Greetings from the Village of Hope from Bobbie Lynn!
We are all doing well and miss everyone. We just can't believe our 5 weeks are coming to an end! It has been an incredibly awesome experience and we thank all of you for your part in our being here.
I wanted to tell about a couple of experiences we've had recently. Last Friday nite we had our 1st "official" rain. I say official because it had rained a few times before, but nothing like this! Jim, you were right! All day Firday it was cloudy on and off and as the day went on the wind really picked up, always welcome. Right before supper it began to pour - people and kids scattered everywhere. The winds were incredible during the rain. Danny was out in it and he said it was pelting him pretty hard! It let up a little by the time we headed to the church building for singing at 6p. Everyone had rain gear on and some of the kids had thick sweaters and jackets on! It really cooled off and we actually slept under our sheets that nite! We had to hurry and close some of the windows so it wouldn't rain in on everything! Thursday nite we had no electricity from 6p - 6a and it had been sweltering hot and very hard to get comfortable and go to sleep. But, Friday nite is was much better! During the singing class - there must have been at least 150 people there - it began to pour again. Remember, this building is walled 1/2 way up with screen windows and a tin roof! No one got wet, but boy was it loud! Those leading the singing had to practicaly shout, but we managed to overpower the noise with our voices! Now I understand better what it means to make a joyful noise to the Lord! It was all really quite fun and thrilling to be there and hear us singing praises to God. Church at home will never be the same and will seem rather uneventful! Danny even commented the other day "I can't imaging having to drive to church anymore!" We have gotten quite use to services with no electricity, walking home from church by moonlight (you don't even need flashlights most of the time!), lizards crawling on the screens (on the outside!), having the preacher preach for an hour or more, the entire assembly kneeling in prayer at times, hearing close to 100 children singing at the top of their lungs, wearing flipflops to church with your nice dress and they don't even match the dress, always making sure you a water bottle with you, sweating profusely at times, the unrelenting heat under a tin roof all while sitting in plastic chairs! I mean, it just doesn't get any better than this! Although air conditioning would be a plus! Sometimes it seems unbearable and you want to get up and leave, but somehow you always make it through!
Now for reality after the rains! Saturday we kept noticing these bright red fuzzy bugs crawing all over the ground! I asked Charles - one of the kids (about 14 yrs old) about them. He promptly picked one up and it rolled into a ball. They don't bite or anything, he said they come when the rains come! All was well later that evening - power had been out all day today 6a - 6p, so when it finally came back on we turned the outside porch light on, just after dark all these bugs and crickets were in the house, apparently coming in under the door! They were all harmless, but ugh! Danny sprayed and we turned off the outside light. Welcome rains! We'll have to be much more diligent with the bug spray for us and for the house. All the houses here have screen doors except ours! It would help some, so we'll have to recommend this for sure. We have lots of ants here from time to time. The only difference is they are extremely tiny and they move like lightening!
The electricity has been much more erratic lately. You just never know about it. It was off all day Saturday, came back on around 7p, then I noticed several times during the night it went off and on and finally on by the morning!
Sunday morning Danny and Davis traveled to a village church outside of Accra to preach. Danny had a study with a student and he wanted to know about baptism, Danny explained as best he could and he decided to be baptized. They filled the baptistry during services and baptized him after! Sunday evening at church they had our family come up to the front and sit in chairs after services. The men surrounded us and prayed for our safe journey home. Very humbling and special!
God bless all of you and we should be seeing you all very soon!