It was a long rough trip this morning. Our destination was the village of Tombu located west of Saboba. Saboba is located near the eastern border of the neighboring country of Togo. The trip was rough because the road to the village is in terrible shape. It took two hours of dodging potholes to get there.
Kandie knew it was going to be a hot, sunny ride so she used some aluminum foil to cover both passenger side windows to reflect the light and heat. It worked. We did get some strange looks as we drove by but the truck stayed cooler because of it.
After arriving and greeting the brothers, we walked over to the chief’s house to pay our respects. Kandie saw a grinding stone at the chief’s house that she would have loved to try to buy but it weighed too much to take on the plane. The chief got a kick when he found out why Kandie wanted it.
We noticed the chief had a cow tied up in the area under the trees where we were sitting. He said the cow was to be used during a funeral later this month. Now those of you who have raised cattle would immediately see this cow is very small (approx. 400-500lbs.) and skinny as a rail. I was inquisitive about the price they had to pay for this small animal. The men sitting around the chief said it cost 7,000.00 Ghana Cedis. That is equal to $700 US Dollars. This will not be the only animal they will use either. It is believed if a family doesn’t kill a cow for the funeral, they are disrespecting the dead person. One thing is for sure; it is killing the economy of these families when the average wage is $2 a day. No one wants to be called “wicked” around here and that is what family and neighbors would say if you didn’t spend this big money for a cow.
During Bible class Timothy taught about the dos and don’ts when a Christian attends a funeral. This was especially a timely subject for the village. I neglected to mention the neighboring congregation from Bungbali was also in attendance this morning. Since Timothy’s class was long, I taught a short lesson from 2 Timothy 4:2 about preaching the word. It was a hot day and we were glad to be sitting under shade trees for the service.
After the close of service, we sat down and ironed the matching funds we had agreed to help each of the congregations with towards building their new buildings. Forty-five minutes later we were served a meal of TZ (stiff cornmeal dough) and some fish stew. Lucky for Kandie and I, the stew wasn’t fishy but even if it was, we would have still eaten it out of respect for our hosts.
It was nearly 4:30 this afternoon when we arrived back at the house. All of us were road weary.
We were back out to Kulkpeni at 6:30 tonight for bible study. I will have to admit both of us were tired. My bed will feel good tonight but we have to go to Tamale tomorrow so 5:15 am will come too quickly!
Hope you made it up in time this morning after the change of time. 😊 May God bless!
In His service,
Stephen and Kandie Taylor
& Skeeter
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