Daniel is a church planter among his own people in northern Ghana. Under the tutelage of another, older and more highly-educated, Ghanaian missionary, Daniel is learning practical ways to bring socioeconomic and spiritual transformation to his corner of the world.

Below, I share this portrait with Daniel, its subject. It’s always fun and revelatory to find out how the camera sees you.

Taken with the equipment pictured, 1/250 sec. @ f/2.8 with off-camera fill flash.

This young woman was ostracized by her family for her choice of a man they did not choose for her. Like something straight of old-timey literature, right? Maybe so, but marriage arrangement by the parents is woven into the fabric of a large number of the world’s cultures even today. It can be easy for us in America to assume that our system, which feels so natural and right to us, is not the modus operandi for most people on Earth.

After her family cut her off, her beloved’s family put significant pressure on him to withdraw his attentions, which he did–but not before they were expecting their first child. Feeling utterly lost and hopeless, with no means to care for herself or her baby, this frightened girl sought refuge and help at the only place she thought would still accept her–a Christian counseling center near her home in one of Indonesia’s most staunchly-Islamic provinces.

What she found there was not only the acceptance and help she sought, but all-out sacrificial love from the center’s staff and director. They provided for her immediate needs and, gradually, were able to restore her to her family and the husband she had lost to the social and religious pressures of their part of the world. Her outlook on life and hope for the future, now, are a world away from her hopelessness and helplessness of not very long ago.

Taken in the counseling center against a curtain backdrop using window light. Canon 85mm lens, 1/40 @ f/4.0, ISO 800.

When I think of India and Africa, one of the first images that comes to mind is a big sun glowing with veiled intensity behind the atmospheric haze of dust and smog. When I actually visited those places, my stereotype came through for me on at least a few occasions. Here, in India, the setting was perfect for this shot of two schoolgirls walking hand in hand down the dusty path, silhouetted against a murky golden sky.

Taken at 105mm, 1/1500 @ f/8.0.

I’m in southern India for a couple more days. Here are some portraits I took today of a group of men who are receiving theological and vocational training here. Some of these guys are from an impoverished area of India where even today there is significant, violent, religious persecution.

The training they receive will enable them to go back and develop their communities holistically–providing solutions to people in physical, economic, spiritual, and emotional distress.

A group of us was sitting in the common room of our guest house in a remote part of Ghana, singing a song that includes the line, “There is thunder in His footstep and lightning in His fist.” All of a sudden the curtains started blowing into the room and the shutters were banging. Then this.

This was an awesome and dramatic thunderstorm, with tons of wind and lightning, and we just sat back and watched it make its way across the African savanna until it finally passed out of earshot and we could just catch a few last bursts of lightning on the horizon. So much beauty in that power, and power in beauty.

The fun thing about making this picture of the storm was the fact that I had to get right out there in it to get the angle I wanted. You can see that some water drops on the lens were unavoidable in that situation. The basic technique is to set the camera on a tripod and use either bulb or a long pre-programmed exposure time (in this case, 30 seconds)–and pretty much guess at the rest of the exposure and focus settings. I put the focus at just short of infinity, set the ISO to 200, the aperture to f/8.0, and started shooting. God provided the perfect amount of light with this set of bolts to nail that exposure.

I recently returned from three weeks of photojournalism and documentary work in Ghana and Senegal, West Africa. I have posted my top 12 photos in my international portfolios. Here is a story illustrating some of the amazingly different world I experienced there.

Endemic in the culture of northern Ghana is the fear of supernatural reprisals and of the people who can manipulate the spirit realm to their own ends. The cultural spillover is the tendency to attribute such powers, usually falsely, to some of the most disadvantaged–and inconvenient–people in the communities: widows past childbearing age.

See my portfolio of 12 top photos from my time in West Africa

The process of witch allegation, trial, and punishment in one such area might go something like this: a child is bitten by a snake and becomes ill. The illness’ cause is immediately addressed–except that instead of asking what caused the sickness, family members want to know WHO caused it. The child may be denied medical attention until the fetish priest can issue a verdict on whether the snake was motivated by witchcraft or not. By the time he determines that it indeed was sent by a witch, the child is likely beyond help. During the night the child’s father has a dream in which one of the older women of the village appears, and when he awakes he brings the accusation of witchcraft against the woman. The fetish priest decrees a trial by ordeal, which basically amounts to extracting a confession by torture from the woman. Quite naturally, she is found guilty, because people will admit to just about anything under extreme duress. Finally, the “witch” is summarily banished from the community and finds her way to another town or village where she can scratch out an existence, branded and exiled from even her own family.

• Watch a short National Geographic video that describes almost exactly what our group encountered in northern Ghana.
• See my photos of the “witch camp” featured in an Animoto video from Partners International.

While it is certain that witchcraft and spiritism are practiced fairly widely in West Africa, to deal with that huge issue would probably be less productive and practical for the group I was with than to address human and women’s rights on the grassroots level in this specific village, which we see as a potential center of a ripple effect of positive change in the region. We envision thousands of human hearts set free as they comprehend Christ’s love and saving grace for them, and freedom from fear in combination with His equal value for all human beings.

One of the most heartbreaking things we saw in this village came when we asked for a show of hands of who among the women fear being cast out as a witch some day. Every last woman, from young mothers to late middle age, shared that fear.

We had the privilege of convening a village council to discuss whether a) the elders and opinion leaders thought this cycle was a problem and b) what they thought they could do about it. The very positive conclusion was that they do see a problem in how these women are treated and they think they can do something to improve the situation in the region. I’m impressed and grateful that the ideas were entirely theirs with only a little prompting from us outsiders. That means they are far more likely to effect lasting change, because the inspiration is from within.

We made some good new friends in that place, and would count it a great joy to return someday. In the meantime we will do our best to keep in contact with them and continue to support and build up the faithful Ghanaian workers who are there consistently throughout the year. We now have some wonderful memories and great hopes that we have become part of a process that will result, by God’s grace, in communities throughout northern Ghana being transformed for this life and the next.

See my portfolio of 12 top photos from my time in West Africa

The baobab has to be one of the coolest trees I’ve ever seen. These behemoth trees dominate the landscape throughout Senegal, and when they don’t have leaves (which is most of the year), they give a distinct impression of a tree that has been uprooted and smashed back into the ground by some huge giant. The fruit, colloquially referred to as “monkey bread,” is delicious and very soothing to an upset stomach.

HDR image composited from bracketed handheld images with a wide-angle lens, about sunset.

This Senegalese Muslim leader, or “marabout,” is in charge of a few dozen young boy disciples. In return for the money they bring him from begging in the streets, he feeds and shelters them and teaches them the Koran.

After passing on a portion of his income to the next-higher marabout, however, his income is insufficient to provide the boys with much else, even basic medical care for common ailments such as infections, worms, etc.

I visited his compound as a guest of a Senegalese agency that is reaching out with appropriate medical treatment to the boys and encouragement for their masters. The expression in his eyes, the frayed and torn shirt, and the charms around his neck all speak to me of his burden to care for his charges as well as discharge his obligations to his superiors and sense of duty to God.

Taken in ambient light with no posing, just waiting for the moment.

This woman is making a difference for her community in her home country of India. She is helping to bring about transformation of mind, body, and spirit through her efforts to lift her neighbors out of the despair of joblessness and spiritual darkness to put their families on a path to a better future. Working quietly and without fanfare, she and others like her are laying the foundation for positive change in a large and complex country with thousands of indigenous ethnic identities.

Taken in ambient light at the long end of a Canon 24-105mm lens at f/5.6, ISO 400.

This woman lives in a camp with about 45 other alleged witches, scratching out an existence on the edge of a village and the very margins of human society.

So why is she smiling?

The short answer: hope.

Earlier I wrote about issue of witchcraft in northern Ghana (and other countries in West Africa). I mentioned meeting this woman and others in her situation, as well as the concerned and compassionate Ghanaians who are reaching out in love to these outcast women. For generations women like this one have had no hope other than the limited prospect of being declared no longer a witch–but even then they are not allowed to return to their homes and families. All women continue to be subject to suspicion of witchcraft, and so the cycle of fear and oppression continues.

Women bear the brunt of this abusive practice, but they are not the only ones dehumanized by it. For every woman who is sent away to eke out a living as a non-person in miserable conditions, there is someone who brought the initial accusation that got her expelled. That person is a slave to his or her own fear and ambitions. There is a family, most of whom did not want their mother, their sister, sent away, but who felt powerless to resist tradition and the word of the elders. There is a generation growing up in silent witness to this tragedy, yet most likely doomed to perpetuate it. Everybody is trapped.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, and people are working to change this part of the West African cultural landscape. A friend of mine, native to Ghana and himself a victim of this practice on account of his mother’s exile, is spearheading a movement to bring holistic change to not only victimized women but their communities and the whole region. By rallying village leaders, political officials, law enforcement, educators, and the alleged witches and their families, he hopes to not only slow the deadly cycle but eradicate it completely. The solution will be positive, life-giving, relationship-restoring, and uniquely suited to local culture. The result will be as beautiful as this woman’s bright eyes and warm smile.

The woman in this photo now knows that people care and they are working for her. That’s why she can smile again.