Ghana to West Africa

A while back, we received an invitation from a security guard at our complex to come to his graduation in the ministry.

Even with the invitation we couldn't find the place and finally had to let a man we flagged down on the street for directions to get in the back seat and direct us there.

Although this was not a revival, it felt very much like I have imagined one to be. Very loud!!

This man in the pink suit with the purple shirt had the ability to really ramp up the enthusiasm and volume.

We were the only obrunis, white dudes there and were invited to sit in the section with ordained ministers.

At one point a group of new Elders came forward and knelt in a circle and were surrounded by the ministers who placed their hands on them and ordained them.

After we passed the 5 hour mark and they began to preach heavy about the law of sacrifice and we saw the trays coming out, we asked Thomas and his lovely wife Esther if we could get their pictures and took our departure. We do admire their devotion and desire to follow and serve the Lord.

The next morning we attended a couple small branches and met with branch presidents to share information about the Gospel Literacy Program.

In their meetings, we felt the strong stirrings of "the still small voice" of the spirit. It can be quite a switch for many people when they come into the church, to leave behind the really loud "worship" and begin to appreciate the wisdom in the scripture, "Be still, and know that I am God."

That is surely one of the reasons we both have loved the mountains so much, to get away from all the man-made distractions.

One of the classes in the Adenta Stake with a great teacher.

Thomas (gardener) and George (security) are making good progress reading as we meet with them Wed. evenings at our apartment. They are inspiring and wonderful men!!

We traveled out to Takoradi on the coast about 5 hours west of here for a week-end training.

We often see this warning. It seems that speeding isn't a problem, but overspeeding will surely get you!

Here are a few pictures of the villages and shops along the way.

We saw a lady carrying a hug pile of bras in a pan like these on top of her head. Just one of the many pictures I didn't get.
Not sure how fittings work?

Electronics anyone??

This is the Best Western where we stayed. It doesn't look like much from the outside.

But the view from our window was gorgeous!

And because they didn't have hot water until the last day we were there, the showers by the pool came in very handy.

Being at the beach makes up for a lot of things and we took time to enjoy the ocean that evening.

Then we were on our way to the Mpintsin Stake the next morning for training.

Do you remember the poem by Robert Frost about the Two Roads that Diverged in the Woods?

Well, this isn't the woods but we did have to choice between two roads running side by side and we chose the one less traveled.

This time however, it didn't pan out so well as this is how the road less traveled ended, for a very good reason, which we don't fully understand.

So we went over to the muddy red road where people drive on both sides of the road, any direction and livestock is irrelevant!

The moral of the poem is still the same. We have usually taken the road less traveled and it has made ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

The stake training went really well, a really awesome group! These are the leaders and teachers who will now turn around and share Gospel Literacy with their wards.

Smiles of appreciation for the reading glasses.

On Sundays we follow up with at least one class to see if the training made sense to the teachers and if they are able to teach their classes well. This can be tricky when the group doesn't speak enough English for us to help out. (This group had 13 learners! In meeting with the Bishop afterwards, he's going to split them into two groups.)

In which case, we resort to the back up plan which is to let the teachers do their job and I hold fussy babies so at least the mothers can learn. It's a rough job but must be part of the job description somewhere in the fine print I'm certain.

It's funny to see babies all bundled up when we're sweating like crazy, but it's cooler than the hottest season, so mothers here bundle their babies.

The next morning we headed back towards Cape Coast where we met up with some of the other missionaries for a retreat at the ocean for a few days. (General Conference week again.)

We stopped first to tour the Elmina Castle, just one of some 50 odd in Ghana alone.

This is the oldest and largest in Ghana. I'll never understand why there were called castles! Slaves were kept for up to 3 months in dungeons like these until ships arrived to take them to Brazil, Caribbean, East Indies and the US.

These castles each have a "door of no return" through which slaves entered the ships in chains, leaving behind their homes, families and country, never to return.

Elmina is a quiet fishing village now, one with a sad history.

Not far away is Elmina Bay Resort and Coconut Beach where several missionary couples stayed and enjoyed each other's company while taking in the beautiful, clean beaches.

The next morning, we drove out to Kukum National Park

for the canopy walk.

I never get tired of seeing children walking to school in their bright uniforms.

The roads were worse than we remember, perhaps it's the season.

Notice the smiles on their faces.

Sampling some coco beans, the white coating around each bean is quite sweet. The beans need to be fermented, dried and roasted before they taste good.

"In the leafy tree tops the birds sing good morning"

What you do when there aren't mountains high enough!

This would not be complete without a few critters for the grandkids to see. Christian, our guide with a millipede in hand.

Ants on the move. We did fine getting around the ants when they were in a close group. But when they spread out and covered the trail, those who didn't step quickly had "ants in their pants."

Cute flower eating monkey, another for the grandkids.

On the way back we saw lots of coco beans drying in the sun. This is harvest season.

Mud huts are common and probably help keep things cooler in the heat similar to adobe.

On the way home through Cape Coast, Melania Trumps motorcade crossed in front of us, sorry no picture.

Cape Coast was lovely, but near or far, there's no place like home.

Back home in Accra, we were able to watch General Conference sessions on the internet from our apartment. Oh so wonderful!!!!

Recently Eidul-Adha was celebrated here and we got an up close look on our drives home. We had been noticing an increase in the number of cows in makeshift corrals all along the main roads and wondered what was going on.

"Feast of the Sacrifice is the second of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year. It honors the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God's command. But, before Ibraham could sacrifice his son, God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this, an animal is sacrificed and divided into three parts: one third of the share is given to the poor and needy; another third is given to relative and the last is kept."

We actually tried not to watch, but some of it was hard to avoid when it's right on the side of the road and we are sitting in traffic. There is some part of a cow behind the men.

Here they are using a burner to singe the cow head, hide and other parts unknown. We asked one of our students at the library if they shared a cow but they said no, it was too expensive.

Sunday brought us about an hour out of town on the outskirts of the Ofankor Stake.

It was a cute arrangement of buildings, probably a former compound of houses, now used for classrooms.

We enjoyed a rain shower during Sacrament Meeting and cool breeze blowing in through the open louver windows. As sometimes happens, they asked us to speak.

This is a small branch, but the enthusiasm was high on literacy.

Mid week a group of the Seniors went to the GTP factory in Tema where they print fabric.

The factory itself was fascinating, but pictures weren't allowed.

They did however, allow us to wander the archives and take pictures of over 80,000 samples that they have printed in the past.

I couldn't help think how like these patterns we all are. Each unique and splendid, no two the same.

We're seeing lots of baby chicks again, (not sure if there is an actual season for that?) This mother hen and her chicks on our walk to the library, right on the side of a major 4 lane road.

From our apartment window, Chuck sitting with George at the gate to help him catch up on his reading lessons. He had Malaria and missed a couple weeks but continues to make good progress.

Although we've gone through 1,000 of the new manuals, they have still been under revision as we have consulted back and forth with the Heckels and Literacy group in Salt Lake about things we are struggling with here in the real application.

An exciting moment was when we ordered and received 2,000 of the FINAL revision of Book 1. An old Engineering joke from Chuck: It's time to fire the Engineers and get on with the project. (We might have said that before...)

We gave out 140 of these at a training for the Adenta Stake, best attended so far with 9 of the 10 wards represented.

As a team with the Wakilds, we are feeling like each training is getting better and the teachers and leaders are understanding how to use the manuals to effectively teach their students.