Blessings

This is Mayzee who was so accommodating, and waited to be born on her Grandmothers Birthday. So far her Mom and Dad said that she is a very good baby, but it is only the first week, they change fast from good sleepers to not so good sleepers.

Terry and are going to small town about an hour from where we live. The name of the town is Naswam and it is in a nice area, out of Accra. We are there to help and support this branch that is almost a ward. We have gone 3 weeks and asked what we can do to help. The trouble is many of the members speak Twi which is the main language here, except the government has said that English is the official language. In the small towns, many older people, women and small children only speak Twi. We are coming to love the people although it is still very hard for us to understand them. In this Branch that is the case.
Last week I was with the youngest class in Primary about 2-4 year olds'. It was like herding cats, since I could not understand them and and they could not understand me. This week I decided to some different things, we played duck duck chicken (I could not explain Goose, they have never seen a goose) Ring around the Rosy and of course the Hoky Poky - They loved it - they don't play games and they really liked it. Then I got out a coloring page that I had printed out and crayons and we colored on the floor as there are no chairs nor table, they had never done that before and they just loved it. We are trying to learn 5-10 new English words every week. It was just amazing how exited they are about small things.  Sometimes it is hard in the Branch because the babies cry when we get close, they have never seen white people before and are scared.

Last week we saw a group of young man standing outside of a store that has groceries on the first floor and other household things on the 2nd floor. They were standing in line and every couple of minutes the front would move to the back and everyone would move up, it was very orderly compared to the traffic. This is the way they could see their national soccer team playing on a TV by viewing through the door window at the screen in the store.

Saturdays are usually an adventure,as one must go to two or three stores to find some basic Obruni food. We thought we'd loose weight here and did at first but we eat so much carbohydrates that we seem to be staying the same, peanut butter and jelly is our common lunch fare. This Saturday we will be going out to the Branch so we can transport the Branch President and his counselor out to visit some inactive members. They are very serious into the Rescue effort.  As far as we can tell we have the only vehicle in the Branch. Transportation by Tro-tro is not what we would call expensive in our world but in these good people's it can be much of a days wages, if they have a job.That is probably one of the biggest problems in Ghana, there is very little employment.  As far as we can see China is pouring a lot of money into the country, and receiving the benefit of much of their resources.  Several of the engineers we have met are from China, one we know has joined the Church since being here.