Because Of The Savior

The kids have moved from hammocks to a tepee and some bamboo bunks. You can see the new bamboo structure that the guys put up last week, in the background.

Last year at the end of May our home church from Ohio was here in Ghana. Prince reminded us that their (Prince & Koasi) ordination was a year ago. Where has the time gone? Kendall had a birthday on May 30th, he turned 20 years old. We also celebrated his birthday when the group was here. Kendall is finished with school and is looking for a job and hopes to go to college. We have watched Kendall grow from a young boy, get saved and grow in Christ. He is a good boy, man, and a good friend to my boys. He is trust worthy and in Ghana, that speaks volumes. If the only reason we came to Ghana was for Kendall to get saved, and to see his life changed, it is worth it. It is because of the Saviour. We serve a great God, no regrets. 

Let The Rains Begin

We had a busy Saturday. Mack went to William's house for Bible study. He brought William back to the house along with Kendall, Benjamin and Joseph (not my Joseph) as my kids would say big Joseph, to put up a new bamboo structure. Then we had ladies fellowship and visitation.

School has finished for the final year students here in Ghana. They all had a big smile on this week and a look of relief. They don't have a graduation ceremony or anythig, they are just finished that is it. The Bible classes at the church has finished as well.

The rains have started. Sunday we got a good rain in the morning. The weather has been a bit cooler. We have been conserving water. My laundry is suffering. Only two loads a day (that equals 1 American load). So the rainy season is very welcome at our house.

Kendall and Matthew splitting the bamboo, Nehemiah holding it still

Joseph

For entertainment the kids around here tie a string to a bug and then let it fly around.

Letting the bug fly!

Mathew is standing in the hole and is the same size as Nehemiah

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Not May Day But B-Day

In Ghana May 1st is a holiday. They celebrate "Labor Day" or it is commonly known as "Worker's Day." Today is very special B-Day in our house. Naomi turned 15 today. Esther and Cecillia came over this afternoon. Esther A. came a little later. They are going to spend the night and go to church with us in the morning. Oh, Mack also let her drive the car yesterday, in a field, she says her leg still hurts from the clutch. The clutch is very hard to push in. I am thankful that the Lord has given us a beautiful daughter to raise her for the Lord.

Naomi requested chilli dogs

Her B-day present

Getting the last of the limes down.  

Note to self: Don't peel a bucket full of limes with cuts on your hands, ouch!

Great Post "Sixteen Ways To Bless A Missionary"

A friend and fellow missionary had a great blog post recently and I thought I would share it with you. "Sixteen Ways To Bless A Missionary"  http://johninghana.blogspot.com



 Patty also has some other great post. Getting to Know Missionaries. Check them out. Hope it will be a blessing to you.

A Bit of Fun!

We took a day off school today to have a little fun in the sun. We are almost finished with school. The two younger ones will be finished in two weeks. The other two will be finished by the 1st week in June. 

I sent Nehemiah to read a book after dinner while we cleaned up.  He got in a book or two and then was fast asleep. 

She may get me for this one later....ha ha... http://www.cutegirlshairstyles.com/  Naomi has been trying different hairsyles. No, she did not wear her hair like this. She was going to bed. You twist it up and secure it. In the morning it is curly. My Grandma used to do this to her hair. Her hair was much shorter but she used to twist it and secure it with a bobby pin. In the morning her hair was curled. Nothing new under the sun. 

Enjoying some refreshments after playing in the sun!

Reaping

Gal_6:9  And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Reaping is hard work. We have one lime tree and many banana and plantain trees. It is not real hard to harvest them. When we where on furlough we stayed in a farm house. There was corn fields as far as the eye could see. That is a major reaping job. Even with tractors and reaping machines it still takes days of reaping. I also think of many in the Bible that we find reaping and harvesting. Ruth spent many days behind the reapers. Ruth 2:7  And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house. Throughout the Bible we see the harvest mentioned. If you have fields that need harvested, you will want labourers to help you. I imagine the farmers feel like fainting when it is harvest time, because of all the hard work. He needs labourers to help or the work won't get done.

Mat_9:37  Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;

Mat_9:38  Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

We have a job to do: Mar_13:10  And the gospel must first be published among all nations. Mar_16:15  And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

Bob Hayes a missionary to Ghana for over 35 years once said. "The fruit will rot on the vine, before we get enough labourers in the field."


Our little harvest:

Friends

Sunday night Koasi preached about "The Secrets of Abundant Life." in John chapter 15, by abiding in the vine. While teaching he said we obey God out of fear. A proper fear. God wants us to go beyond and obey out of love. He also mentioned a servant has a fear of the master, but doesn't have access to the master, like a friend does. God wants us to be a friend. A friend has access to the master. Have fear but also go beyond fear and have a relationship of love.

Joh 15:15  Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

Here are a few of our friends:

Peter came over Saturday night and then went to church with us on Sunday. It was his birthday on Thursday.  So I made him a cake. He was surprised. They don't celebrate their birthdays here. Many of them don't know when their birthdays are. Some know the month but not the date and some older folks know the year but that is all. He said, "I didn't get a cake for my birthday, I had to work. Carrying bags of cement, I had a headache afterwards." We said, well sometimes that happens, you have to do what you have to do. Peter is 15 years old.

William came to church this Sunday. His mother Comfort and sister Rebekah came as well. He also brought a friend Junior. That is encouraging that he wants to see others come to church and get saved. Mack is doing a Bible study with William at his house on Saturdays.

Comfort, Rebekah, William and Junior

Kendall has been with us since we came to Takoradi. He was a neighbor boy who came over to play with our boys. He started coming to church and got saved. We have known Kendall since he was 11 years old. He will be 20 in May. He will graduate from school in May as well. They are all getting old.

Pro_18:24  A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. 

CBBC 6 Year Anniversary

We celebrated Cornerstone Biblical Baptist Church's 6th Anniversary today, April 14th. We had a baptism after the morning service, and then we had food and fellowship after that. It is hard to believe it has been 6 years already. We enjoyed the Lord's day, enjoy the pictures!

Mack presenting the church with pew Bibles from BPS

Pastor Koasi's 1st baptism

These girls are growing up!

Evelyn receiving her baptismal certificate from Pastor Prince

Peter receiving his baptismal certificate from Pastor Prince

In Need of Repair

It seems everything needs fixing all at once. If one thing breaks, so does another. The last couple of days we have been repairing the broken things. They are not big items, but items that sure do help when they work. We have needed some ceiling fans in our bedrooms. We have repaired them often and they just where dragging. Mack replaced ours and Naomi's ceiling fans. Ahh! air! The clothes line broke last week, of course there where clothes on the line, and it came down. So Matthew rode his bike to get some new line. While we put that up, Matthew noticed an outside light had fallen off the wall. Yes, another thing to fix. We heard a crash the other night while sleeping, Mack got up to investigate. He found nothing. The dogs weren't barking so we just went back to sleep. The light falling must have been the crash we heard. So Matthew took his bike to get another light fixture for outside. They boys put that up, "let there be light."The next day Matthew replaced all the broken bulbs inside and outside. "We can see." Mack and Joe worked on the lights on the car replacing the brake lights and things. Mack said they would work, until he hit another bump in the road, which is inevitable. Mack has to get the car inspected this week. The driveways need weeded, but with all the little repairs they did not make much headway on that. Naomi and I cleaned up the inside and made dinner while the men where fixing things. Then last night to top it off, our well is at rock bottom. So we are running off our tanks on top of the house. So hopefully our well will fill back up enough to keep the tanks full, until the rains come.

William is a man that works at the mechanics place where my husband goes to get his car fixed. Mack has been have a bible study with William at his house. William got saved and came to church this Sunday. After church we dropped William off at his house. Mack wanted us to meet William's mother and father. So we went to greet them all. Well it ended up, she had lunch for us. We had banku with fish and bean stew of some kind. It was good. Very nice people. Pray that his family will also be saved and come to church. Pray for Linda at our church, she will have a 3rd surgery. Shadrick fell off a ladder and twisted his arm, pray for him as well. It's true even we need repaired.

William

A Week Later

I made a resurrection cake! wow! My kids where so excited. They enjoyed eating it as well.

Easter Egg Hunt

Joe, Nicholas, Peter, Nehemiah on visitation

Easter Monday is a big day here in Ghana, so we had game day at the church.

Mack took me to a hotel for our anniversary, the kids got to swim before they had to go home for the night.  The kids said they where glad it was our anniversary!!!!

Joy Of Reading

I don't really know what to say this week? I wanted some great story. I thought I had one, but it didn't happen. About a head of cabbage? Hopefully, I can still write about it later????? We had ladies fellowship this Saturday. Our numbers where down, so that means the few girls had all the cake to themselves. I talked about the "Titanic" and how the ship sank. I explained to them the history of the ship etc. We either have made it to the life boats or we are on the sinking ship. Maybe we are on the life boats, but are not heeding the warnings of danger ahead. Have we told our loved ones and friends who are on the sinking ship about our Saviour? I managed to get a piece of cake for Prince, Koasi and Mack. The men and boys went out on visitation, while we had our meeting.


My kids are doing really well on reading books. Joseph and Naomi have discovered the joy of reading. Matthew reads when he has to. Even Nehemiah got his $ for reading his books! I have never been a reader myself. Since coming to the field, I have read more than ever. Once I got introduced to Kindle. I am hooked. I love it! There are so many free ebooks!
 http://www.inspiredreads.com/ www.gospelebooks.com




The 30th of March is our 17th wedding anniversary. Time flies! We plan on dying Easter eggs and making some cookies to decorate on Friday. Happy Easter!

Hot African Days!

On these hot African days, we try to just keep cool. One way we achieve this is by Fudge Pops!

Fudge Pops:

3/4 C Sugar
3 T Flour
3 T Cocoa
4 C Milk

In saucepan, combine sugar, flour, and cocoa. Gradually stir in milk until smooth. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 min. (stirring) or until thick. Cool slightly. Pour into molds and freeze.

*Note* Plan on doubling this, too good, to wait until you make it again. If you don't have enough molds, we put ours into small cups, (or big cups for dad).

The blessing for this week is...we have had electricity all week! PTL! We have had missions conference this week as well, which means clothes need ironed and the washer needed to keep up with all the extra clothes we had.

Last week, the electricity was off quite a bit, so the kids found refuge in the shade.