One of the brothers from Kapande came to the mission house this afternoon. He brought a gift for Steve. He said the church heard that Steve had not been feeling well and they sent him a gift so he would know that they were thinking about him. They were talking about the episode of memory loss he had in May. He assured the brother that he was doing fine and told him to take word back to the congregation that he had not had any more problems and that the Doctor could not find anything wrong with him. They brought a gift of a dozen large yams that the farmers in the congregation donated and a big fat rooster. These people are so very poor yet they sent Steve a gift! Is that the sweetest thing you have every heard?
In turn we wanted to do something nice with the rooster. We considered our options and decided to re-gift the rooster to a very poor older lady we buy bread from. She sits beside the road leading to Yendi. She works so very hard selling bread. She walks with a limp; her hip hurts her. I am sure that if she was in the states she would be a candidate for hip replacement but they don’t do much of that here. We do not even know this lady’s name; she is just our friend! Steve doesn’t like to buy bread from anyone except her. When Steve showed her the rooster she was as giddy as a school girl! Bowing, clapping her hands, showing the rooster to her friends and obviously saying “Thank you” in her own language. She only speaks a few words of English and we only speak a few words of Dagbani but there is a saying that “everyone smiles in the same language” it was definitely true today.
This morning we had Mr. Iddrisu clean out the guard shack that a guard has never stayed in. We have used it in the past for a Bible / literature house but it is too dusty to keep books in. We decided to use it as a store room for the supplies for the Child Center and the extra paint and brushes. The room already has several tables and a bookcase. Last time we were here we had commissioned Red to make a metal door for the room and a metal door and metal windows for the well house. The termites are terrible so we decided to make “forever doors and windows”. Dawda, the mason is coming tomorrow to install the doors and windows so we wanted to get the room cleaned before he put up the new door. This afternoon Steve took the door off the hinges and took out the door frame. When we checked the doors to see how well they opened we found out that the doors would only open with the aid of a hammer. We called Red; he came and used the grinder on the doors and frames and got them working.
Red and his family are still going around thanking people for helping celebrate his father and sister’s funerals. Please! The funerals are killing these people. So much money is spent on funerals. We found out something interesting about funerals the other day. The people think that you have to cook enough food at the funeral so there is food to waste and throw away. Zorash said that if there is not food to throw away the visitors will say that the funeral was not a success and the people did not have enough to eat!
Take care and have a great day!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
