We slept hot last night because something is wrong with the air conditioning unit in our bedroom. This is the same one we had we had a new compressor put in during our last trip. We were too tired to change bedrooms. We have moved into the spare bedroom so we should get a better night’s sleep tonight. The A/C repair man came this afternoon to check the unit. He found a leak which he says will be difficult to fix because it in aluminum and no one here can fix an aluminum joint. He will probably cover it with JB Weld and hope for the best. A new unit might be in our future!
Divine came to the mission house this afternoon with a problem; one of the children in his village fell out of a tree and landed on his head. He is about 6 years old and was at school when the accident happened. Divine is one of the teachers at the school. He said that they did not know that the child was roaming around. He had climbed the tree to get some fruit. When he fell he was knocked unconscious and Divine’s little pre-school girl saw him fall so she ran and told her mother, Gladys, that he had fallen out of the tree and he was dead! Gladys ran to the school yard and threw some water on him but he still did not come around. Divine said that he was barely breathing. No one takes a child to the hospital without the permission of their father. They sent someone to the farm to fetch the father. The little boy was still unconscious. There are no vehicles in the village but Divine has a motorcycle. They sandwiched the unconscious child between 2 men and transported him to the hospital. The Yendi hospital transported him to Tamale hospital by ambulance at the family’s expense. He was in the hospital for several days before he finally woke up. He is now at home and doing better. When Divine came to visit us today he brought the child’s father with him. The family had run up a large bill with the ambulance, the hospital, medicine and food and had to borrow money from Divine. They wanted to know if we could help with the cost of the treatment. The child’s father had sold his soybeans to pay for part of the cost. He tried to give Divine the corn he had harvested to pay his debt but Divine refused to take the corn because he said if he took the corn the family would have nothing to eat. Thanks to your generous gifts to the children we were able to pay his debt and give the family enough money to take the child back to Tamale for his checkup. Can you imagine being so poor and having an ill child and not knowing how you were going to help your child?
We had several other visitors today. It is amazing how quickly the word of our arrival spreads! We met Gomda, the vehicle mechanic on our way into town. He stopped to say Hi! He said he was so happy we were back because he no longer considers us his friends we are now his family; we are his mother and father! How sweet is that?
Take care and thank you again for everything you do for us and for the work!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
