Much to tell

Smiles from the library group. The founder, Kathy Knowles is visiting from Canada for a few weeks and we got to meet her. 

Her efforts have grown to include 8 community libraries in the Greater Accra region and have helped to create more than 200 libraries in Africa.

She had a library employee present "reading to children," which is a program that is being introduced to adults through the libraries.  It was a foreign concept to these adults!  We practiced reading in pairs with one person as the adult and one person as the child. 
They were thrilled to each get a book of their own.

A cactus at the library, just for our Joe who loves cacti. Does this help make up for the ones of yours that I threw away Joe? 

It's about ready to bloom. 

We didn't do a post last week because I felt there wasn't much to tell.  We get frustrated when we aren't busy and since this is a new program, it can be discouraging as well as thrilling. But, the program isn't going to be announced to the area until everything is in place so that the "launch" doesn't crash land. 

So in meeting with Elder Nash, he encouraged us to pray for the Publishing Group in Salt Lake and to pray to be guided in where we can serve in the meantime.

Those prayers had barely left our lips when we got a call from Rebecca who we met a couple weeks ago from the Dichemso Stake in Kumasi about 4-5 hours north of Accra. She was here visiting the temple and stopped by to ask for manuals. She had just been called as the Stake Literacy Specialist, which is the open door for us to do training. She called to say that they have 23 teachers called for their 13 wards and branches in the last 2 weeks and will be calling to schedule training.  Yippee!!!

Also the Heckels, who served here a couple years ago as the Literacy Specialists who wrote and are now revising the manuals with Church Publications, are making flight plans and will be here the end of May for 3 weeks for final assessments on the pilot groups, and training here and in Sierra Leone. So we will be going with, learning and training. "Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you."

We've been here long enough that we have established shopping patterns.  This is "the banana lady." Depending on traffic lights, we are able to stop long enough to buy bananas a couple times a week.  This week we bought a big bunch on Monday, passing along some to the compound guards. Then the traffic stopped again on Tuesday and this lady with eyes like an eagle can spot us right away. Here she is grabbing bananas to bring to the car window. When we told her we still had bananas from yesterday, she was sooo disappointed!! There really is a limit to how many bananas two people can eat!! And since she knows the other missionaries and they also pass along their extras to the guards, they are probably thinking the same thing.

We continue to follow up on literacy classes with individual wards on Sundays to provide support and additional training as needed. A week ago we managed to catch 3 wards on one day since they meet in one building at 8:00, 10:00 and 12:00.  

Today the former teacher is now in a new calling and the new teacher is a former literacy student, a phenomenal lady who is just teaching from the scriptures since her 4 students are good with the language but couldn't read.  She was excited to have some manuals though.  And we were excited to see this new teacher now passing along her excitement for reading to a new group of readers. She really was impressive!!  

Sorry, no pictures of these groups, but we did get one through the front dusty windshield of the main road to the church that is narrow and shared with pedestrians.

We did get a few pictures of a hike on Saturday with our friends the Hunts to a waterfall that we heard was about an hour away. 

I'm game for any place with green space.

Especially when there are cute critters involved.

I just missed getting a video of them going down a small waterfall. It was soooo cute!!

 

 

Our "guide" who decided to tag along with us after collecting our "entrance fee" was ready to sell us anything from orphanage support to papayas, bananas, you name it.

His braids, dreadlocks to us Americans, were tucked inside his long hat. I would love to have seen them. No doubt there would have been a cost associated though.  :-)  He was very nice!

 The waterfalls were a wonderful oasis in the tropical heat.

I could have stayed all day!!

  Daniel told us all about the "healing powers of the water that flows from Nigeria."

His one business that looked totally legitimate was "seat covers" that he sews with this machine, 

 Inside this building out in the middle of the jungle.

And he was willing to throw in a few cocoa bean pods for good measure.  It's always an adventure here in Africa.

About Gospel Literacy

The preferred way to  train groups in the Gospel Literacy is in a Stake Training consisting of leaders and teachers of approx. 8-13 congregations called wards and branches. Sometimes however, the ward leaders don't want to wait and come to us asking for materials and training as was the case with the Amasaman 2nd Ward. We have been working with their Stake President to call a Stake Literacy Specialist who is needed to keep the program self-sustaining but it hasn't happened yet and it makes no sense to do the training without them. 

So we went out to this ward to train 2 teachers with a new group of learners. 

This group was the least English speaking we have worked with, but one of the teachers jumped right in and was awesome!

Another male student came to join the class but is outside the picture. It's great when the men decide to attend as they have much of value to contribute, but pride often gets in the way. 

A gospel related "picture discussion," prayer and song bring the spirit of The Holy Ghost into the room and make learning so much easier. There is a huge difference between the groups we work with during the week at the library and the Sunday classes.  It is noticeable and amazing!

The first picture they discuss shows a woman reading or following along in her scriptures,  "By my power you can read them."

Doctrine and Covenants 18:36.  It is sooo true!!

The revised manuals will have color pictures, woohoo!!

The leased building was a rather "interesting" arrangement for a church.

But right off a main road, which we appreciate!!

Oranges anyone?

Packages to and from home only come in the suitcases of people coming or going to Ghana, at least the ones that actually arrive. Thank you Alex and Sarah for helping with the exchange of Ghanaian ties, these are 4 of the 9 ties that went to Salt Lake City, for nuts coming back. 

We understand that the 1,000 pair of reading glasses that were collected back in the states will finally be brought over with a     "Days for Girls" group. It's been a long, rather frustrating wait.        I highly recommend this Ted Talk about this group.

Simple solutions for Global Impact    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa_NyPa2qY4

Saturday was a training for the Lartebiokorshie Stake. It went really well with lots of good participation.  We and Wakilds will now go around on Sundays with the two Stake Literacy Specialists to visit the classes of these 8 wards to provide support and training for the teachers who attended as well as those who couldn't come. We learn more each time we get to do one of these trainings and come home very excited!!  Oh how we love these wonderful people!!!

Cape Coast

I was going to title this, "When the cats away, the mice do play."  But I'm not really sure if it's appropriate to call General Authorities of the church, "cats."   The area presidency all left last week for Salt Lake for General Conference, Easter and reassignments.  Our area president, President Terence M. Vinson has been reassigned to the presidency of the 70, and Elder Nash has been assigned as the new area president.  We were able to watch 4 of the sessions of conference live in the evenings and LOVED it so much!!  WOW!!

So while they were away, several of the area "mice" headed out to an ocean front hotel called Brenu Beach Hotel in the Cape Coast region. It was so nice to get away from the traffic and noise for a few day.

First stop was definitely sobering as we stopped at the Cape Coast slave castle where so many Africans from many countries were brought and held from 2 weeks to three months waiting for ships that took them away from their homes and families forever.

Our guide explained some of the history then led us down into a dungeon where these human beings were kept shacked with limited food and water and conditions we can't even imagine.

These plaster impressions represent the people of various African nations, the women first then the men.

They were blindfolded after they were captured as they were led to Cape Coast so that they couldn't see where they were going so they couldn't return to their homes if they escaped their captors.

This is called the "Door of No Return" because once they were lead out to the ships, still in shackles, they could expect never to return to their homes again.

Such a sad history!

Later that afternoon the group of 4 couples along with Joseph and Nephi met with Ato Ampiah (in the middle) an original convert of the church in 1978.  He did a church history tour for us.  
Joseph (on the right) is a intern working with the Executive Secretary couple to assist the area presidency, and his former missionary companion on the left is Nephi. 
They served in Nigeria together a few years ago and came with us on the trip. They were a great help on several occasions and remarkable young men.

Bishop Ampiah took us down to "baptism beach" where the first baptisms took place in Ghana for numerous people who had formed congregations as they waited for authorization from church leaders.

At his request we sang, "Come oh Thou King of Kings" which was a favorite song of the early members.

It certainly felt like sacred ground.

On our way to the hotel we passed hundreds of school children in uniforms, so many more than we see in Accra. I rarely saw a child without a uniform which was soo awesome to see!

If we slowed down to stop though, they would come running.

We arrived at Brenu Beach with, palm trees, clean beaches and the lovely sound of ocean waves!!

Natural lawn mowers.

Dinner on the beach and late night conversations, ahh!!

And walking barefoot in the waves.

The next day we went to Tulum National Forest, no the elephant isn't real, but there are elephants in the forest, we just didn't see any.

Our guide told us all about the interesting flora and fauna and kept us from getting lost.

We all loved the canopy walk high above the trees. It was so GREEN and QUIET, except for the lovely sounds of birds all around!!

It was lovely and good for the soul.

 Like so many Josephs, he deserves a blog post all his own.

                       This is just one tree with branching roots.

On the third day on our way home, four of us stopped to make some Batik fabric.  Notice the cell phone, pretty much everyone has cell phones, that much is universal. 

The foam stamp is dipped in wax and then stamped on the fabric.

It took place right in the "back yard" among small homes where the children played and neighbors mingled.  I couldn't take my eyes of this darling little girl as she played in the sand with her spoon.

After stamping a pattern on the fabric, the fabric was dipped in dye for about 20 minutes.

Then the fabric was dipped in very hot water to melt off the wax.

Then set out to drip dry.

Since the fabric needed to dry and we needed to eat, we attended a cooking class taught by Essie who gets her clients from Global Mamas, who we booked both classes through.

Fresh Ghanain salsa, no cuisinarts here!!

Also no electric or gas stoves, this was cooked with a charcoal fire, which is how she prepares the food for the restaurant she runs as well.

Yams with Palava sauce and it was wonderful!!  Yes, I have the recipe.

 And also Red Red, which is beans and plantain, another winner. 

Then we headed back to Accra, with it's traffic and noise, leaving behind the country life. 

But awaiting us were two more opportunities to do stake and ward literacy trainings with amazing, inspiring people, woo hoo!!  

OK, we'll stay!