Wednesday, November 4, 2009

This morning is our last day to go into the schools and present the Book of Hope. Our last day to share the love of Jesus with these children. How fast the time has gone by. Up for breakfast at 6:30am and on to the bus and leave at 7:30am. It is a long drive.

Today, we are going out in the countryside to the villages we went to on the first Friday night to show the GodMan. We were planning to go to three schools and give out all of the remaining gifts we brought. We arrived at our first school at 9am and starting in playing with the kids as they were assembling for our first presentation. Our first presentation was to Junior High students. We were welcomed and then Francis had each one of us introduce ourselves. We began taught them the "Hello" song and everyone, from the staff to the students, had a good time with it. We then performed the skit "Walk of Life" and the kids really enjoyed it. Kevin gave his short testimony and then we decided to give out some salvation bracelets with Kevin telling them what each bead represented on the bracelet. After that, we presented the Head-Master with a copy of the Book of Hope, a new Bible and a soccer ball. Kevin then presented the copies of the Book of Hope to the Teachers and then to the students. Once we finished with the distribution, we walked across a large field to the primary school...same compound but separated.

We did basically the same program as with the junior high but didn't do the "Walk of Life" skit. Pastor Norman, of the local AG church, accompanied us to each school since he has a vested


interest in furthering the gospel in this small community. These primary kids were very responsive and listened to everything we said. After the distribution, we were able to interact with the kids.

Pastor Norman led us across the street into another compound and another school. This one was
a junior high. We followed the same presentation as the last school, with the introductions, skit,


gifts and book distribution. This time David did the presentations instead of Francis or Kevin. We even had a group photo with the staff and some of the teachers.....They loved taking pictures with us.

We then loaded on the bus and Pastor Norman took us to another school. This school is where his church meets on Sunday in one of the classrooms. This is a very small school with less than a
hundred students. But that did not lessen the enthusiasm they had for what we did. We did the "Two Masters" skit, taught them the "Hello" song and distributed the bracelets and books.

After that school, we wanted to go to an elementary school so we could pass out the rest of our stocking hats. We had about 450 hats remaining. Pastor Norman took us to another school which was rather large. It was a primary and junior high school.....no real little one. But we managed to teach them the "Hello" song and distributed the books. Because of the size of the assembly andthe kids being a little hyper, we decided to go to the classrooms and pass out the books. While the books were being passed out in the junior high, we went into the elementary schools and passed out the books and also the stocking caps. We were able to distribute most of the hats. It was a little hectic because the kids would get their hats and run outside and then the other older kids would come and want a hat. We felt bad because we didn't have enough to give to the entire school. Well, we did the best we could. This was our last school and the end of our Book of Hope distribution.

We left the school and dropped Pastor Norman back at the school and headed to the restaurant. Today, we ordered the Peanut Soup....it is really good. We had the Peanut Soup, chicken, rice and banku. Very good. After we had finished eating, We surprised Kevin and Jenny with two

Francis' Mother made this one

cakes to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. Sylvanus also add two bottles of grape juice to toast them. We lifted our glasses and toasted them and Pastor Sylvanus prayed a wonderful prayer of blessing upon their lives. Jenny and Kevin cut the cakes and we all had some. Barbara had arranged for cake to celebrate...Francis' Mother had made a special chocolate cake for the occasion and Pastor Sylvanus had a cake specially made for them. We had a good time and we really enjoyed celebrating with Kevin and Jenny.

Happy Anniversary, Kevin and Jenny Brown!

After the celebration, we headed back to the hotel to rest. We arrived at a little before 4:00pm. We didn't get much rest because we had to meet at 5:30pm to leave for the evening service at Pastor Seth's church. We left and stopped by the restaurant and picked up our "to-go" food (we had just finished lunch) to take with us. Again, the church was a "Ghana" hour away so it took us an hour and a half to get to the church. We arrived right at 7:00pm, just when the service was starting. They marched us right to the front and on the "platform". We had a few songs of praise and worship and then they introduced Kevin. He, in turn, introduced each one of us. Kevin asked Rick to come forward and play his trumpet. It was well received. After that, Kevin asked Ashley to play and sing. They both did a great job and the people appreciated the songs. Then Kevin taught a good sermon on having "a good reputation"! He got wound up a couple of times and really began to preach. Pastor Sylvanus later told him that he taught a good message and finished preaching a good sermon. Kevin has really grown in his speaking since we have been here. The service ended in our team praying for some of the people who came forward and then all the guest pastors (there were four) closed in prayer.

We headed back to the hotel and arrive around 10pm. We got our dinner and went into the room to eat.....too late. We had our dinner and was ready for bed.

Thursday

Today, we leave Africa......but not until late in the evening. We had a breakfast call at 8am and we left a little after 9am to go change money and then we went to shop. However, Francis arrived with our shirts that we had made. They are very nice. Mine is blue with a fancy stitching around the collar area. However, they are on the large size. We may have to alter them once we get home. Very African and very cool. We haven't had an opportunity to do any shopping so Sylvanus and Francis took us to an area where we could get some carvings and other local crafts. We had a good time and spent about 3 hours geting souvineers. After shopping we went to the restaurant for lunch. Sara had prepared us a special treat. Sweet potato balls, octopuss sauce, shrimp, fried rice and talapia sauce. It was all very good. Then we had some fruit.

After we left, we went back to the hotel while Jenny and Kevin went with a lady to get measured for a dress and then to look for the fabric. We arrived, I finished my blog and getting ready to post it.

I am at the other Hotel posting my blog. This afternoon and tonight, we will pack our suitcases and at 6pm, we will load our suitcases and get on the bus for our final ride. We will go to the restaurant, have our last meal (Baked Talapia and broiled potatoes), visit awhile and then head to the airport and arrive arouind 8pm. We have a 11:30pm flight. We fly all night to Frankfurt and arrive at 6:30am. A 3-hour layover and then board our final flight to LAX and arrive at 12:30pm on Friday.

So, this will be my final blog for this trip. Thanks for traveling with us and sharing in our experiences. Of course, you have only seen a portion of the pictures.....I, myself, took 2500 pictures and all the other took a lot, too. So, until the next time..........

Love and blessings,

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry and Barbara

Monday, November 2, 2009

We were up and at breakfast by 6:30am. Toast and a hard boiled egg plus coffee. We had a short devotion and then we headed for our school for today. We stopped and picked up Betsy, who is one of the women that the ladies have been talking to about getting some African dresses. She will be assisting the ladies in dress and hat selection today. Today, we are going to a large school. This one is from K to high school. When we arrived, we saw how massive it was. Approximately 25 to 30 building, each housing at least 10 classrooms. This did not include the high school....it was in another section of the property. The high school was on a mid-term break so we were not able to see them. So, we just concentrated on K through junior high. We thought we were going classroom to classroom for distribution, which would have taken a long time for that many classrooms. Instead, Francis and Emmanuel convinced them to do assemblies. So we started. We split into two groups for the Junior High ages. We did the "Walk of Life" and the then distributed the books. The other group did the "Two Master" and distributed the books. We gave the schoolHead Masters a Bible and then each a soccer ball for the school. Next, we did a huge assembly of the elementary ages......several hundred. It was a little chaotic just because of the shear mass of children. The assembly was so large that some of the kids could not hear the speaker very well and were talking. However, we did the "Hello" song and the kids enjoyed it very much. After the song, we distributed the books and it went OK. After the elementary students, we went to the 'Little' ones.....Kindergarten! They were so cute and mostly well-behaved. A few classes were a little wild but we managed. It was a fun morning and we distributed over 3,200 books, bringing our total to over 20,000 books since was have been here. PTL!

As we were leaving the school, Emmanuel went into the high school to make arrangements for book distribution. They will distribute the books to the high school on Friday, this week.....after we are gone.

Once we left the school, we stopped by a hat place for the ladies, whose who wanted, to select a hat to go with the African dresses. Last evening, they had gone to Betsy's home to look at and try on some of the hats. Today, Jenny got her a hat.

As we were driving around Accra, we went by the "White House", the residence of the President. We then headed to lunch at JoeSal's Unique Spot....our restaurant each lunch and dinner. Today, we had pizza! It was pretty good.......everyone cleaned their plates.

After lunch, we headed to the hotel where we rested a little. This evening, we split up...the ladies went one way and the men another. The ladies traveled to Pastor Sylvanus' church. Jenny spoke to the ladies group. There were about 15 women plus our five. The men went with Francis and Emmanuel for a GodMan showing at an Accra Assembly of God church. This is the church of the AG district head. We had a good crowd and at the salvation message, we had three come forward. The people really enjoyed the movie.

Back to the hotel where the ladies had gone to the restaurant and had our food ready for us.....stir-fry chicken and fried rice. Then, on to bed for some rest.

Tuesday

Our transportation for the week has been the van and the Book of Hope truck following us with the books.


Our trip is going fast....only today and tomorrow of book distributions and one more church service Wednesday night. We will be leaving on Thursday night.

This morning, we went to three schools. The first school wasn't ready for us so they are going back next week. But we did get to see them exercise and do some PE-type of stuff.


The next school was a large elementary and junior high school. We were able to do some classrooms and some assemblies. Sometimes the teacher would combine two or three classes together and we would present the drama and books to them. We had a good time with them and they were very responsive to our skits and presentation. We did the "Hello" song for the elementary and "Walk of Life" and "Two Master" for the junior high students. In one assembly after we were finished, we looked back and saw some of the students doing the "Two Master" skit.

The next school was very similar in size....again elementary and junior high. The kids do not shy away from us.....just the opposite...they run to us and love to have their pictures taken. When you use the flash, they start giggling and laughing.l We had to split up and each team went into different combined classroom and did our skits and presented the book. We never want to forget why we are here....not to satisfy our needs but to offer Hope and a Promise of a better Life for each of the children. Most of the teachers and head-masters thank us for bringing the Word to the children and speaking of salvation and hope for the children. This is more of a Christian Nation than the United States. How I yearn for the US to return to it's roots and allow to do these things in our schools.

The last school was not scheduled and we had to have one of the boys (Issac) show us the way to the school. Once we arrived, it was almost identical to the other two schools. However, this one had a special building and one end of it was for mentally-handicapped children. We checked with them and they didn't want us to present the book. However, a couple of the kids came out and we got to interact with them. This school was very responsive with everything we did for them. And the teachers were extremely thankful for our talks and skits. A couple of them commented on the value of our presentations. It is very humbling to see how little they have and how little it takes to make them happy. The books, the Bibles and, of course, the soccer balls make them very happy. At this school, Jenny led a boy to the Lord right on the school ground!

After we finished the schools, we made a store run at the mall and picked up a few sodas and other things we wanted. Next, we headed back to Tema and to the restaurant. Today, we had baked chicken and broiled potatoes. For dessert, we had bananas and we had bought some peanut butter and we spread that on our bananas.....good....a little taste of home.

We returned to the hotel and we are free for the afternoon and evening. Yahoo....We need to recharge our batteries (body) as well as our camera batteries. So, a little blogging, a little snooze, a little ready and a lot of relaxation.

Here are a few pictures of some of the kids we encountered today.....ENJOY





















The bus picked us up at 6:30pm and we went to dinner. Tonight, PIZZA! They are allowing us to be a little selective in our food. After dinner, back to the hotel for an early night.

Tomorrow will be a special day to cap off the trip. We will be going out of the city into the countryside to take the books and spend some time in the smaller villages. Can't wait....until then.....

Love and blessings,

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry and Barbara