We tried an experiment this morning. We tried instant Fufu. Fufu is sort of a dough ball made from boiled pounded yams. Sometimes green plantain or coco yams are added. Fufu is the national dish of Ghana. Yesterday we stopped at a little store to buy a coke and we saw the instant Fufu sitting on the shelf. Zorash was with us and we just could not resist trying it even though we doubted that it would be as good as real Fufu. It takes a couple hours to make real Fufu from start to finish and the instant Fufu is only supposed to take 6 minutes. I got up earlier than normal this morning to cook the palm nut stew we were going to serve over the Fufu. When Zorash got here we started the Fufu. We were so surprised; it turned out beautifully and was just like the real thing. We made bowls for the rest of the workers. Everyone loved it. We plan on buying some to take home.
Today is the first day of the monthly classes for the evangelists and church leaders. Steve has not gotten back from class yet.
John Nchola, one of the paid evangelists stopped by for a visit before he went to the class. He brought one of the church members with him. The young man’s name is Simeon. He wrote Steve a letter and told him that he wanted to start attending the classes but he had no money for his transport to come to the class. He was appealing to Steve for assistance. Of course Steve told him that he could come to the class. A round trip bus fair to his village cost about $5 dollars. That does not seem like a lot to us but the minimum wage is not even $5 dollars a day.
Simeon also asked us if we would loan him money against his soybean crop. He said that he wants to get married and he needs the money to pay the dowry. It is difficult for some of the young people to get married because some of the fathers’ consider their daughter to be a “cash crop” and they want to get the best price for them. His future father-in-law asked him to raise the yam mounds in his farm. His father-in-law to be lives far away from him and because he will not be able to work the farm for him he has set a dollar amount of 500 Cedis which is about $125 dollars. We make it a practice not to loan money for weddings or funerals because there is no way to get our money back so we went to “Plan B”. We asked Simeon if he was strong and willing to work? He said he was. We hired him to cut a bush road across the back part of the mission property and to weed the fence row and to cut fire belts around the electric poles. We have to get the path cut so we can use the motor king to haul the gravel to fix the broken down cement wall. He is also going to spray both sides of the path for weeds. It will take him about 3 or 4 days to get the work done if he works really hard. We need the work done and he was more than happy to do it. Isn’t “love” a wonderful motivator?
Take care and have a great day.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
