We are waiting for Divine to get back from Tamale. He went over yesterday to do some business for the church. We were at the bus stop this morning at 6:00 because Divine did not have all the papers he needed. Luckily we had copies at the mission house. We put them in an envelope with Divine’s name and telephone number. We gave the envelope to the man selling the tickets and paid for it to be taken to Tamale. I was suspicious that it would get lost but it arrived a couple hours after we dropped it off. Steve phoned Divine with the name of the bus driver and the bus number. He was waiting at the station in Tamale when it arrived. It is a pretty good system! Later in the afternoon Divine ran out of money so we went to a man that sells cell phone units on the side of the road and gave him the money and paid a little fee for him sending the money to Divine. This is all done thru the cell phones. We did not get a receipt for the money we sent but the man recorded it in his book. Talk about a scary way to transact business but everyone is using MTN money and it seems to work out just fine. Moments after we gave the money to the man on our side Divine phoned to say that he had a message on his phone that the money had arrived and he was headed to a cell phone unit seller in Tamale to pick up the money. Imagine that! There are cell phone unit sellers on every street corner and you can pick up your money from any of them as long as they are sitting under a yellow umbrella with a sign that says “MTM Money”.
We got all the cards and charts for the Child Center counted this morning and Steve finished writing the Social Welfare Report. We still have to finish editing it but the lion’s portion of the work is done. This year we gave away 699 cans of formula and 371 cans of cereal that is fortified with milk and vitamins. This year we saw 1,453 new babies. Of that number there were 72 sets of twins and 4 sets of triplets. We continue to be amazed at the number of multiple births there are in this area.
This afternoon we ran around town buying supplies for the Child Center. We are trying to get everything bought up so that the Child Center will run smoothly while we are gone. Even when we are in the states the Child Center still functions like normal.
We have been very busy today so while we were in town Steve bought a barbecued guinea fowl for our supper. That will save me from having to cook.
Red the part time driver, stopped by for a visit today. He said that right now there is not much work for him hauling gravel. People have stopped building and gone to the farm. We told Red that we had a project that we wanted him to consider doing. Asana an 18 year old crippled girl would like to have a handicapped tricycle to ride around town. She has a wheel chair but she would love to have a tricycle. A few years ago we got one that the crippled leper no longer needed after he got an artificial foot. We put it in the shed to have for a pattern. We pulled it out today and Red is going to get an estimate of how much it would cost for him to make one. We are excited!
Take care and have a wonderful day!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
