Today is the first day of the monthly class. Steve spent a good portion of this afternoon and early evening at Kulkpeni with the evangelists. Divine, one of the evangelist’s, is going to teach the church leaders and treasurers a basic accounting class tomorrow. Steve bought them all ledger books, pencils, sharpeners and erasers. It is important that they keep good records of the contribution not only for the church’s benefit but also for their own protection.
This morning Steve started teaching the continuing education classes for the Child Center workers. He finished the lesson on breastfeeding and would have finished the lesson on traditional medicine but we had a visit from Yendi’s social welfare officer. We were proud to see him because we need him to write a letter for us to turn in with our social welfare report. We really like this new man; he seems to have the best interest of the people at heart. This morning he told us about a case that he was working on in which he needed some help with. An 8 year old girl is being raised by her mentally ill mother. The mother decided that she needed to prepare some herbs to bathe the girl in. She boiled the herbs in a large pot and then she forced the girl to sit in the hot mixture. The girl got serious burns all over her private area and inner thighs. The child was taken to Yendi hospital by her grandmother. Yendi referred her to the big hospital in Kumasi. When the family found out that the treatment for the child’s surgery would be 2000 Cedis or about $500. They knew that they could not afford the treatment so they left the hospital and brought the girl back to Yendi. The social welfare man said that he would be able to get the money for the surgery but it would be difficult to find the money for transportation and food while the family is in Kumasi waiting on the surgery and recovery. Thanks to your generous donations we were able to promise to help with the transportation and food for the family.
This morning when Nana Bekum, the evangelist from the Chereponi district, came to the mission house he brought a couple brothers with him. They came to let us know they had finished raising the walls of their church building and were ready to put on the roof. We knew they were working on the building and were very pleased that they had gotten the walls up. Steve gave them the money for the wood for rafters, metal roofing sheets, nails, carpenter and transportation to get the materials to out to the village. Once again thank you to all of you who give us money for evangelism. Nana’s area does not get rain as soon as the Yendi area does; the brothers hope to get the roof on before the rains starts.
Take care and keep the work in your prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
