From dreams to NOW

As you've probably figured out by now, this blog is mostly an open journal from my heart. Often just babbles of thoughts and memories and stories from my life. But today I want to celebrate a little bit of my husband's journey because today my husband is a college graduate! 

I think for anyone who graduates you know that feeling of accomplishment you feel. All the long nights, LOTS of money you've spent, the new friends, the tough classes you never thought you'd make it through, and ALL that you've learned. Academically and socially, you come out as a totally new person. (After all, you are now part of only 6.7% of the world that holds a college degree) 

After all the ups and downs, it can only leave you reflecting on how you got there in the first place. How this amazing journey came to be. 

For everyone, the journey to earning a college degree takes a whole lot of hard work and effort, and a lifetime of perpetration. But for those, like my husband, who travel the world from a developing country to receive this degree, I would dare to say the journey is much more complex and possibly that much more amazing.

To put it into perspective, in many schools in the US we are prepared from day one with the notion that this is all practice for the big one, the day we go to college. We have prep tests and national standards, and even classes we can take in high school to earn college credit. 

To get into a competitive school you have to work your butt off, but even still, you have some guidance and help along the way. 

In contrast, in many parts of Africa it's not quite that straightforward. Elementary and high school are not free. For many even being able to pay for primary school fees is a dream. So you can imagine how far out of reach it may feel to make it to college someday- and to a university the US... I can't even imagine the journey you may feel you have ahead of you.

It's fortunate for my husband that his story all starts with amazing parents who saw past the everyday. They had this dream for not just one, but ALL of their four children; and then made every sacrifice they could to help them get there. 

Even still, the sacrifice and hard work did not just come from his parents, it came from my husband too, and starting at such a young age.

After primary school, Josh had worked hard enough to be enrolled into a prestigious all boys boarding school called Prempeh College. At the young age of 15 he left home to live full time, in what I've imagined from his stories (and from actually visiting the school in Ghana), to be one of the most competitive and intensive schooling situations a young boy could be put into (think military school but even more intense).
Just surviving the social dynamics and hierarchy of boarding school is a feat all of its own. It's really hard for me to even think about all the things he went through there because culturally it's SO different from my experience in high school, and so much more harsh. But as he says, it made him into the man he is today and I'm grateful for that.

Even despite the the grueling conditions of boarding school, Josh was somehow able to make it great. He worked his way into leadership positions and made good friends, and most importantly studied his heart out- all with the dream of someday making it here. 

When his senior year rolled around, it was time for him to take the SAT (the equivalent of the ACT here.) As he describes it, it was basically the test that would determine his destiny. He had never been so nervous in his life as the day he took that test.

All of that hard work and immense monetary sacrifice, that had already been made, came down to this test- and he came out on top!

I can't even imagine the incredible joy he must have felt when he learned that he had scored one of the top highest scores of his class, and received a high enough score to be able to apply for a top rated university in America. (If you've applied to BYU you know how difficult it is to get in and how high those scores have to be)

And here he was, a boy from Ghana, Africa, with the elements set against him, and he made it!

(Almost...)

You see, the happy beginning doesn't even start there yet! Like the true trooper he is, he continued forward. Now putting his application together for BYU and waiting on the call.

It was months later when, as he recalls, he was walking down a red dirt road as his cell phone rang. Worried he wouldn't even have enough minutes left on his phone to finish the call, he quickly answered and was told he had been accepted to BYU! He literally jumped in the air and yelled with joy as he hung up that call. His life was about to change.

He finally felt like he had made it! All that hard work had finally paid off!
Only then to have to put that dream on hold for TWO MORE YEARS, to work as a teacher just so he could afford the plane ticket to come to America.

Can you imagine?

I have tears in my eyes right now as I write this, because truthfully I don't know how he did it. How was he was so driven?! At that time I was just a naive girl playing my way through high school. All the while my future husband was working so hard to come here and accomplish his dreams- to where I would meet him someday! He sacrificed and sacrificed, hitting roadblock after roadblock, just to make it. I don't know if I could have held on that long, worked that hard, and felt everything was working against me, and still made it here. 

But he did. 

He stepped onto an airplane for the first time in his life. Saying goodbye to friends and family, and his life there in Ghana, to journey across the world to a completely different culture and life. He gave up everything, with his future in mind.

Now there he was, at a very competitive college, with no one he knew. 

He had to start all over again. 

A completely different journey began of adjusting to a new way of academics and culture in general.  

He worked his way through the first year of school, all while holding a night shift job to pay his way through, before yet again, his journey was put on hold.

After investigating for some time, Josh chose to became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then decided to sacrifice TWO MORE years of his life, and his dream he had worked so long for, to go and serve God- as he brought others to the gospel of Jesus Christ through a two year mission experience. 

When he came home he felt his life had been changed forever and for the better, and that's when he met me (hehe :)

He regeered his life centered even more on Christ and continued forward. Working harder than ever to finish his degree. Battling all the pitfalls and extra challenges, and fees, that come along with being an international student. Then marrying me- not an easy task haha- having a surprise baby, and supporting us through it all as he worked a full time job AND continued full time school (driving four hours a day just to make the schedule work).

Until now, four years later, HERE WE ARE TODAY. Even relaying this story does not put to justice the true amount sacrifices, details of his trials, and hard work that this man has made for his own future and for the future of our family.

But he did it! He made it here, and with tears in my eyes, I'm so proud to say, 

HE IS A COLLEGE GRADUATE!

*Josh I wrote this little bit of your story down for you because I know you would never do it haha but oh my goodness I am so proud of you and the journey you've been on to make it here- with me. Thank you so much for your immense sacrifice and for all your hard work you continually do for us. You are the true definition of selfless sacrifice. I love you and I love every piece of your story because it makes you who you are today.

Love you,

Abby