BE THANKFUL FOR WAKING UP

BE THANKFUL FOR WAKING UP

Being thankful for waking up this day is a common theme that runs through every prayer said by our Ghanian friends. It is good to be reminded of such a beautiful and simple blessing of the Lord. If nothing else, God is teaching us here how to be thankful for the small things. We see funerals every Saturday and Sunday here. Apparently, regardless of the day you die the funerals start on Friday where all friends and family wear clothes of red and black, on Saturday they wear all black and have the viewing of the body and by Sunday everyone wears black and white clothes and they party like there is no tomorrow with drums, dancing and words of praise as they CELEBRATE the life of the departed. It reminds me of the 3 days from the death until the resurrection, the first day with the blood sacrifice (red clothes) the second day where the disciples were in mourning and fear (black clothes) and the day of resurrection with the white clothes and the joyous celebration.

I may have said this before but Ghana truly is full of the nicest people you would want to meet. It is 63% Christian but with very visible signs of a Muslim population. The call to prayer is heard in town over the loud speakers, mats come out and there are several Muslim schools in our vicinity.

The Engineering Department is taking on a project to build a playground for a local orphanage of which Robert is really looking forward to be part of. He saw the drawings and Midland’s Fun Zone will be matched here in Tema. This one will have a jungle theme to it, thatched roof, natural woods, zip lines and towers.

Crew Services was visited this week by a pastor that needs some help with his bible school. He has already trained 2000 pastors and have sent them out to all the countries of West Africa. He lost the lease on his school. We are still formulating a possible plan of how we can help him so stay tuned for more information.

Robert feels very much called to have a ministry amongst the dayworkers or those Ghanians which the ship hires while we are in port to fill some of the jobs we do not have workers for. The other day during lunch one of them, Patrick, came to Robert looking for someone. Robert left his lunch trying to help him find this person. Small thing don’t you think. Later Patrick spent about 10 minutes with Robert telling him how grateful he was to him because he took the time to help him and didn’t just send him off looking in another direction as many people had already done. Patrick considered this a big big blessing – it makes you stop and think how small small things we do can effect another persons life and we don’t even know it. (In Africa there are more sizes than big, medium and small – there is big big, small small AND big small or medium) There are also more directions than right left or straight; there is straight straight, straight left and straight right. It’s got something to do with how soon you vere off to another direction but hang me if I can figure it out and I get lost everytime.

Susan and girlfriends went out to the market this weekend. Believe me it is not like Walmart by any stretch of the imagination but it IS more exciting. Some of the differences are the noise level, these markets are along the streets where everyone thinks it is impossible to drive a car without talking to you with their horn. Then there is the smell of VERY VERY freshly slaughtered meat hanging in the heat - - humm, nothing better than that! I pray everytime I go through there not to throw up and please Lord don’t let me see anything being killed. So far, so good. The fun part for me (not so much for Robert or most of the men; I guess that’s why the women go alone) is when you get off the streets and back into the “underground markets” - - it is just thousands of minature shops all jammed together so tight you think you are in a building but you are not. The people are very friendly and love to talk. You can play with their children while you shop so shopping can take a very long time. I get a real kick out of the kids running up to you almost out of a dare from the others just to rub your skin. We have been told we feel different and they are curious. The smaller they are the more wide-eyed they are when we bend down to talk with them. Some have never seen a white face and it will scare them at times. The girls were out buying fabric this day. One of the fun things to do here is pick out your own fabric and take it to a seamstress who will then make customized clothes for you for about $10. I’m going to see if they can understand the concept of an American swing jacket, something I love to wear back home as part of my business attire. Sometimes we get traditional African clothes made and sometimes we use African fabrics with Western ideas - - the real fun is in the communicating with the seamstresses, laughing about how they have interpreted your instructions and keep working at it until it works.

M y department is doing great, they have achieved so much this week by cleaning out all the public showers from personal items, all the freezers and refrigerators of old and unmarked foods and even the laundry rooms of personal items along with carpet cleaning one full deck this week. Carpet cleaning here is very difficult. First, we do not have a carpet cleaner and one buffer is ancient and hanging on and the other one the handle broke off and someone before I came put a wooden handle on it but it’s so short you have to bend over. Anyway, they have to throw down about a liter of soap water on the carpet, use the broken buffer to create the suds and then more rinse water (by bucket) and finally suck it up with a wet/dry vac.

The part of ship life that is not going very well here yet is our fire drills. Captain is not pleased with our performance so far so we continue to do them every week. This last time took us a very long time, we had one person not accounted for, someone fell and broke their wrist and although we were suppose to evacuate the ward of patience there were miscommunications and that never happened. We have a very effiencent and thorough Captain so I know these things will be corrected very shortly. It is all part of training a very new crew.

PRAY POINTS
Opportunities to minister to both crew and dayworkers on a daily basis.
God-appointed friendships with the local people
Continued health and safety

Thank you for your friendships, love and prayers. Your financial support over these past two years have made so much possible and we are eternally grateful for your faithfulness.

Our phone number on the Anastasis is just a phone call to Florida because of our satellite system. Our number is: 954-538-4258, home ext. 2020 and work ext. 2820.

Blessings,
Robert & Susan Blanchard
M/V Anastasis
Tema Ghana