Mole Time!

[CLT::: “Glorious One” – from Starfield and the other one by Steve Fee]
Thursday morning at 6:30AM, we set out for the Northern Region of Ghana to Mole (Mole-Ay)National Park. There were originally four of us headed north, but two people decided not to go while waiting for the bus. After a 12 hour wait at the bus station, Kait and I were en route to the best weekend here, yet. When we first got to Mole, we were exhausted, but God took our breath away with the place’s beauty. Mole Motel overlooks the bush and two watering holes, and we ate lunch by the pool staring out at the beautiful sight. While eating our sandwiches, two elephants slowly emerged from their cooling swim in the watering hole; we got to enjoy our sandwiches watching them walk off into the trees. So amazing to see!
The first night we spent the night in a tree house in the Park. At 7PM we followed our guide into the bush, walking by the light of the moon. After an hours hike, we made it to the platform in the trees. Our guide walked us out to this saltlick area beside the tree house, and it was such a beautiful night! The moon and stars were so bright with no light pollution, and we could hear the sounds of the bush all around us. We were talking to our guide asking him about lions and such. We said something about Daniel and the lions’ den, and he said he’d never heard the story. So before bed we told him the story and what it meant about God, specifically the God of the Bible; he was a Muslim, so I wanted to draw the distinction to the one true God (Yahweh). I pray God opened his mind to understand.
During the middle of the night we heard warthogs digging at the saltlick, and we heard three leopards singing to each other; it was so amazing! In the morning, we heard a surrounding chorus of brilliantly colored bird, baboons barking, and flies buzzing. Coming back, our guide took us through the bush tracking antelope, and when we got back, tons of baboons were playing around the Motel!

Kait and I were super tired, so we went to the room to sleep. The cleaning woman came in to change sheets, but after her the door slowly pushed open. A furry paw pushed open the door, and a baboon just walked into our room! Just waking up, Kait and I didn’t realize what was happening, but the cleaning woman did and chased it out with her shoe. The baboons there are little thieves, and they’ve been known to break down the door to the rooms to get in and steal something.
After a good nap, we took a driving safari through the bush, hoping to see elephants up close. We saw tons of antelope and warthogs, some waterbuck and bushbok. The waterbuck were the coolest of those because they were bigger, shyly watching us from the shelter of the tall grasses.


We were content with the two elephants we saw the day before, but we weren’t prepared for what we saw next. Beside the road, eight African elephants, including two babies, were grazing off the trees!

We walked out towards them, and they watched us, protective of the young ones, but just kept eating and walking towards the road. They crossed the road about 35 yards in front of us, with the big daddy of them all bringing up the back. It was so surreal, and super humbling!

After seeing such awesome animals of God’s Creation, we rode back to the Motel on top of the Jeep, enjoying the most beautiful African sunset, yet.

Kait and I were talking about it, and we were so amazed at God’s sovereignty over everything about that weekend. If we hadn’t had that long delay at the bus station, we wouldn’t have gone on the specific hikes and safaris we did. We would have missed the elephants at the watering hole and the eight crossing the road, the leopards singing and the baboons playing; our guide for the tree house would have been different, and we wouldn’t have gotten to witness to him. We wouldn’t have met the people we did who joined us on the safari, or gotten to talk about God with the people at the information center. God ordained every aspect of that weekend, and we are amazed and grateful for it! [Soli Deo Gloria]