It’s hard to believe we are at the airport already, waiting for our flight.  Our trip has been fantastic, and we already miss our Ghanaian friends.

Here is our last days in a picture story….

The kids at Agape Orphanage are absolutely fantastic.  They have such a wonderful oasis of love and education provided by the church.  We started the day with the Baylor choir and a work trip at the orphanage.  About 1/2 of us worked on projects — hauling dirt, sorting through a nasty container of goods shipped from the US, and the other 1/2 worked with the kids.

 

Paul made lots of new friends.  The kids here are AMAZING soccer players.  Paul didn’t mind as replayed the Ghana vs USA game, with Ghana winning again…

 

 

We had a good lesson in how some Americans donate to foreign missions…  The orphanage had a container that had not been unpacked for years.  It was full of essentially donated junk… used magazines, random bits of hardware, an LP record, etc.  Of course, containers are not waterproof, so much of the stuff was “spoiled” as the Ghanaians say.  There were some good bits inside, but for some reason Americans think of shipping containers as a place to dump obsolete junk — let the orphans sort it out.  So 20 people spent more than 1/2 the day sorting out the trash from usable donations.

 

In the computer lab, I finished reassembling systems I had worked on.  I recruited some help — a local Ghana choir member who was studying Computer Science.  He had never taken apart a computer before, so he and I worked on the computers and I showed him how IDE cables work, how to change jumper blocks on the drives, and other goodies.   We managed to get 4 computers to be in pretty good shape, swapping out bad CDROM drives and replacing them from the other systems that were already toast.

The kids here need so much love and attention.  They are so happy to have us visit and both improve the orphanage with a service project, and sing songs, tell Bible stories, share about our lives back home, and in this case, make bead bracelets.

Hannah got a new dress with the pattern of the Ghana Kente cloth.

In the evening, the Ghanaians from the choir put on a special performance of African dance, singing, and story telling at the Christian Leadership Center.  It was fantastic!

 

 

The Ghanaians LOVED our Hokey Pokey when we did it with the kids at the orphanage, so they insisted we all do it together.  I’m wondering if we  will find a new African dance version of the Hokey Pokey sweeping the continent when we return.

So… we are on our way home.  It was a fantastic trip for all.  The kids had a fantastic experience.  They learned of God’s love, and once again learned the way to be His “hands and feet”.  Looking back on the pictures will help keep us motivated to stay involved and focused on the important, not the pressing.

Emily starts college in the fall, and Paul starts high school.  Our family is at a point of change, and Africa was a great place to start the transition.  We will never forget the time we all went to Africa together.

 

-Pete