The past two weeks have been like musical chairs... A group of college students from Lipscomb University arrived last week to organize a VBS, teach classes, and help with several small projects. With so many visitors the staff quarters reached their capacity and some of us went to live in the houses with the families. Two girls from the OC group and I went to live with the Prestoncrest boys for the week. Let’s just say it was an interesting week.
The water pipes in the house weren’t functional (so no toilet or shower) and Ghanaians like to rise VERY early so it’s a good thing we know how to be flexible. From my limited experience, I find that Ghanaians like to go bed very early – even my Ghanaian friends in the US. They go to bed around nine o’clock and get up around four thirty. And Americans, at least those of the college-age verity like most of our guests, like to stay up late. So we went to bed at the normal American time and woke up at the normal Ghanaian time... Meaning that we really didn’t get much sleep. You would think that we would learn to go to bed earlier, but we didn’t so I suppose we only have ourselves to blame.
The OC and Lipscomb groups visited families during the week they were both here. I did not accompany them, but got to hear some rather amusing stories about looking for houses. See, the groups had a list of house numbers for all the places they were supposed to visit, but the houses don’t actually have the numbers on them. So that made the process a bit difficult. To which I said, “Yes, welcome to Ghana.”
Lately there have been a lot of classes to cover. The primary one teacher is pregnant and due to have the baby very, very soon so we have been covering her classes. One of the primary two teachers needed to travel as her mother is in hospital so we have been covering that class from time to time. And the Lipscomb group also covered several Bible classes. So it’s been a busy week of classroom hopping. I am very glad that there were visitors this week because the teachers and I would not have been able to cover all the classes.
On Saturday, May 17th, we celebrated the dedication of a new house.
Although the house is not entirely complete, the Marrieta Barnet house was presented to the VoH community. Jeanine (Barnet) Rucker and her son John visited VoH to be part of the presentation and work with children who need special attention in reading. I am going to try to find the speech that the Managing Director, Fred Asare, gave during the dedication. He gave a brief history of the Village of Hope, the present status, and mentioned future goals for the orphanage. I knew a lot of the information from various conversations, but I had never heard it presented in such a clear past-present-future manner. It was very eye-opening so I hopefully I can find it.
The OC group left on Sunday the 18th. Seven days later, the group from Lipscomb also left. But we welcomed three more individuals throughout the week. On Tuesday night Brooke and Ross arrived from Reno, Nevada. My friend Jessica followed a couple days later.... In case anyone is keeping track, this brings us to a grand total of 5 Americans here at VoH. Having groups here is great. Sure, you get a lot of things done with more hands to help but they are also great for recharging you when you are feeling lonely or just a little weary. Having groups here is also a lot of work. It has been a long few weeks and while I will miss the energy and laughter, I am thankful that things will slow down as I prepare to leave. We will see if the pace slows down between now and when I leave. For some reason, I have this feeling that it won’t.
The water pipes in the house weren’t functional (so no toilet or shower) and Ghanaians like to rise VERY early so it’s a good thing we know how to be flexible. From my limited experience, I find that Ghanaians like to go bed very early – even my Ghanaian friends in the US. They go to bed around nine o’clock and get up around four thirty. And Americans, at least those of the college-age verity like most of our guests, like to stay up late. So we went to bed at the normal American time and woke up at the normal Ghanaian time... Meaning that we really didn’t get much sleep. You would think that we would learn to go to bed earlier, but we didn’t so I suppose we only have ourselves to blame.
The OC and Lipscomb groups visited families during the week they were both here. I did not accompany them, but got to hear some rather amusing stories about looking for houses. See, the groups had a list of house numbers for all the places they were supposed to visit, but the houses don’t actually have the numbers on them. So that made the process a bit difficult. To which I said, “Yes, welcome to Ghana.”
Lately there have been a lot of classes to cover. The primary one teacher is pregnant and due to have the baby very, very soon so we have been covering her classes. One of the primary two teachers needed to travel as her mother is in hospital so we have been covering that class from time to time. And the Lipscomb group also covered several Bible classes. So it’s been a busy week of classroom hopping. I am very glad that there were visitors this week because the teachers and I would not have been able to cover all the classes.
On Saturday, May 17th, we celebrated the dedication of a new house.
Although the house is not entirely complete, the Marrieta Barnet house was presented to the VoH community. Jeanine (Barnet) Rucker and her son John visited VoH to be part of the presentation and work with children who need special attention in reading. I am going to try to find the speech that the Managing Director, Fred Asare, gave during the dedication. He gave a brief history of the Village of Hope, the present status, and mentioned future goals for the orphanage. I knew a lot of the information from various conversations, but I had never heard it presented in such a clear past-present-future manner. It was very eye-opening so I hopefully I can find it.The OC group left on Sunday the 18th. Seven days later, the group from Lipscomb also left. But we welcomed three more individuals throughout the week. On Tuesday night Brooke and Ross arrived from Reno, Nevada. My friend Jessica followed a couple days later.... In case anyone is keeping track, this brings us to a grand total of 5 Americans here at VoH. Having groups here is great. Sure, you get a lot of things done with more hands to help but they are also great for recharging you when you are feeling lonely or just a little weary. Having groups here is also a lot of work. It has been a long few weeks and while I will miss the energy and laughter, I am thankful that things will slow down as I prepare to leave. We will see if the pace slows down between now and when I leave. For some reason, I have this feeling that it won’t.
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