We left the mission house this morning shortly before 8:00 headed to Tamale. It is time to renew the Child Center’s certificate with Social Welfare. The report has to be given to the ministries in Accra. When we flew in last week we tried to turn in the report. Some things have changed and they said we had to have a cover letter for the report written by the top Social Welfare man in Tamale. The Social Welfare lady in Accra was very kind and gave Steve permission to bring the report back after we got the cover letter. Today was the first day the Tamale man had free to see us and write the letter for us. We were assured that the whole process would not take more than 30 minutes. Well we arrived at his office at 9:30am and we left at 2:15pm. He was very busy today because he was getting ready for the Minister of Social Welfare visit on Monday. He was running back and forth trying to organize the police and extra security. I would not have wanted his job today! He stuck his head in a couple times to tell us that he had not forgotten us. Finally he met with us and he needed us to buy a form and fill it out from his office. Well, the form we bought was not the correct form so he took mercy on us and used the original one we had turned in with the report. We also had to make a trip to the auditors and pick up the current audit. And we had to go to the bank and get a bank draft to attach to the report. He wrote the cover letter and gave us an envelope that was too small for our report. We had to go out and buy a larger envelope so he could seal it for us to take to Accra. Finally we left his office with everything we need, anyway we hope it is everything we need.
We went to the airline office and bought tickets to fly to Accra on Tuesday so we can take the report to the main office in Accra. If all goes as planned the officer in Accra will mail the certificate to us and we will not have to make a return trip to pick it up.
While we were eating our lunch at SWAD, a little outdoor café, we met a young couple and their 3 boys that were from Western Pennsylvania. They live about an hour away from Tamale in a village that does not have electricity. It was unclear exactly why they were in Ghana but they signed up for 5 years. They wanted to know where they could buy ASV (anti-snake venom) medicine. They also said that where they lived they had an over abundance of scorpions and that the father had been stung twice and all of the kids have been stung. We have scorpions but we only see them when we are moving blocks or cleaning up debris.
We got back in time for Friday evening Bible study at Kulkpeni. We just stopped on our way to Yendi. We did not go back to the mission house until after worship. It is 8:15pm and it has been a long day. We are pooped!
Keep us in your prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
