It was a bright, sunny day with lots of nice wafts of hot breezes in the air. At one time this afternoon I thought there might be a storm brewing because the wind really picked up like it does before a storm but nothing happened. It was so hot I looked at the thermometer and couldn’t believe it was just 111oF. It felt much hotter than that.
I had a guest out under the mango tree this morning. His name is Baba. He is handicapped and using a wheel chair but this morning he was riding a motorcycle. My mother and father-in-law, Royce and Cindy, had helped this guy when he was young so he feels comfortable coming to the compound. He lives in Tamale. He had come to a family funeral here in Yendi with 150.00 GH Cedis and he had used up all his money so he was coming to beg money for some fuel. The strange thing about this is I can believe he used all his money. Kandie and I have said many times that funerals here are draining the people dry of their money. It is mandatory as a family member to give your money for the celebration. If you don’t they will call you “wicked” and no one want that title around here even if it is true. I ended up giving him some money for fuel.
Before I went to the center I sent a small “U” shaped rear door latch piece with Nazo to take out to the welder just by the roadside. The man is a good welder but he likes to extract more than his fair share of my Cedis at times so that was my reason for sending Nazo. He only charged Nazo 2 GH Cedis so when Nazo gave me the extra Cedi I gave it back to him as a dash.
I was feeling much better today. Iddrisu asked to go to pay the monthly social security taxes right after the Center opened since there were not many women present. Things were going a little slow at first but we ended up seeing 39 babies after all was said and done. There was another little 5 month old girl with a hair lip/cleft pallet brought this morning. The baby has been here before; back in October of last year. The mother was breast feeding her back in October but today when she came she said had stopped shortly after her visit. The mother has been feeding the little girl Lactogen that is mixed up and carried in a plastic bottle like a baby bottle which is a taboo around here. I still cannot figure out why you would want to pay big money to buy formula when you are so poor and God has given you your own supply for free. We strongly encouraged the mother to go into town and sign up for the surgery repair. This little girl is really sweet and she will look just fine after getting the surgery to repair the hair lip.
There was another mother that came today that had mastitis and had gone to the pharmacy to get medicine for the ailment. Her health insurance had expired so she couldn’t get enough of the medicine that she needed for the full course. I had some small money in my pocket so I gave her the equivalent of $1.50 to finish out her med. We thank all of you who give us money to help these babies and their families. A little money can go a long ways around here.
Late this afternoon I roped off a 10ft x10ft area near the other water tank so the mason will be able to know where I want him to build the concrete platform.
Have a good day! Keep us in your prayers.
In His service,
Stephen Taylor
