Sunday, January 6, 2008

Day 26 and on: Sharing is Caring

Here is a long over-due wrap-up post (in picture form) to describe what we were up to during our final days in Ghana..

As a part of our INMED course, Amara and I were tasked to give an educational presentation on a topic for the medical staff. We chose to speak about hypertension, explaining what causes high blood pressure, mentioning the long-term consequences of uncontrolled hypertension, highlighting some of the alarm ymptoms, and briefly mentioning pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments.


On our final day in Nalerigu, we were invited to share a message/lesson with students at 3 different schools. Originally, we were only aware of going to one classroom to help pick-up some penpal letters that would be going to some 5th-graders in the U.S., but as it turns out, we had the opportunity to speak to 2 different classrooms of children and even one entire student body! It was a wonderful blessing to be able to share about the meaning/significance of Christmas, highlighting aspects and miracles of Jesus Christ's life, and proclaiming the gospel to these attentive ears. To reach the schools, we traveled on the backs of motorcycles:



Here is Amara sharing the gospel with all of the students of Sheriga-Naa JHS gathered in a big circle:


Another sharing experience:


Post-sharing at another school:


Our final meal in Nalerigu was specially prepared because it was one of our favorite Ghanaian dishes -- ground nut stew.. mmm mmm!


Our flight for Accra from Tamale left quite early in the morning, so we were graciously hosted overnight by the Ozments, who are missionaries at the Baptist Seminary in Tamale. Peggy cooked us up a delicious meal, and we were able to hear interesting stories from Pat while enjoying the nighttime air on their porch:


When we got back to Accra, we had the desire to travel to the coast since we were so close to it. Traveling by tro-tro (a type of bus) was the most economical way, so we headed to the bus station. This is what we found:

There was no central area and no real guidance to which bus to take. We ended up having to walk around for about an hour and a half before we found a bus that was going in the right direction to where we wanted to go. That bus dropped us off, allowing us to take a taxi to our final destination, which was the African Academy of Music and Arts:

Amara had read in multiple sources about the fun drumming and dance show that would take place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. We planned to get to the site early enough for the Saturday show. However, like many things in Africa, it didn't turn out quite as we had imagined. The Saturday show had been cancelled, but a Sunday show was available. Unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to attend since we had to make it back to Accra in time to catch our outbound flight back to the U.S. Fortunately, we had the chance to spend time in the beautiful resort and go swimming and body-surfing in the private beach area:

Even though this was a pretty nice resort, interestingly, our rooms did not have running water. So, featured below is the source of our toilet flushing. It also turns out to be the source of our drinking water (after purification with iodine tablets, of course):


Back in Accra, we enjoyed our last Ghanaian meal at the Country Kitchen:


Here we are with the Huey's, who are missionaries that run the guesthouse in Accra. They were very friendly and a whole lot of help!


Back on the plane, heading home..


The presence of wintery flakes of ice served as a reminder of where we were going, a place so very different from where we had just been..


It was an amazing trip.. God blessed us richly and allowed us to see his works, to serve his people, and to stretch ourselves. =)