Last evening on their way home from our guesthouse, our dear friends Paul and Cynthia were in a one-car accident. We thank God that they are okay, although Cynthia as a sore knee and the vehicle was damaged too much to drive. We are hopeful that it can be repaired without too much cost. Since Paul was our driver and we were using his vehicle, we had to find another means of transportation. We were very thankful that Mr. Nash, a former driver for me, was available.
We headed out to Tarikpaa around 9:00am to meet with our Ghanaian team for prayer and devotions. Since we now have a 12 passenger van we were able to transport our Ghanaian team to Sankpem instead of them riding their bicycles. Sankpem is several miles away from Tarikpaa.
Sankpem village is a hard place to live. They do not have a water source except for a pond that looks like coffee with creamer in it. The villagers there suffer a great deal. Two bore holes have been dug in the past few years, but no water. Now there is a major water pipeline that has been laid down the Kumbungu road, which could be one way to get water to the village. Chris will be meeting with the District water manager in a couple of weeks to see what can be done about that. We met with him last year, but he wasn't much help. We are hoping that now that the water pipe is in, he will work with us in getting water to Sankpem.
The first thing we did was to meet with the Chief. He remembered me from years past and said he was thankful that his village has not been forgotten and that we are trying to help. He gave me about a dozen guinea eggs as a token of friendship. He also extended an invitation of marriage of Jackie, my youngest team member. We all had a good laugh about that.
After that, we went to Hope Baptist Church for a VBS type program. Jillian, with Colton's help, did an outstanding job telling the panorama story to the children, using the puppets. When the children saw her carrying the puppets in (in a clear plastic bag) they were pointing and saying, "Babies! Babies!". They had never seen puppets before. Jackie and Tayler sang songs with them for a long time. It was so cute to see them do the Hokey Pokey and it was really funny to see them try to teach them how to do The Wave. Joseph was not able to play futbol with them because there wasn't a field close by, so he went outside and made friends with a young farmer boy. Joseph is like a gentle giant and even though some of the kids are afraid of him at first, they usually warm up to him in just a few minutes because of his gentle spirit.
After our visit to Sankpem, we went back to Tarikpaa and enjoyed fellowship with our Ghanaian teammates. They ate their local food and we ate ours (bread and peanut butter). We can't eat their food because of the water it is cooked in, but they wanted to try peanut butter and they loved it! Ground nuts (peanuts) are a huge commodity here, but they have never had it in creamy form. Of course, there were lots of little children coming around to play and the team didn't disappoint them.
We came back to town around 4:00pm and then went to Quality First supermarket (think 7-11 about 50 yrs ago). I found some frozen green beans that had Hebrew writing on it and some antibacterial cleaner for our kitchen countertops. Of course, Joseph found the Fan Ice. We had spaghetti/green beans/mango/pineapple/banana for dinner. Oh, and I can't forget the fried garlic toast. (no oven remember?) I put Joseph in charge of cooking it and that was an experience all on its own.
Today was a great day. Tomorrow we will go to Yipiliegu village.
P.S. I tried to upload pictures but after a couple of hours, I gave up. Maybe next time.
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