Back to Base
From America to Ghana
We have soo much to be thankful for! On the 19th of October we set off with our family of 8 people, 23 suitcases (not including personal items), a large double jogging stroller and a baby carrier and began our 30+ hours journey back to Ghana! Flights were smooth except for the fact that half of us were dealing with bad colds. The kids were good travelers and we are thankful everything worked out. We arrived in Ghana Saturday night and spent the night. It was good to be welcomed by Grandma and Grandpa and the Wonder family from Cape Coast. We assembled with the saints in Accra on Lord’s Day morning and headed up to Kumasi that evening. We had some car trouble so it took us a lot longer than we had expected. Just thankful everything worked out.
Getting settled- We’ve been working on getting settled- lots of unpacking, assessing situation at school, jet lag, shopping for necessities for our home, searching for a scooter to get around town, etc. Needless to say, when we’re not sleeping, we are working away.
We arrived to find ourselves in some difficult situations in Kumasi:
Ongoing run on the bank. The central bank of Ghana raised the capital requirement for all banks in the country. All who don’t meet by December will be collapsed. Many banks have been affected by this new demand and there many mergers in the pipeline. Unfortunately, the bank we use for the school account has been affected too. Many people fear their monies will be lost so are making “panic withdrawals” leaving the bank with no more cash to give out. So, they have put a hold on allowing any withdrawals. This has left our teachers unpaid for the past month and our school with outstanding expenses. We have opened a new account at another bank hoping to transfer the amount there so we can withdraw it to meet out expenses. For more info on this
Rioting campus: Around the block from us is the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. I went on campus to pay our internet bill so we could keep in communication with everyone not knowing there were demonstrations going on. Apparently a student was brutalized by a campus security guard and suffered serious injuries as a result. The students planned a peaceful demonstration which went south very quickly and turned into rioting mobs as they vandalized the campus, burned several cars and motorbikes, burned 5 classrooms down, blocked many roads with debris, etc. By the time I realized what was going on it was almost too late. The place was teeming with soldiers and policemen who were trying to restore law and order. At one point some were banging on the van and I was just praying they wouldn’t take their anger out on me for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thankfully I was able to drive thru the scores of people and the maze of debris blocking the road and made it to safety. Campus has been closed indefinitely and all students have vacated the premises except foreign students. This is the area we usually go for family walks in the evenings so please pray for peace to be restored soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbjCO6id6-A
Some pics from the protests on Monday
Projects: All projects have been put on hold for the time being until we are able to retrieve monies from the local bank. We immediately took care of the outstanding salaries of our teachers to sustain them and keep their morale high as they work with the kids. We hope to work on the container classroom project as soon as we can.
We are so thankful to be back home again on the field. We are thankful to all who helped make our furlough possible - from those who graciously lent us their vehicle for FOUR MONTHS, to all those who hosted us and spent time with us, to our friends and family who were a big encouragement to us, to the church families who encouraged and enabled us to continue the good work, and especially to God who made all these things possible, we just say a big THANK YOU!!!
My Jet-lagged cutie assisting me to write this :)
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