I Spy...

My two girls have some small I spy books that they love. When they are in the car with my wife on Mondays, they love to look at them. I hear her calling out things and then I will hear one of the girls say, "I see it". Most of the time the pages are crammed full of everything imaginable. Each page has a theme, but the things in the pictures are colorful mix of the ordinary and the bazaar!

My life the last two weeks seems to have resembled one of these 'I Spy' books. To say the least it has been full. Life lately has been filled with a ton of the ordinary stuff, and a lot the abnormal also. All this activity has made it very difficult to write any updates. But after two weeks, I thought that I should attempt to talk about so of the things that have happened the last few weeks.

In the last two weeks, I spy... Family Time

-Carey has been study countries of the world. For this reason in the last few weeks our family has eaten food from and dressed up as people from the countries China, Mexico with Holland, Japan and other countries coming on the way.

Ella and Carey really enjoyed opening their mini pinatas!

Also Valentine's Day has come and gone. Though the hearts, pink, red, and white decoration are off the walls. The girls still have fun stories to remember.

I spy... Trips to the Capital with Ella

Ella joined my on a trip to the capital to pick up our paper work that the government had finished. While there we visited Ghana one and only Mall. It was great and Ell loved playing on the playground that they have outside near the food court.

I spy... A major accidents

While on our trip to the capital Andrew and I spied this accident. It was roughly around 7:00am in the morning. The accident had accorded about twenty minutes before our arrival. Two large trucks, one a tanker and the other loaded with dry goods, collided and exploded into flames. Our vehicle was in a long line of traffic that was waiting for the Fire Service to arrive and put out the flames. This picture was taken after about 2 hours of waiting while cars where allowed to pass the wreck.

I spy... A change in decade

Yes, it is try. Just last Sunday I passed into a new decade. Though I am far from old, I am no longer young (in the immature sense, at least I hope not!) Patty and the girls did great. The Andrew family was invited over. The meal was great. There where steaks, potatoes, baked beans, stir-fired vegetables, Coke, pumpkin pie! After about 30 minutes of gorging ourselves, the kids went off to play and the adults all played guitars together.

I spy... Two young boy grieving


Last Thursday one of the boys that attends are services on a regular bases on Thursday nights seemed quiet. After church my wife asked him what was trouble him, and he told her that his mother had just died a few days before. His father had divorced his mother many years and ago and was staying at his uncle house. Now that she was dead, he has no parents to help to raise him. The follow day, Andrew and I went to the family house to greet the family and pray with them. The boys seem to be doing well, but they are grieving quietly.

Also on Saturday I attended a funeral for another boy that attends services off and on. His father had died some months before. Here are some pictures from the funeral.

I spy... Asamoah recovering

This last week we visited Asomoah, and he is seeming to be recovering well. I show a x-ray and scan of his skull this week. It looks as if h has a skull fracture, but the doctor says that the operation will need to be delayed for some months to insure that all the swelling has gone down. Currently he is very open to the gospel and is able to listen well.

I spy... People coming back to church and growing

It has been very exciting to see men and women coming to the Bible Studies. Some have returned after missing for some time, some are new, some are very faithful. It has been such a blessing to see people grow and change.

Here is Andrew with a few of our young men that attend on Sunday mornings.

I spy... The City Road Construction People braking our water lines

At the end of every dry season here in Ghana, there is an unofficial holiday. It is called the Braking of the Pipes! Yes, it is the wonderful time of the year when the City Council send out road machine to fix the roads that have corroded in the last rainy season. Generally this workers, with good intentions, come to our community and start to grate the roads. The only problem is that the Water Company and Road Workers have different ideas about how deep pipes should be. Here in Ghana pipes never freeze, so they are not placed very far into the ground. Normal the lines are run about one to two feet deep. This workers great for normal stuff, but when the road here corrode by rain, it leave only about two inches between the road's surface and the pipes. So every year the same thing happens. The tractors come and put down there blades. In about 30 minutes there are about 10 to 15 broken lines, and water cover the whole road. It is all great fun! The road guys finish the job, the local plumbers come and get money for work fixing all the pipes, and the whole community comes out for the sceptical and free water. After about two hours all the buckets are full of the water that would be wasted, the pipes are fixed and recovered, and every goes home. They all 'eagerly' waiting for next years festival.

Carey's Sixth Birthday

On the 23rd of January, Carey became six years old. She was very excited about her birthday. It has been amazing to see how fast she has grown. Our family had a small part on the Friday before her birthday. It was great to eat food and fellowship with our neighbors and co-labourers the Aaron family. Carey loved her cake! Patty baked a Strawberry Short-Cake cake. Though it was covered in red frosting, and shaped like a strawberry, the cake was Chocolate and Mint. (This is Carey's favorite flavour for cake). So this played a little trick on the mind, but the cake was great!

On Tuesday after Carey's birthday, she made a trip with me to the capital. This was her first 'date' with dad to such a far away location. Andrew's family was newly percussed a vehicle, so their whole family made trip and Carey and I where allowed to accompany them, since there is paperwork to be done in the capital.

The car was loaded and ready to go at 3:00am in the morning. Carey was half awake but really enjoyed the trip. After setting out at 4:00, the tripped ended at about 9:00 in the morning. Arriving early, I was able to finish all the government paperwork that needed to be done, and Andrew and his family where on time for their doctor appointment that they had scheduled.

After about 2 hours of great patience, and sitting quietly in about three government offices, Carey got to enjoy herself. The next place that we visited was Max-mart. It is one of the large grocery store slash department stores in the capital. They even have carts that have cars on the front of them. Carey loves these! So off the two of us went, looking for a few raw food items that are not available in Kumasi.

After about 30 minutes of Carey honking the little horn around the store, and buying our things, the next stop was the Accra Mall. The hardest thing about going to the Accra Mall, is that Carey wants to buy everything for Ella and Mommy. But it was a great time together. (They even had British pickles for a low price. The British must like strong tasting pickles, but Patty said they are great. Pickles are a rare delicious here!).

After shopping, Carey received the best surprise last. In the food court of the mall, a Ghanaian lady has start a new business. It is a giant play land. It has trampolines, slides, jumping castles, merry-go-rounds, swings, and even a car that moves around a track. After our friends arrived from their doctor's appointment, all the kids played together.

After two small medium pizza, and an hour of playing, everyone packed their shopping bags in the car, and everyone had back to Kumasi. (Here are a few pictures from the birthday and trip).

The Birthday Girl!
The Cake

The adults playing gmae while the kids play

Daddy get killed in chess!
Carey on the merry-go-round
Carey loves to slide

The electric race car on tracks

Carey at six year old:

What is Carey like at six years old? The first thing that comes to mind is a local saying; "Panin asem", which means someone that likes to do adult things when they are young. This is Carey in many ways, but she is still a kid in many other ways.

Carey loves to tell stories. The longer the better, thanks Aunt Betsy, not sure how your genes got in there. Carey loves to draw different pictures. She loves princess, stories, reading books until she falls asleep. She likes to dance and twirl, pick out her own clothes, and telling her sister what to do. She is a first child through and trough. She is a perfectionist and also very analytical in thinking. She will think about things until she understands them, and wants to understand something very well before she tries most new things.

Carey likes to laugh, sing, play house and mimic mommy. She is very good in math, and is coming to like reading. She likes to write her own books. She is always asking her mom, to write out the little stories that she tells her, and puts them together in stapled books. Carey has her father's strange ability to remember useless facts and other strange bits of information. She also loves Ranch dressing, green pepper (raw) and pickles.

Carey does not like: people follower here around all the time, this happens at times with Ella and new kids at church. She does not like to be left out of any conversation or activity. She does not like all her things to be a mess, unless of course this was her idea, and then she loves chaos!

Overall she is a tall, bubbly, blond, active, girl, with a capital G. Patty and I love here, and are exciting to see what the future holds.

Over the River and Through the Jungle, to the Capital we go...

We normal only go to the capital for government paperwork or to pick up teams that visit us on missions trips, but this last week our family took a family trip to buy gifts for Christmas. We left on Monday morning via government bus that departed at 5:00 in the morning. Think Grey-hound with African movies and music minus the bathroom.

Monday we arrived about noon. After checking into the Baptist guest house. We headed out to the town. We went to the mall. The Accra mall is our only mall in Ghana, and one of only three in West Africa. It is really nice. It has nice stories like: Shop Rite, Game, Mr. Price, etc. These will not make much since to our American friends since all these are chain stores from South Africa. After a few hours of shopping we headed back to the guest house for relaxation and play. The guest house has a play ground that our kids and our friends kids played on for hours. (These late nights with mosquitoes, landed Patty with malaria, but after 6 years of not getting malaria, it was hard to remember it is still here, but that is another story)

Tuesday our friends watched out kids so that we could go shopping for our kids. I think that I never got as many gifts as these kids! On Wednesday, we watched their kids. So in the afternoon the kids where loaded up in a taxi and we headed over to Churcheese. The couple that takes care of the guest house told us about it. It is a mini-Chucky Cheese. They have a play land with ball pit. There is a mini-merry-go-round, and some games. The kids loved it.

After playing for about two to three hours the kids where ready to eat. They had great fried chicken and fries. Mom and Dad got to buy food from a new sandwich shop. We had shakes and smoothies with gourmet sandwiches. It was a really nice treat!

Then Thursday our kids said good bye to the Guest House Snowman and we headed back to Kumasi for our Thursday night Bible study. We where able to finish most of our shopping and had a great time of relaxation.