The Yendi notes today are coming courtesy of Rusty Johnson.
The theme for today was “Seminar starts tomorrow”. The morning plan was for Steve, Perry and me to head to Divine’s village to pick up the three pigs we purchased to feed the attendees at the seminar. We left at 6:15 and the plan was to deliver them to Kulkpeni by 8:00am. Well plans in Ghana don’t always work as one would hope. When we made it to the village we found our three pigs that were in a state ready to be transported to Kulkpeni. However one of the pigs was very small so Steve decided we needed another one. We found the man who sells them and he lead us down about a mile long path to where he had several more pigs. After some negotiations a price was agreed upon. This pig was still breathing so there was some work needed done before he could be transported. I will not go into detail of this work, but I do have it on video. Needless to say we transported the four pigs to Kulkpeni and we were only about one hour behind schedule. It did make me long for some bacon.
Once we got to the mission house Steve got a call from Nana Bekum and one other evangelist who’s name I don’t remember. They had made it to Yendi and wanted a ride to Kulkpeni. They said they were at the community center. I knew where that was so Perry and I took the old van and headed to pick them up. Well, they weren’t at the community center. We figured there were only two white guys in Yendi driving around in a van and that they would eventually spot us and flag us down. After one trip around the block, they found us. So we made our second trip to Kulkpeni.
Once we got back from that, Timothy called and said they needed lunch for 21 people. I told Steve I would be glad to carry it out there but I didn’t think I had enough Ghanaian skills to actually purchase the meals. He and I hopped in the van, ordered the food from this restaurant and I dropped Steve back at the mission house before my third trip to Kulkpeni. A quick word about the restaurant. While the food is actually tasty, let’s just say it would not pass one of our health inspections. I’m pretty sure having a couple of goats walk through by the tables would cause the inspectors some concern.
Once we made it back, Kandie had lunch ready for us. As usually it was excellent and the conversation around the table was great. We got about an hour’s rest before heading out for our fourth trip of the day. This time we had light bulbs for all the buildings, a sign to hang over the church building, and some more supplies. While Kandie was over coordinating some things with the cooks, Perry, Jack and I entertained about 50 kids and 20 adults with some simple tricks we knew, like pulling a coin out of a kid’s ear. They were all amazed and couldn’t figure out how we did it. We showed them how we did it, lest they think we are into some kind of Juju.
Of course, we didn’t get all the supplies they needed, so Perry, Jack and I headed out again to Kulkpeni. The ladies cooking needed some aspirin. I have to say, after butchering four pigs and cooking over open fires and big pots, I think I would have needed some also. Kandie instructed us to put the aspirin in Rita’s hand. Jack was giving them to this one lady, and I kept telling him, that’s not Rita. (Rita is Timothy’s wife). After about a minute Rita showed up and was laughing. Rita speaks very little English. We think she was telling us it was her sister from the same mother. I will say, they did look just alike.
Tomorrow the seminar starts. This is such a big deal for these people. You can tell they are all very excited about. Last year they had 433 attend. The evangelist say there will be more this year.
Please continue to remember all of us in your prayers.
In Christian Love
Steve, Kandie, Jack, Rusty & Perry
