The Prayer Warrior

Auntie is building a huge house next to the house we live in. The purpose: more renters. Davis is auntie’s “son” (just about everybody is your son or daughter in Ghana – if Davis was one year younger he would be my son too ) Davis has a friend named Kobie who is helping him build this house. I can’t figure out if Kobie lives in the small room in the unfinished house or if he just spends a lot of time praying there– he has a mosquito net a small platform and a piece of plywood for a bed. Kobie is a Prayer Warrior. He defined this as one who goes to church everyday and prays for the countries. I say – sure, we could use more people doing that. However, recently, there has been an awful lot of loud praying and clapping coming from this room…loud as in yelling and shouting. (Now, it must be said, that from my observation, the people of Ghana are very devout and religious in general so I hear shouting prayers coming from a lot of places on Sundays…but this is everyday multiple times a day.) So, I asked Nana/Prince about it…he told me that Kobie is speaking in tongues. Of course I had no idea because speaking in Twi is speaking in tongues for me. What I do know is when it is going to rain and I go up to the second floor of the unfinished house to hang my laundry to dry and Kobie is in his little room praying, I kind of get spooked. Just wanted to paint a picture of some of the sounds of home here.