Loving greeting to all from warm Africa!
"How excelent is thy loving kindness, O God! therfore the chlidren of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings." Ps. 36 v7
Praise the Lord.... another week has gone by! Our weeks seem sooo much longer than they used to be.... packed full of soooo many things!!!
I'll start off with Monday... another beautiful day! Sorta overcast so that was nice for washing laundry! We had Bro. Samuel's family over for supper.... and tried our hand at rice with peanut butter stew! It really taste better than it sounds! Their "Peanut butter" what they call " Groundnut paste" is like natural peanut butter with no sugar. Then u add tomato paste, salt, red palm oil, hot peppers, and fish! Everyone ate well and seemed to like it.... I'm sure it wasn't quite like the way they make it! We all sang a few songs... had prayer... and then Samuel's left!
Wednesday was market again.... and a very hot day! Our water went off about midmorning.... glad I got our barrel filled with water and all the buckets too before it went off! Chad and Samuel had talked earlier about having a midweek service... and Chad said in the States we have it on Wed. evening, but we don't have to do it the same day. We did have it Wed. night at our house.... it was really nice we prayed, sang, Samuel shared from the Bible, then prayed, and sang some more!! All in all I think it was an hour long.... and the atttendance was Bro. Samuel, Sis. Eunice, their little girl Ruth, Chad, Serenity, our children, and myself. Afterward we had popcorn!
Thursday... Thanksgiving Day! Was as hot as ever.... it really didn't "feel" like thankgiving! But it's a good thing that we don't depend on feelings :) :) because we planned to make it a special day anyway! It started off like a normal day... breakfast, devotions, and prayers of thanksgiving! We decided to have our meal at 3pm.... I to be honest, I could hardly wait to start making the food! We couldn't do laundry because our water was still off... and our water supply was getting low... so we all decided that it would be better to wait on laundry so we have enough water to take a bath tonight!!! Next on the list was to make our peanut butter pie..... so it could get cold! The rest of our menu consisted of Stuffing with Turkey in it [I had some turkey canned that I brought], cheesy potato casserole made with their sweet potatoes, gravy, mixed veggies, salad, and pineapple [to take the place of cranberry!] The pie turned out great.... only we had a few troubles getting our whipped topping to whip! We ended up whipping it by hand with a whisk and it worked! Actually, everything else turned out very delicious too! All day the water was off... the longest it had been off since we moved here..... Chad checked the meter and it was turned off... very strange!
Friday..... and still no water! Chad went to the neighbors and they filled up our barrel and hauled it over here for nothing..... they wouldn't let Chad pay them anything! While we girls started laundry.... Chad and Samuel set off to the water district to find out why we don't have water and why the meter is turned off! They found out that our landlady has a 3 month overdue charge of 38 cedis that she hasn't paid... and won't pay because they changed her rate from residential to commercial without her knowing it and is charging her too much! She is very stubborn and argued with the Water company for a while... then told Chad, "Oh the water will come on soon" But she didn't pay them anything when she was there! Of course the company told Chad if you pay the bill your water will be turned on. But Chad didn't think it was right for him to pay her overdue bill and know that he will never get the money from her! Well, all day we waited and no water! Oh yes one more important thing! Our saw horse stand for our hand cranked wringer was finished and we set that up to help with our piles of wash! Was it ever nice to get almost all the water out of the cloths and things dried a lot faster too! We still have to scrub the clothes by hand but the wringer helps a lot!
Saturday dawn with no water! So Chad set out to solve the matter! He had decided to ask if he could pay the reconnect fee and a little towards Julia's bill since we had been using water for about a week, would they turn our water back on! No, the whole bill had to be paid! So in order to have water again.... for who know how long it would take Julia to pay her bill.... Chad payed the bill of about $25 and we had water in about 20 min.!!! I'm sure that's what Julia was waiting on... for us to pay it! But Chad has a plan.... she still has her stuff in our house :) and she said that she would sell us one of the bed frames.... so Chad will try to just subtract the water bill from the bed frame price! :) Our dear little Chace turned 1 today too! We had a little party for him.... Pizza with a cabbage salad... and fan ice [ice cream sold in small plastic bags] with orange fanta poured over it! Very good... almost like a orange creamsicle slush! We got Chace a ball in market... and a few suckers too! He was delighted! We tried to tell Chace that he was 1 and help him hold up one little finger.... but he just takes his finger and sticks it in his ear! So cute! :) Elayna was sooo excited about Chace's birthday! Then she kept saying that on her birthday she will be 3... Then she turns to her Auntie and says when it's your birthday you turn 3!! But Serenity explained that she will turn 23!
Sunday another very warm day! Bro. Samuel decided that we should go to Nugblebi in the morning this time.... So we all went! We left the house at 8am.... got on a lorry and headed off for Torve! Picking up Samuel & Eunice at the end of town! Oh yes, before we left Serenity was explaining to Elayna that we are going to get in a van and drive for a while before we get to church... and Elayan says with Grandpa and Joyelle? Yeah! and she squeals! No, remember Grandpa is far, far away! Anyway it seemed like no time at all and we were in Torve, it was maybe 25 min.... now for the long walk back to the village of Nugblebi about a 2 mile walk! Dusty trails.... a couple of motos passed us and a car.... and eeew, a foot long earth worm! I kept my eyes open for snakes!! But didn't see any, thankfully! We arrive at Church a cute little shelter with a thatched roof and several poles holding it all up! It provided a nice cool breezy service... on backless benches with a dirt floor! The children couldn't understand why they couldn't play in the sand/dirt.... it was just like their sand box back home except all over the place not just in a box! We sat an waited for awhile till people started to gather.... and then started to sing... a few more trickled in... then service began! Samuel asked Chad, while we were sitting there waiting, if he would have the Sunday school.... so he agreed and shared about blind Bartemaus again since he didn't have anything else prepared! I enjoyed it because I wasn't there for service last week! We prayed and sang some more.... gave testimonies... then Samuel preached about "The Kingdom of Heaven is for YOU!" We repeated the title together several times... then he said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is for ME! So we all repeated that several times before he started preaching! He preached in Ewe.... and then at the end gave us a little overview in English. More singing.... and then we had special prayer for one of the girls that had shared during testimony time about a dream that she had. Her dream was about someone chasing her... and then she sees that she is running but her feet aren't touching the ground... and then she sees that she is dead... then wakes up! Bro. Samuel is pretty certain that someone has cast a spell on her to be a witch or something.... and says that we should earnestly pray that this girl could be delivered! The girl's name is El-Li-prim and she seems like she could be about 12 years old... but could be 14 years old since they look so much younger than what they really are! Then we headed back down that dusty path.... back to the road... back on the lorry.... and back home again! We got home at 1pm..... it had been 5 hours since we had left the house..... doesn't seem long to most of you.... but with all that had transpired for us it seemed long! We were all ready for a nap! Later in the evening..... about 7pm Bro. Samuel's family came over to our house for another service.... Elayna was delighted to have the children here! We sang and prayed... Samuel read some out of Psalms 91... and then prayed and sang some more! :) We had special prayer for El-Li-prim and for the person that has put the curse on her and for the whole church in Nugblebi! It was a very sweet time!
Thank you all for praying for us this past week! I often look at who is praying for us that day and think of you all!
A praise report! None of us has gotten malaria yet! Everyone has been very healthy this past week for which we are very grateful!
Please pray specifically for young El-Li-prim that she would remain strong in her faith in the Lord Jesus.... and that the Devil and his powers would be defeated!
Rejoicing in the Goodness of our God! Chad & Elizabeth, Elayna, and Chace
