very instant:

:: They were sitting

They were sitting

In the strawberry swing

Every moment was so precious

They were sitting

They were talking

In the strawberry swing

Everybody was for fighting

Wouldn't want to waste a thing

Cold, cold water

Bring me round

Now my feet

Won't touch the ground

Cold, cold water

What ya say?

It's such

It's such a perfect day

It's such a perfect day ::