Ghana in Review

Siblings Godswill and Quachabia at Haven of Hope Orphanage








When I said I was going to update this blog while traveling, I thought I would be able to post things a little more regularly. Sorry for the lack of updates, but Internet access has definitely not been the greatest. Now that we're in Germany, it's easier to be online.

We left Ghana on Friday night, sad to say goodbye to the kids at the orphanage and the new friends we'd made. We were, however, looking forward to having a wider selection of food than the practically all carb diet we had been eating for three weeks. I'm not sure bread with peanut butter will sound good for awhile after having a daily dose of it for so long. We've also been enjoying warm showers and roads with drivers who seem calm, collected, and willing to follow normal traffic rules.

So to sum up what we did and how the Ghana portion of our trip went, first let me give you an idea of what our schedule looked like. Tuesday through Friday we lived in a hotel in Accra, the capital city. We taught Bible lessons in schools in the morning, which was very successful in that we were able to teach well in teams and that kids really did retain a lot of what was taught. We were also well-received by the teachers and school headmasters, which will hopefully lead to a continued ministry in those schools by our Ghanaian partners.

Most afternoons we visited families living in a slum area about a 30 minute walk from where our hotel was. Our goal with that was to get to know the people we met and to share the gospel with them. I don't have many pictures from that portion of our trip because it was dangerous to have a camera out, but I'll post one we were able to take if I can get the computer to cooperate soon... right now it looks like I'll have to wait.

This was the most challenging part of the day for our team, but it was also very encouraging to be able to talk openly with people about our faith. Everyone we met was willing to listen and asked questions, and our Ghanaian partners who all live in this slum will be continuing to go back and follow up with them. We also had a lot of discussions as a team about what evangelism should like for us back at home and how important it is, so I'm excited to keep in touch with the girls and see how everyone will grow from this experience.

Another goal from our time of family visitation was as I shared with some of you at home to look out for and learn about child trafficking. We did see one very clear example of this - a young girl we met of maybe eight years old was selling pure water while other children were in school. She lives with her "Auntie" - a woman who is most likely not a relative at all and has five or six children living with her, only a few of whom are her own. This woman forces the girl to sell water all day in order to find a place to sleep at night and hopefully get a little something to eat.

I learned that child trafficking doesn't always mean sex trafficking, although a lot of that goes on too in the area we were in (you just have to be there a long time and show up at night to undestand and see it, which we weren't able to do). I also learned that it takes a lot of work to be able to do something about child trafficking and to get children who are forced to work the whole day out of the situation they are in.

There are very few people who want to help these children or who know best how to help. It can be very dangerous to try to intervene, especially for the kids, and it would take a person who knows and has earned the trust of the surrounding community to really do something about it. Thankfully the organization we went with does have a few such people in place. Pray for their success in working to fight against child trafficking in all of its forms.

Signs and Spirits and White Skin

One of my favorite things to do while riding in the car in Ghana is to look for the names of shops we pass by. Some seem normal; others make me laugh out loud or don't make any sense to me at all. Many have Christian words and phrases in the name, from what I hear to ward off bad luck and bad spirits. Here are a just a few examples of the ones I've seen so far:

Almighty Electrical
Taste and See Fast Food
With God All Things Are Possible Cosmetics
In God's Time Power Tools

Another thing I love looking at in our many car rides around the city is all of the people carrying things on their heads. I've seen countless women carrying up to maybe 100 pounds of things on their heads plus a baby strapped to their back, sound asleep. When hiked up Medie Mountain with some of the girls at the home here (on a super narrow, rocky, steep, and overgrown path), we all had to jump aside into the bush as a man carrying a really large bundle of wood on his head passed down the mountain.

I wish I were that skilled, but I've learned that the shape our "Obrunni" (white people) heads and our slippery hair makes it difficult to carry things on our heads. Also most people here use a cloth wrapped up on top of their heads to help balance the load. Maybe the kids can give me lessons at Haven of Hope.

Last cultural note before wrapping this short post up: Everywhere we go, people yell "Obrunni! Obrunni!" if they're speaking Twi and "Yevu!" if they're speaking Ewe. Adam is often adressed as "Mr. White Man". Sometimes I really wish I had brown skin so that I would blend in in a crowd, but instead my super pale skin and light hair stands out like a sore thumb in a crowd. The advantage to having lighter skin, though, is that we're able to do ministry in public schools and to capture the attention of more people simply because we're white. It seems silly, but it's reality here.

More to come about the last week in Accra soon... off to lunch right now.

GHANA MISSION TRIP 2011

Hello from Medie, Ghana! It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything on this blog... and has also been awhile since I’ve traveled, so I figured it might be about time to resurrect it and post a little bit about our current globetrotting adventure. I will upload pictures as soon as I can figure out how to do it on the computer I’m using. For now, I hope a few stories will do.

I’m writing from Haven of Hope (HoH), which is a school and children’s home run by Every Child Ministries. It’s pretty quiet here at the moment, which is a rare occurance. The 50 kids who live here are all taking their daily “siesta,” the many goats, puppies, dogs, and birds aren’t making noise (okay I take it back - one puppy just started crying), and really all I can hear is the ceiling fan above me quietly whirling and cooling us off. And yes, you read that correctly - Ghana has come a long way since I was here four years ago, and the children’s home now has electricity and running water almost all of the time, which is shocking. I feel so spoiled!

Adam and I arrived here with our team of four other Americans (all college girls) late Monday night after 32 hours of travel. This has been our home base and training center over the past week, but we’ll be leaving HoH tomorrow for ministry in the capital city of Accra. The schedule so far has been pretty intense for the Adam and me as trip leaders, even more so than expected because the details of our trip weren’t quite in order when we got here like we had hoped. Thankfully we have gotten a schedule worked out, have completed the team training for our American and Ghanaian team, and are finally feeling prepared for teaching Bible lessons and doing street ministry next week. Our team has also been super flexible and understanding, which has helped us out a lot.

Here’s what our schedule for the next two weeks will look like: teaching two mornings per week (five teams of one American and one Ghanaian each), street ministry and family visitation in slums in Accra four times per week, and weekends off to spend at HoH. Adam will be supervising the teaching, and I will be in classrooms with my Ghanaian partner Emmanuel.

Here are some noteworthy highlights of the trip so far:

-Almost all of the kids here remember me from when I was here four years ago. It’s been great to reconnect with them and to see how much they have all grown up. I love it when kids call for “Miss Stacy” to come out and play. There are at least a dozen kids who I would love to take home with me.

-Yesterday the kids used machetes to cut open big coconuts for us. I actually think the coconut milk in the middle is disgusting, but Kelsey (a team member) challenged me to a coconut milk chugging contest, and for some reason I agreed... it’s all on video should you want to see us fail miserably :)

-Today we snuck up on and chased a herd of goats out of the compost pit... pretty funny until they all charged right at me!

-Playing with the seven puppies of HoH’s guard dogs that are here has been fun. They’re all some huge South African breed, and while the adults look very intimidating, the puppies are cute. Last night, though, two puppies were really sick and were howling and crying for hours. Several of us stayed up with them well into the night and thought for sure they would die, but somehow they hung on until this morning when the vet saw them. As it turns out, both were stung by scorpions. After three shots of antivenom each, they should be okay.

That’s about it for now. We’ll be heading to Medie Mountain soon to hike with some of the older girls, so I need to get ready to go. Thanks for reading and I’ll try to update again a few times while we’re here depending on Internet access. Miss you all back home - thanks so much for the prayers and support! If you think of it, I would love to ask you to specifically pray for safety and effective teaching next week as we begin ministry in Accra.

Wild West

Adam and I are on a 12-day road trip through Lincoln NE, Estes Park CO, Denver CO, and Columbia and St. Louis MO. Here are a few pictures we've taken along the way!


Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park at the top of our hike


Nymph Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park


Dinner with Laura and Jesse in their newly-rented apartment. We set the dinner table for them while they cooked us a delicious dinner ;)

Snapshots of Africa

Hello from... Columbus, Ohio?? Hmm, interesting change of pace from the last seven weeks of updates, but it feels good to be home after ten stamps and two new visas in my Passport and thousands and thousands of miles of traveling.

As promised, here are a few more photos from my trip as well as a link to viewing the album I put up on Facebook. If you don't have an account there and would still like to see the pictures, send me an e-mail at hoenig.5@osu.edu and I would love to e-mail you the website for non-Facebook users.

In addition, here's a link to a video I took of the church choir in Bohalahala: click here.

There he is!!!


Waving to us...?


Antelope


Buffalo


Four camels on a boat... too bad I couldn't find any on the beach to ride (yay for tourist traps!)


Just in case you need some meat, here's a butcher I might (not?) recommend in Geita. Click on the picture to enlarge and check out that excellent selection of meat.


This was "my" beach in Diani Beach, Kenya. I always entered here by the dead coral and walked along the shore til I got to all white sand. Beautiful!


Kids in Mgussu... very disappointed when they realized my camera was film and that they couldn't see their picture after I took it!


And last but not least, here I am with Frank, Bettina, and Nadine during our wonderful weekend hanging out in Bremen : )


Well, I guess I'll wrap up and say that I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity I had to go on this journey, for the people I met, and for the things I was able to see and do - it was definitely an adventure I'll never forget! And just for you, Mr. Bernhard, one of the things I learned is that no matter how far you go or how alone you think you are, God always provides, and there is always something to be thankful for. Always.

To everyone who read these updates, I hope you enjoyed hearing about my adventures as much as I did writing it all : ) Thanks for coming along for the ride and following along with me as I traveled!

Almost Home

Hey all, just a quick update to let you know that after a wonderful weekend in Bremen and a two last days spent in Cologne and Bonn, I am packing my bags once more and am heading home after seven weeks of traveling. After a "mere" 34 hours after taking off from Germany (due to cheaper flights having bad connections), I'll land in Columbus, Ohio and get back to speaking English... and start writing my thesis!

I'm planning to update one more time after I get my film developed so that I can post a few pictures... especially the ones from my unofficial safari in Kenya, so stay tuned and check back in a week or so if you're interested in seeing the elephant that I thought was going to trample our car ; )

Til then, thanks for reading!!! I'm looking forward to seeing many of you in the near future and hope you enjoyed the stories, pictures, and little pieces of Africa that have appeared over the past seven weeks!

Double-Exchange

After spending four days in Bonn and having fun surprising teachers, friends, and former co-workers from my internship with my unannounced visit, I hopped on a train yesterday and headed north on a four-hour ride to Bremen. I'm currently updating this from the living room of my exchange student sister (hi Laura!) and am really enjoying getting to know her family... and relatives... and friends ; )

Last night when I arrived we had a "small" dinner party of fifteen people eating Raclette, which consists of putting vegetables and meats, pineapple, and eggs with special cheese on top into a little pan which you toast in a mini oven that's on the table. It's really good and fun to make... sortof like a fondue concept because you cook at the table.



I'm looking forward to us hopefully being able to chat with my family later on today via Skype with the daughters swapped. It's funny to think that Laura sleeps in my bedroom at my parents' house and that I'm now sleeping in hers (thanks!) : )

In addition to meeting lots of new people, I got to see a familiar face as well, because my friend Nadine, who was an exchange student at my high school five years ago, also came down from Hamburg for the weekend. It's such a blessing to be able to visit so many people in such a short amount of time, even if that does mean traveling here and there the entire time I'm in Germany.

Tomorrow I will head back South to Cologne and Bonn and fly out on Tuesday. Still don't know where I will be staying in London on Tuesday night, but if nothing else works out, there are always benches in the airport. We'll see I guess!

Well, I'm heading out to bike over to a bakery and pick up some freshly-baked Brötchen (like rolls - only way better) for breakfast... my very favorite thing to eat in Germany. Better enjoy them while I can! Mmmmmmmm : )