Adequate Advocate

The process of clearing (paying all necessary fees and physically emptying and transferring the items from the port) the shipping container was quite the arduous, time consuming, and stressful task mainly due to the corruption in the port.  Dealing with corruption and seeing raw evil, greed, stupidity, selfishness, hatred, dishonesty, and malice is very difficult when you are simply in a country for the sake of helping others and you know that all that corruption is ultimately not hurting yourself but those others in great need who you want so badly to help.  Ultimately, though, what a reminder of the true way to "help" others - not by just handing stuff to them but by teaching the Truth and helping transform the deep rooted character problems and sin from which stem the corruption and poverty in the first place. Praise God it's all over and we are now in the joyous part of utilizing the items for great good!  Here are some pictures to share with you from the clearing pr

From early morning when he gets up to go meet guys at the gym; to late at night when he works on his assignments for his last few college courses (or ALL night when he is traveling to clear the container); and all the hours in between, Attah has been BUSY!  Getting the daycare registered for official start up... Brainstorming ideas for expanding the gym business/ministry in this crowded, sprawling city... Co-teaching kids class during assemblies... Supervising the Junior/Senior High Learning Centers (including leading devotions and teaching one-on-one and helping students make graduation plans)... Completing his own education... Leading Bible time with our family... Plus heading up special music for evening assemblies (sorry, no picture!), clearing the shipping container (more on that later), and so many more little things from day to day!  He is diligent and excited about the opportunities for service and pray God continues to give good health to keep going!

Today is a good day to get over some food poisoning and update our blog!  This post is about Jessica and the kids.  The next will be about Attah's work. We are so thankful to be serving God, making a difference, reaching souls, and thriving as a family too!  Jessica has been teaching the youngest Learning Center in BCA for five weeks now.  It is a small but rambunctious class!  Two students are learning to read (halfway through the Learning-to-Read program already!), one is learning to speak English as well as learning to read, one is doing first grade schoolwork, two are at a preschool level, and one (Nile) is into everything!  Jessica is excited at the progress they are all making and loving doing what she believes her God-given talent is, teaching.  The students are enjoying school immensely and our kids are very happy to have good friends they see in school each day and also in Sunday school class (which Jessica has also been helping teach) and evening assemblies as well. 

Crime, especially theft, is so rampant in Ghana right now that it only took one day before we were also personally affected.  One of our suitcases was stolen right out of the van during a brief stop at a popular bus stop between Accra and Kumasi.  We stopped to use the rest rooms and when Jessica closed the back door of the van after retrieving some diapers from one of the suitcases, she heard one security guard say to another security guard in Twi, “Broni, aden na wa ye sa?” (white person, why are you doing that?).  He wasn’t talking TO her but ABOUT her for the benefit of the other security guard, presuming she wouldn’t understand, so she went on her way and thought it was nothing more than another display of bad manners.  After arriving in Kumasi and unpacking we realized there was a suitcase missing and the only time it could have disappeared was when the van was left unattended (except by those “security” guards!) at the bus stop.  How quickly Satan began his attack on our product

Destination: Kumasi Distance: 270 Kilometers (what we use in Ghana) approximately 167 miles Travel Time: 6 hours Traveling the roads in Ghana is always an adventure; not really a fun one, but necessary to getting the Word out.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that some construction work which was unfinished a year and a half ago was now complete and getting out of the capital city of Accra was pretty quick and smooth!  Yay!!! Hawkers selling snacks under the newly constructed overpass The kids were pretty happy to not have to be in carseats.  Better hold on tight, though!  Bumps ahead!  Then we hit the part where construction is STILL going on.  We tried to take pictures but you just can't FEEL all the jarring bumps when you look at a picture, so it really doesn't do justice to the actual state of the roads!  This is the major highway between the two largest cities in Ghana! We saw very few private vehicles.  It's car-suicide to drive your vehicle o

With the help of many great volunteers,  ALMOST all of the generously donated items were loaded in the shipping container last week, including very precious cargo - jars of Grandma’s homemade peach jam!   That’s like liquid gold! :)  We will be praying for the container’s safe and timely arrival to the port in Ghana after a few months.  Meantime, we packed up our bags (13 suitcases and 9 carry-on pieces to be exact!) and said our good-byes to dear ones and goodbyes to beautiful America  and headed for the airport on Sept. 10th.   God blessed our travels with a smooth check-in of all our luggage; no glitches with paperwork; timely departures; and opportunities to sleep on the plane (Zion slept a pretty good night’s sleep on the floor of the first plane and it wasn’t until the very end of the flight that the attendant noticed him and said he wasn’t allowed to do that, don’t ask me why - as a kid I always put a blanket down and slept on the floor while a brother or