We were to meet Timothy at the motorcycle repair shop this morning at 8:30. On our way to pick him up we got a phone call from Timothy. He said the mechanic wasn’t around so he was on way to the compound to meet us when he passed us on the way. We told him to go to the compound and we would backtrack and pick him up. We drove back into Yendi and headed east on the road toward Zabzugu where we were to visit the congregation in the village of Salankuku. The road is much improved now . It only took 40 minutes to get there. It used to take 75 minutes because the roads were sooooo bad.
I was happy to see the church leader that attended the monthly class was using the flip chart about the life of Joseph. This same leader asked me on Friday if I would talk with a married couple in the Church who had just recently lost their first baby. What I decided to do was use scriptures to encourage the whole Church to understand that death and disease is a product of Satan caused by the lie he told to Eve in the garden. Here in the north of Ghana many people believe the death of a child can be caused by the mother if she walks in a place the people perceive as evil, sitting on a stone (the stone might have evil in it) when pregnant, watching a movie or T.V. show that have monsters in them, and so on. The villagers and family will needle the mother and father by saying if you hadn’t upset the ancestors by becoming a Christian this would have happened to the child. That’s harsh! After services Kandie and I encourage the baby’s parents by having prayer, advising the mother to take folic acid and multivitamins. It is also customary to give the parents sympathy money which I did.
After services we had question and answers and then Kandie shooed the men and boys out of the building so she could talk with the ladies. The Chief wasn’t in the village so we gave our kola to the linguist (chief’s spokesperson). We were about to get in the truck when the men asked to talk to us about their church building. They are working to plaster the inside walls and floor but they needed benches. We agreed if they paid for the plastering we would give them the money for 10 benches. The men were happy with the agreement. We even received a rooster and a large number of yams, and a bag of groundnuts before we left. Everyone was happy!
When we arrived back at the compound, we divided the yams with Timothy and he took off for home. We finished loading the van, locked up the house, then headed for Tamale where we are spending the night. We will fly to Accra tomorrow morning.
The hotel we are staying at doesn’t have wi-fi in our section so you will be getting this edition of the Notes on Monday. Sorry!
Hope you had a good day. May God bless!
In His service,
Stephen & Kandie Taylor
