We are once again in Tamale. We had planned on coming over this morning; doing our business and then returning to Yendi late this afternoon but things did not work out as we planned. It is time to renew our resident visa. The immigration’s office requires a copy of the Social Welfare Certificate that proves the Child Center is duly registered under the Social Welfare Department. Well the problem is that the Certificate information has been sent to Accra for renewal and they will not accept last year’s certificate. Steve called Mrs. Hawa, the Social Welfare officer in Tamale and asked her to write a letter to the immigrations office and explain that there is no problem with the Child Center. She texted Steve this morning and said that she had meeting all week and the letter would not be ready until tomorrow.
We decided to not to come to Tamale until after the Child Center closed and spend the night in Tamale so we could be at the bank, Social Welfare office and immigration’s office as soon as they open in the morning. It was a good thing that we stayed in Yendi this morning because we had a very small 1.2 kg. (2.6 pounds) baby girl come this morning. The preemie clothes came in handy today; the mother and grandmother were happy with the clothes. The mother is very young and is still attending school. The baby was born at home. The mother and grandmother would have loved for us to give them formula so that the baby could be left at home so the mother could return to school. There are no age limits on when a person can go to school; the mother will have to wait until next year to go back to school because we try to only give formula to babies that have no mothers or have been abandoned.
Also Warihana’s father came back. He has been going from place to place begging for money for Warihana to get the next stage of the surgery she needs to treat the osteomyelitis that is affecting her leg. He said that he had not yet been able to raise any of the money that they need for the surgery. The surgery is scheduled for the 19th of September. We had promised him 800 of the 1500 Cedis needed for the surgery. We advanced him the rest of the money; he will pay back the money if and when he gets the money. He said that he had the money for their transportation and food while she was in the hospital.
We were able to get to the bank and get our non-citizen cards renewed. We were excited to find out that we could renew for multiple years. We had already paid for this year but we will try and renew for 5 years next time it is up for renewal.
Please keep us in your prayers as we are traveling around.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
