What a Weekend!

Words can not express the last two days of action packed Ghanian fun that Kelli and I have had. We will try to give you a glimpse of what has been going on.

Orphanage

We went to an orphanage on Saturday and again we were reminded of how much of life we take for granted. This is an orphanage supported by the Adakum Foundation who Kelli has partnered with to build the health clinic. This orphanage had babies to high school students staying there. The babies were the first room we visited and there were at least 20 babies lying all over the floor. We immediately began to hold each baby and it brought tears to our eyes. One of the babies that I will never forget was two years old, but looked like she was 4 months old. Her mother had taken drugs that someone told her would help her abort the baby. The drugs were not successful and so her baby was born unhealthy. The mother brought the baby to the orphanage and the orphanage had been taking care of the baby ever since. Even writing this post, I cry thinking of these children who are so precious to God, who are abandoned by the world.

As a small child I made a poster for school about my three wishes. The first one is that no one would go hungry. My second one was that every child would have a mom and a dad. My last one was for world peace. If you asked me my three wishes today, they would be the same. My prayer would be that no one in the world would die from starvation. Coming from a county where food is available for many, it is hard to be in a country and continent where people are literally starving to death. My prayer would be that every child would have a mom and a dad that they deserve to have. Working in the US with homeless youth and youth in the foster care system and working with orphans in Africa has really given me the chance to see the effects that the break down of the family structure has had on our children world wide. My last prayer for this continent would be that countries would have peaceful governments that took care of their people and lead in a way that put their people first.

These three wishes are big wishes, but I will dedicate my life to doing what I can to help out with these problems. It has been amazing to be with my sister in Africa and see her passionate about the same thing. It is an honor to be a part of this mission and a blessing to be on this continent yet again.


Benin Soccer Team:
We are staying at the same hotel as the Benin soccer team. We were sitting eating dinner one day at the hotel and all the sudden there was a large commotion out in the hall and then in walked the soccer team. We were told immediately that they were playing Ghana on Sunday and that it was the first game on the way to the World Cup. Kelli and I immediately knew that we were in for an adventure.

We were befriended immediately by a Benin man who spoke no English; they speak French. He wanted to be our friend and so he sat by us and smiled and told us to come to the game. We originally thought he was the team manager because he seemed to always be telling everyone what to do. We later found out he was the team driver. He then introduced us to the team treasurer and this is the man that gave us the tickets.

We met the team today in the hotel lobby and were escorted by the police to the stadium. The game was unbelievable. The fans were unlike any other fans we have ever seen and the enthusiasm was tremendous. Things got crazy when the two teams were arguing and screaming when they didn’t even speak the same language. There were also fans that were shooting off fireworks from the stands; lucky for us we were not close.

The game ended and we our friend that speaks no English found us a ride. We were immediately concerned because no one on the bus spoke English and there was a lot of commotion going on outside the bus. People were pounding on the bus and Kelli and I had no idea if we were even on the right bus. Finally the Ghana police got the people to move and we found a man on the bus that told us they were angry because they wanted to be treated special like the Benin fans that were on our bus. We thankfully made it back to the hotel and ate dinner with the team. Many of these players play in Europe and come back to Africa to compete on their national team for the World Cup.

African Mine

In Ghana there is a huge mining industry for gold. We visited the underground mines and were given a tour. The outfits were interesting to say the least. They had us wear long sleeve blue button up shirts, helmets with lights on it, large oxygen tanks that we never got trained how to use, and a large battery that powered the light. The most important part of our outfit was the knee high boots that we also got to wear. We hiked into the mine and went under ground 850 feet. I looked at Kelli and said, “What goes down must come up.” We were in for a real hike on our way out of the mine.

My favorite part of the trip was Kelli’s first interaction with the tour guide. Everywhere we go Kelli speaks to whoever she can find and asks them questions. The tour guide spoke very good English and so Kelli asked him to tell her all about the history of the mine. He responded, “we do it to make money.” And that’s all he said. I had to laugh because knowing my sister she wanted all the facts and this was a funny answer. She then did not give up and asked more questions and we found out all about the mining process. We were very impressed with their concern for their worker’s safety. This would be a VERY hard job and we admire the men who are willing to do this job to support themselves and their family.

African Church

We originally got dressed for church in our American dresses, but the hotel workers convinced us to wear our traditional Ghanian dresses that were made for us. Kelli and I changed into the dresses and were ready for church.

The church we went to was similar to American church in a lot of ways. We knew all the worship songs that they sang; there was more dancing, but the same songs. They also did the service in English, which was much different from when I went to 8 hour church services in Uganda and the pastor did not speak in English. The one big difference from America is that the service did last three hours and there was a book sell done by the pastor in front of the entire congregation. The pastor was getting ready to release us when all the sudden he began to ask the church who wanted to buy a book and had people raise their hand and pay money to him. We then found out that the books were not written by him. He said that although he was not the author of the book, he would autograph the books because he was licensed to do this. J There was also a baby dedication and everything was just like the USA until the pastor asked the mother to promise to make food and not send her kids to get “take away food” AKA fast food in Ghana. I do not know any American family that could promise that.