Close of Chapter

Hey,

    First off, I wanted to say that I am safe and sound at home. I was met at the airport by my parents, two of my sisters, one of my brothers-in-law, and 15 or 20 of my friends from youth group. Since then, been catching up with family and friends while getting over jet lag.

    There is really no where to begin when trying to sum up the last 7+ months. The first 2.5 months (lecture phase), were totally different from the second 2.5 months (outreach phase and debrief), which were totally from the last 2 months (working with Evergreen). I learned so much during each one of these periods and I am really excited to start applying what I've learned to life at home. Next up is finding a job again, applying to UTSA to start in the fall, and get my band back together to try to recreate something similar to what I've witnessed the past couple of months with Evergreen.

    I can't thank you enough for all the ways you have supported me since September. I feel that God has been preparing me for something amazing and I am excited to step into that.

    "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit"
(Romans 15:13)

Will Clegg

Heading Home

Well,

    The time for me to head home has finally arrived. The past two months have been amazing and and I have learned a ton. Going to probably give one or two last updates once I get home, but for now I just wanted to thank you for your prayers to this point and also ask for your prayers for safe travel.

    I leave for the airport in less than 24 hours, and I am pretty much ready to go; so I can in just enjoy my last day here. Prayers that I would be able to endure some hard goodbyes would be appreciated as well.

Again, thank you so much for all your prayers and for keeping up with what I've been up to!

God Bless,

Will Clegg

Provision

Hey,

      There were a couple of stories I wanted to share related to God’s provision for me able to stay this extra time. First off, when I was first given the opportunity to stay on with Evergreen, realistically, the funds to even consider staying were not to be seen. I was essentially planning on forgetting the idea of staying, but literally a couple hours before I let for Ghana, Andy (of Evergreen) reminded of the things which seemed to confirm that God wanted me to stay. I left the continent telling God that if He wanted me to stay He had a good bit of providing to do. Over the course of outreach I got multiple emails from people saying that God had put me on their heart recently and wished to support me more financially. Also, important to mention, before outreach (and before the opportunity with Evergreen came about) I had given a good chunk of extra support money to the Ghana team because a couple of the other members were very short in their funds. I had felt slightly uneasy about that choice after the Evergreen opportunity came up, because if I had not given that money, staying the extra time would be no problem. I really had to pray through releasing the money totally in my heart. However, at the end of outreach, Ghana team ended up with extra funds; so we prayed about how to use the funds. We had already given several hundred pounds to the orphanage, and had supported some of the people we met who were in need. After we finished praying about how to use the extra money, both leaders felt that some of the money should be given back to support me in my new adventure. Coming back from outreach, I had the funds to stay, but just barely. I had two months of rent  and food to pay for, and that was just the beginning of the expenses, but God wasn’t done providing yet.

    Another issue to face was housing. At the beginning of March there were only two unallocated beds on the whole base, and it was unlikely I could get either of these. For a couple weeks I had been trying to find a time to sit down and talk with the housing people about getting someplace to live, and when I finally found a time to talk them another miraculous provision occurred. As I was walking into the administration building, one of the staff from my school was also walking into the building. He had a situation to work out as well. He already had a room and bed allocated and paid for, but he was leaving the country for a month and a half to have surgery back in his home country (Egypt). He and I actually talked just outside of the office realizing that our situations solved each other. We agreed that I would stay in his room while he was gone and I would pay for one month of rent while he paid for the other. So not only did I have a place to stay, but I had it for half the price I thought I was going to pay. BUT WAIT, there was one more issue; there was a week between I was supposed to move out of the room I was in and when I could move into the new room. However that was solved too, because the person in charge of the housing area where I lived got graduation dates mixed up and therefore the kick out date was a week later, exactly the day I could move into the new room.

      The last issue I was facing was a soon to expire visa. Since I was not technically staff, I could not apply for the extension of my existing visa. Thus, since I was officially just hanging out with the Evergreen guys, I needed to get tourist visa. This required me to leave and then return to the country. I had planned on just flying to Dublin, Ireland for a couple days to meet this need, but things were not working out the way I expected. I had been informed that I could easily find a plane ticket to Dublin for 20 or 30 pounds, but the day I got online to book my ticket, the cheapest ones I could find were 120 pounds.  This was definitely beyond what I could afford, but God had a plan up His sleeve. I started looking for the cheapest plane tickets I could find, and that ended up being tickets to Germany. In that moment I was like, “Hey, I know people in Germany now. This will be cool.” I sent out an email asking some of my German friends asking if anyone could put me up for a couple of days, but almost the whole day went by and I heard no replies. I was starting to stress, because the longer I waited the more expensive the plane tickets got. Just near the end of the day, I got an email from one of my friend’s parents offering me a place to stay. However, they ended up not only offering me a place to stay, but also offered to pay for all my expenses (including traveling to Germany and traveling within Germany to visit some of my other friends in Germany). This was the peak of perfect provision. Just when my plans fell through and I couldn’t afford what I needed, God stepped in and surpassed my expectations through some amazingly generous people.

      Now, every little detail has been worked out to stay, and I can just enjoy my time here till I head home in just under a month now. Like I said, it is so clear that God wants to be here right now, so I am just trying to take everything in to make sure that I get everything out of this that I am meant to get out of this.

I hope this encourages you that God is indeed our provider.

God bless,

Will Clegg

Graduation and March

Hey all,

    It has been a little while since I gave an update on what I’ve been up to recently. It was a month ago last night that I officially graduated the DTS, and since then a lot has been happening.

     Between getting back from Ghana and graduation, we had two weeks of debriefing. During this time we reflected on a lot of things that God had taught us over lecture phase and outreach, and talked through what it might be like to adjust back to life outside of the DTS context. This led straight into our graduation on February 28^th.

     Over the next few days after graduation, our DTS began to separate for the final time as people packed and headed home. This was a very hard couple of days. It was literally just one hard goodbye after another, but it wasn’t anything we didn’t know would come eventually.

   As you know, I was planning on starting to work with Evergreen (the band I mentioned before) after graduation, but on their suggestion I took a week off between graduating and starting with them. I spent the first half of the week trying to survive the above mentioned goodbyes, and the second part of the week winding down and getting a chance to take a deep breath. Then, exactly a week after graduating I started going on the road with them. (Again, just to reiterate my goal in staying on with these guys: I am really interested in trying to recreate something similar to what they do, back home, and by spending this time with them I hope to get a clearer picture of how God wants me to do this and to learn from these guys’ wisdom). After just the first night helping the guys get to and set up for a show, I was already learning lessons about how real of a mission field the music industry is. Just seeing the presence that Evergreen brought to the venue compared to the presence that some of the other bands brought to the venue was amazing. While other bands were glorifying violence, sex, and drugs from the stage it was awesome to see 4 guys pick up some instruments and worship God through their music and their words.

     Since then, I have been to several more gigs with them, and right now I am just hanging out as they write up the finishing touches for their new album which they will begin recording the 1^st of April. I have already gotten a lot out of my time with them and I am sure I will learn much more. Being here at all has been a miracle of God; everything has been provided for in amazing ways, from finances, room/board, to visa situations. There are a couple more testimonies I would like to share in regards to those things, but they will have to wait till next time.

I do have a couple prayer requests I’d to mention:

(1): That I will apply myself in getting all that I need to get out of this extra time here.

(2): I find myself needing the simple self-discipline to stay spiritually healthy, now that I am  again making my own schedule. (No longer being in the very structured schedule of DTS,).

Thank all of you again so much for your concerns and prayers.

God bless,

Will Clegg

Ghana: Churches

    The second biggest ministry we did in Ghana was to speak at and work with local churches. Every Sunday, we would attend (and possibly speak at) a church. With the exception of two churches, which we visited twice, we visited a different church every week. If we were to teach there, we would pray about who should speak and/or give a testimony, and then he or she would give a message to the church. This was one of the most stretching experiences for me. Attending these churches was stretching in and of itself, as they were very charismatic, but the opportunity to speak at them was an opportunity I was glad to have. Within most of these churches, there was a lot of materialism and religious tradition with no true understanding behind it. Through our testimonies we were able challenge many people to really walk out their faith beyond the walls of the church.

    Also, through connecting with some of these churches, we were able to join alongside their existing ministries. For example, there were two churches with which we did street and door-to-door evangelism. This was another awesome experience that I was glad to have. Door-to-door in Ghana could not have been more different from door-to-door in the States or in the U.K.. In Ghana, you knocked on a door and before you got a chance to say your name you had been invited inside, been given a place to sit, and possibly been given something to drink. It was a great experience to share my faith, or even just to encourage somebody through a visit. This something I hope to continue to do now that I have more experience with it.

    I hope the past several blogs have given you a taste of what we did in Ghana. It is impossible to totally describe how we impacted Ghana and how Ghana impacted us as a team, but I hope this gives you some Idea.

Again, thank you for all the pray you guys supported us with while we were there.

Will Clegg

Ghana: Tegby

    The fourth week we were in Ghana we went to the Volta region of Ghana, specifically to the area of the Tegby village. The two main reasons we were there were to (1) visit a slave castle that was near Tegby, and (2) to get cultural exposer to some of the less westernized parts Ghana. We spent four days in Dean Dallas’s father’s village, eating off of banana leaves with our hands, bathing in water out of a well, fishing with the locals, the whole nine yards.

   The night before we left for Tegby, getting ready to leave early the next morning, it was slightly depressing to be setting my alarm for 2:30 am. 2:30 am seemed simply way too early for a day to start, but never the less I went to bed ready to get very little sleep. After what was essentially a prolonged nap, we had a quick breakfast and were headed toward the bus station by 3:00 am. By 4:00 am we were on a crowded bus, sitting, waiting for the bus to leave. This lasted for about an hour. This was one of the more miserable hours of my life. Having people rub various parts of their bodies up against you as more and more people continued to push the bus’s capacity to new limits, was not exactly my idea of a good time. Shortly after 5:00 am we were on road to Tegby. Things got less miserable as the open windows let some cool air into the overcrowded bus. A little after 9:00 am, we finally arrived in Tegby (or at least the bus dropped us off on the side of the road near Tegby). It was so nice to finally arrive at our destination, but as I grabbed my backpack off the bus I was slightly bitter that it was possible to have already been awake for seven hours.

     After a 15 minute walk with all our gear, we were finally sitting in the enclosure of Dean Dallas’s father’s compound (a little area inside four cinder block walls). We said greetings, saw the duck that was later to be dinner, and then we were ready to face the rest of the day. By 10:30 we were heading toward the beach. The beach was literally about a 45 second walk, and was probably the most beautiful beach I had ever seen (it reminded me of a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean). There, we joined the line of local villagers pulling in their fishing nets. It took about 45 minutes to drag in one net, but for our efforts in helping pull in the nets, we were given a portion of the catch, and as guests of the village we awarded the prize catch, which was a 4-ish ft. barracuda.

    We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach, enjoying a chance to swim in the good old Atlantic Ocean. By the late afternoon we were heading back to the enclosure to try to get our mosquito nets up by night fall. By 7:00 pm, after a barracuda dinner, we were all huddled in our mosquito nets trying to get comfortable on the sand. This, not surprisingly, proved impossible. Besides the sand being really uncomfortable to sleep on, Dean Dallas snoring loudly, and a rooster thinking that the sun rose at 3:00 am, it was almost a somewhat restful night. Despite the day’s many discomforts, I laid under my mosquito net having enjoyed the day as a whole, and was quite pumped for the rest of the weekend.

     The next morning, after a breakfast of some corn…stuff, we headed back to the road side to get a van to the slave castle. After our time at the castle, we had some traditional Ghanaian spicy rice and beans (after being in England for 3 months it was nice to have spicy food again): then, came one of our coolest and possibly most impactful opportunities of the weekend. When our visit was first planned, Dean Dallas’s father let the “Chief of Chiefs” of the Tegby region know of our upcoming visit. Thus, we were given the honor of being invited to come to the house of the “Chief of Chiefs” (who was called Togby). When we arrived at his house, our eyes met two rows of chairs facing each other. We, the guests sat in one row, and the chief’s elders sat in the other row leaving one seat open for Togby. Soon after we sat down, Togby exited from his house and took his seat among the elders. It was a very traditional meeting, and we did our best to honor those traditions. Another man sat in front of Togby; he was the mediator between us and Togby (we were not allowed to make eye contact with or directly address the chief). Still, we were welcomed with hospitality and had the opportunity to explain the reason of our visit to Ghana. Togby also talked about his heart and vision for the area, and by the end of the meeting he was offering us land to build a YWAM base in Tegby. Dean Dallas, who thinks he may be called back to Ghana, is still seriously considering taking the chief up on the offer to build a base there to further bring up young men and women in God’s word. As we left, the chief who we were at first not allowed to look at, was insisting we take pictures with him, and we walked out of his house with his blessing on our mission.

     The rest of the weekend consisted mainly of what had already been doing; swam some in the ocean, helped out the villagers again with their fishing, and in general just really let the culture of the village really sink in. The girls were slightly scarred by the slaughtering of the duck for dinner that night, but besides that and never getting much sleep, it was really an incredible weekend that none of us will ever forget. 

Ghana: Slave Castles

      The only other pre-planed ministry we had in Ghana was to visit and pray at several slave castles. We ended up only visiting two over the duration of our time in Ghana, but both were powerful visits. Facing the reality of the horrible things that took place at these castles was very humbling for all of us. Since one of the main focuses of our mission to Ghana was reconciliation/justice we felt it was important to pray at these locations where so much injustice happened.

     Several of us, upon simply arriving at these locations, felt nauseous and sick to the stomach. There was clearly a heavy presence at these castles, but battling that presence was ultimately the reason why we were there.

(hopefully I can get some pictures of these castles soon, but without pictures it is really hard to explain just what these slave castles were like to visit)