Giving Thanks

I have been in Ghana for almost four months now. And every week seems to go by faster than the one before. I recently pulled out my paper journal and re-read an entry I made waiting in the Frankfurt airport for the final flight that would bring me to Africa, this place I had studied and dreamed about but could not really truly imagine. And reading my words, feeling the same excitement tinged with uncertainty and notquitefear, made me realize how far I have come in the last four months, how much I have grown up, grown into myself, and how much I have learned. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I have almost eight more months to go here, and they will be full of as much adventure, as much learning and growing and discovering as these four months have been. There are days that I wake up and it takes me a moment to realize that I am in Ghana, and there are days that make me feel like I have been here forever. This trip, the slight terror and immense joy I felt waiting for it to begin, the sum total of all that has happened and is happening and will happen to me here, might just be the best thing I have ever done. When I go home and people ask how Ghana was, how will I answer? Ghana was like a second home, another garden to put down roots in, another place to fold into my heart and treasure and hold. What am I giving thanks for? The chance to be here, and whatever told me that I needed to come. Because I am more now, in an incomprehensible way. Thank you.