We met up with the carpenter about 1:00pm which meant we had to postpone our lunch until after we went to the lumber yard and paid for the boards. Timothy found someone with a motor king that was willing to haul the boards for us. We have been struggling to hire a motor king because we are in the middle of the peanut harvest and the motor kings are very busy. We thought that we might have to make a bunch of trips and haul the lumber ourselves so we were happy when Timothy found someone to haul for us. Steve loaded the facial boards in the green truck and brought them back to the mission house. Mr. Iddrisu will paint them tomorrow.
Tomorrow we are meeting with some of the church members at Kulkpeni so they can help dig the trough that we will use for dipping the boards. This morning, I sewed plastic sheets together to use as the lining in the trough. We will dip the boards in a mixture of Dursban and water. The carpenter said that he would hopefully start the roofing on Thursday.
This afternoon Timothy told us that his niece was in the hospital and that the family had run out of money for her diagnoses and treatment. The doctors want to do additional tests; and the test are very costly. We told Timothy that we needed to know what kind of test they were doing before we could help. We told Timothy that we had not even seen the girl but we figured that she had Hepatitis. Timothy was surprised when we told him what we thought was wrong with her. No one in Ghana can connect the dots; Timothy’s brother has Hepatitis. Sanitation is none existent and communal eating and drinking lends itself to the spread of all kinds of diseases. Sure enough, when his daughter sent the lab request; they are testing her for Hepatitis B and another type of Hepatitis. Timothy said that her belly was seriously swollen; she is about 19 or 20 years old and has just gotten married. We told Timothy that if they don’t take care her husband will be the next one with it. After we found out what the tests were for we gave Timothy the money to send to his niece.
This morning, we started cutting the scraps of fabric into manageable pieces. There are a ton that still need to be ironed. While Meri and Amama ironed, I traced the templates onto the fabric and Zorash cut behind me. We have quite the system going on!
Please keep us and the work in your prayers!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
About the time I think that Mom cannot come up with another dumb idea of how to make me eat overripe bananas she surprises me! This morning she peeled one of the overripe bananas and dumped it into my dry baby cereal. She presented it to me and said in that high pitched voice she uses when she is trying to get me to do something I don’t particularly want to do, “Skeeter, look what I fixed for you! It is a banana lolly pop!” Excuse me but a lolly pop has a stick on it and this was just a limp half peeled banana with brown spots that she had encrusted in dry baby cereal! You know I try to make her happy but sometimes it is impossible. I leaned over and took the tiniest bit; it was disgustingly mushy and crunchy at the same time! I had to say “No! Thank you”! It was worse than the banana cereal milkshake! Maybe she could feed it to Dad; Dad will eat just about anything! But I don’t think he will eat that! Mom finally broke down and peeled all the bananas and made a banana bread. Now isn’t that a novel idea? I told Mom that is what she should have done before she tried all the weird stuff! Even I eat banana bread!
A big noisy water tanker pulled up beside the mission house this morning; it was sitting very close to where we were working in the Child Center. I got so scared that I broke my collar and was running free all over the mission property! I did not know where to go first! I ran to the front of the house then I ran to the side of the house; I climbed the big mango tree and tried to climb on top of the house; I tried to get inside the house; I could find no place to hide! Mom and Dad did not know that I was running free; Amama saw me try to get in the house and she told the parents. I was never so happy to see anyone in my life as much as I was to see Mom and Dad walk around the side of the house calling my name! The moment the door was open I ran inside the house. I jumped into Mom’s arms; all the while I was clicking and trying to warn them of the dangers that were outside waiting on them! It took me a long time to calm down!
Pass me another slice of banana bread!
Love, Skeeter
