WHAT CAN I SAY? WE LOVE IT IN GHANA

I marvel at every day when I wake up and the first thing I think of is that we are in Africa, on a ship and have another day to glorify God. How awesome is that? Do I sound like a kid or what? I think you can tell by these pictures that we are getting into the swing again of being in Ghana. Fred is trying desperately to teach 4 white women how to play the African drum called the Djembe (pronounced Jimbay) I'm just glad this is NOT video with sound because we were and still are very very pitiful.


But what about these kids! Pam and I went to Pantang Village one afternoon to teach them that beekeeping could be a good thing for their village. That honey is high in protein and the products from honey can make a lot of different products they could use or sell for profit. The Mercy Team had already trained one of their women in the village to be a certified beekeeper and now we went to encourage the village to support her in her activities - - there is a natural fear of bees amongst the villages. When Pam and I got out of the car, like in every place we go, children come out of the woodwork. So we broke out in song and skits and the kids followed along. I played follow the leader and it was like herding cats because staying in a line is a foreign concept but we did it African style....all glumped together. I think you can tell by my face I was enjoying every minute. Ever wonder how you show a movie in the middle of the bush in Africa? You take a Land Rover about 3 hours north over the most bumpy roads imaginable. Disney has nothing that even compares. You hang a screen off the back, with a computer and a back-lit projector system which are inside the car you light up the screen first of all with Veggie-Tales because that gets everyone laughing and draws all the neighbors. Everything is run off of a generator. My department is looking into showing the Jesus film in similar ways at different villages as soon as we can relocate the generators that have gone missing.

Speaking of Crew Services, I'm very proud of my team. They have worked hard in attempts to raise funds for World Outreach Ministries, a pastors training school that has trained over 2,000 pastors for West Africa. I taught them that if we are trying to raise money we should sow the first seed. Once we did that and had two cinnamon roll sales we were able to buy them a good DVD player, cabeling and repair their generator. We are still looking for ways to raise funds by selling our services to crew to clean their rooms so they will pass inspection (passing inspection is guaranteed). We enjoy this ministry because they are the pastors that go with us to the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital and preach. We also can provide food, clothing, school supplies for the pastors when they go back to their villages and we are trying to raise funds to purchase land for new church buildings. If you are wanting to make a contribution please contact me and I'll tell you how to do so to make sure the funds get to this project. You'll probably hear more on this since we have many months here to make a difference.

Robert went to an orphanage last weekend to erect 4 swings and 2 teeter totters at an orphanage. This orphanage has only 30 kids currently but has plans of increasing to 300! Now that's a lot of kids and then they'll need more equipment. They already broke one of the teeter totters because we never thought they'd try to put 5 on a side. I guess the next one made will be out of steel pipe.

Check out the pictures under "New Photos" as I'm now having trouble getting more pictures to load in the text - - I'm not complaining but that's the problem when you live on a ship, if more than 2 other people are trying to do the same thing we are all kinda hung up for awhile.

I'll share with you next time our trip with Jessica to a beautiful waterfall called Akeaa and a live demonstration we got at an African bead designer. I guess a live demonstration is better than a dead one and what else would you expect here but African beads - Michigan beads just doesn't sell well here!

PRAYER POINTS

• A long-term librarian with great computer skills
• A full housekeeping staff (we've been working for about a month with 3 short)
• The church of Ghana to catch the vision that it is their responsibility to help the poor
• Release of the Africa Mercy from the shipyard in Newcastle UK