Red, our part time driver / welder, asked if we could help with the medical bills of one of his friends. We are not exactly sure who this man is but he was working under a big cargo carrying truck. He had the truck jacked up and the jack slipped off pinning the man’s upper arm under the truck. Red said that it took them more than 2 hours to free the man from under the truck. He said the man was fully conscious all the time and that he was screaming in pain! Red said that finally they found a big hydraulic jack of some sort and were able to lift the truck enough to get the man’s arm free! They rushed him to the hospital. Red said that when they pulled him out that his chest near his shoulder was swollen 2-3 times bigger than it should have been. Red said that he felt sure that the man would lose his arm. But the doctor said that the bone was only cracked but they had to do surgery to get the blood flowing back to the lower arm and hand. The man was in the hospital for several weeks. The family and friends contributed money for the surgery which cost 14,000 Cedis (about 1,400 dollars). The problem came when they discharged the guy; the bed and additional hospital fees were 3,000 Cedis (300 dollars). Red said that the whole family had given so much that all they could come up with for the discharge fee was 1,800 Cedis (180 dollars). Red made a plea on behalf of the family to the Child Center to see if we could help with the rest of the money so the guy can come home. Thanks to your generous donations for “whatever comes up”, we were able to give them the rest of the money they needed. Seriously, the man is lucky to be alive!
Today was wash day! It was a good day for drying clothes; we had a strong breeze all day and the high temperature was 107 degrees with a heat index of 119 degrees. It was amazing how quickly the clothes dried. Poor Steve was out in that heat again today; we were expecting Red to bring the poles for the monkey enclosure today so Steve hauled several loads of gravel from the back of the house to the front where we will be mixing the cement to set the poles. The worst part of hauling the gravel is that the gravel is hard because we have not had any rain so Steve had to use the pickaxe to loosen the gravel before he could load it. Normally, Donkey and Mr. Iddrisu would have dug the holes and hauled the gravel but both of them have hurt their backs so they are actually worthless when it comes to manual labor!
This morning Steve got 7 church benches loaded into the back of the green truck to take to the churches we will be visiting tomorrow. We got the aluminum foil put on the passenger side windows to try to keep us from having a heat stroke! The truck has air conditioning but if the roads are bad and Steve has to drive slowly the air conditioning cannot keep up with the heat. Our trip tomorrow is the furthest place that we visit.
Take care, please keep the work in your prayers.
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
Today was almost a good day! The first half of my day was wonderful. After lunch me and Mom laid down and took a nap; Dad was sleeping too but I was sleeping on top of Mom; it was the loveliest nap ever! I woke up before Mom did so I got close to her face and started picking at her face; I tried to look up her nose and I tried to pry her eyes open but she continued to pretend that she was asleep! I could tell that she was not asleep but that she was ignoring me! I then got under her neck and started giving her “monkey kisses” which are not really kisses; they are just little nibbles and bites that do not hurt but they just let her know that I am still around. Well, when she did not get up after the monkey kisses, I started biting her hands and getting aggressive! Mom was having none of that and told me to stop and pushed me off the bed! That was all it took to bring out my aggressive side and I jumped back on the bed to retaliate for the insult I had just received! Mom warned me but I did not heed the warning and ended up in the time-out box! It took 2 tries for me to get out of the box because I am supposed to put my hand in Mom’s hand to get out but I decided to nip her hand instead and darted past her and was free in the bedroom. I ran into the bathroom; Mom shut the door and at that point I knew I was in serious trouble. This time when Mom told me to give her my hand I did it very quickly and started making my apology noises but I still had to go back in time-out but the next time she told me to give her my hand I behaved beautifully and we had a nice reunion!
I don’t like getting in trouble!
Love, Skeeter
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