Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus to each and every one of you!
Every day will I [choose to] bless Thee; and I will praise Thy name for ever and ever. Ps. 145:2
We are doing well by the mercies of God! Praising Him for his goodness and grace bestowed on us the last week and a half!
I’m sure some of you are wondering how everything went…. And if we moved on the 15th or not! Yes, we indeed moved on the 15th…. And are now marveling at OUR GOD for working everything out for us! I will back up to the 10th of Feb. We were going about our normal duties…. and plans as if we weren’t moving at all. Because honestly we couldn’t move into another house without paying a down payment first, and we couldn’t pay on any house until we got our money! We didn’t have a phone number for Florence [the owner of the house] to contact her and tell her that there is no way we can move out on the 15th unless she gives us our money. So we waited and waited for her to show up! And she came late afternoon of the 10th with her grown son and daughter [who are also from Canada]. She began telling us that we have till the 15th to get all of our stuff out…. We told her that it is hardly possible! And she began saying that we are going back on our word… we agreed the last time she was here to be out on the 15th and now we are saying we can’t! Well, we can if you can give us at least some of our money back so we can secure another place. But she said no… the exchange of the keys and the money will have to be done on the same day. We asked that they would come back tomorrow and we would think about what we could do…. To which they agreed to do.
The next day was a long, hard day of waiting and praying that they would be willing to give us $700 to secure a house that is currently unfinished. The owner says that he can be finished in2 weeks… but in Ghanaian terms it could be 2 months. So we are still in a pickle as to what to do… we can’t fit all our furniture in a motel room… and we can’t afford to stay in a motel for that long!!! Chad talked to his friend Godwin [who is currently in Tamale about 12 hrs. from Sogakope] to see what he would suggest we could do. We had also been discussing everything with Bro. Samuel as to what all we should do and how we should do it! Everybody we talked to here said that the law in Ghana is if a landlord ‘sacks’ [kicks] you out of the house he has to give you 3 months to relocate… but we were only given 3 weeks! Godwin called someone he knew that had a house that was almost done to see if she would be willing to rent it to us. She said that she has someone that wants to rent it but is not ready to move in now… so she would rent it to us for 2 months… and tell the guy that it wouldn’t be available until then. AND…. Because she knew Godwin, and Bro. Samuel she was even willing to let us move in without paying first! We promised that when we receive our money on Tues. the 15th we will pay for the 2 months! She offered for us to come and clean on Mon. and keep the key so we could move in early Tues. morning! Wow! It was amazing to see God at work on our behalf! While Chad was trying to get everything figured out… Serenity and I started packing! We packed up 5 totes by noon… and decided that was enough for one day… and waited to hear more from our Florence. By supper time we had just about decided that she wasn’t going to come after all! But just as we were finishing up supper they showed up! We had Bro. Samuel come because we felt it was best for us to have 3 people to help give accountability and because there were 3 in their group. And we were very glad he was there! In the end they agreed that they would bring the $700 tomorrow Sat. the 12th so that we could secure another place…. And we agreed to be out of the house on the 15th! We asked for a specific time that they would come on the 15th so we knew how long we had to get out. And they said they would come around 12-1pm.
Sat. was busy with more packing plus we needed to do laundry! Serenity got most of the kitchen packed up by noon…. While I made some preparations for a ‘Sweetheart’ supper since Mon. would be too hectic! I had already bought a piece of lace for a table cloth that would fit the table that belongs to the house there…. So I wanted to use that with some tea light candles and fake rose petals! I planned to have baked chicken, mac-n-cheese [with real Velveeta cheese J], California blend veggies [that we had brought from the States], a beet n potato salad, and a frozen peanut butter cup dessert [that was sent to us special for this occasion!]! I love making things special…. So it was a stress reliever for me in the midst of all the dishevel of packing! We waited all day for Florence to come with the promised money… but she never came!
Sun. the 13th dawned a bright warm day! We had a quick change of plans at 7am in the morning! Bro. Samuel and Chad had planned to go to Nugbilebui for the morning service… and the rest of us would stay home. But Bro. Samuel had got a call from the deceased Bro. Paul’s children that they were coming to Sogakope for service to thank the church for their support! So it was quick get ready!!! Then about 8am… Florence, Eureka [her daughter], and Julia all walk in the gate! Surprise! They were coming with the money…. They had been in Accra all day yesterday and were not able to come so they were coming now! Wow! Praise the LORD!!! We went to church with a praise report to give! Bro. Samuel was able to take the money and a written agreement to the landlord of the unfinished house so that he could start working on finishing it!
Mon. was full.... but not stressful! We went ahead and did laundry again so we wouldn’t have so much laundry to do once we moved… plus we weren’t sure if we would be able to put up our clothes line right away! We had decided to move our wardrobes with our clothes in it so that made for little packing up in our bedrooms. About 10am Chad, Bro. Samuel, and Serenity went over to the new house to clean out all the carpenters junk!! While I stayed with the children and did a little more last minute packing! I made a big pot of rice for supper so we would have leftovers for tomorrow… and then we retired early so we could get an early start tomorrow!
Tues. was MOVING DAY!!!! By 6:30am our wooden hand pulling cart arrived to transport our furniture! Chad went with the guy to open the house and help him unload. While he was gone, John, our lorry friend came with his van… and the back seat out to help haul all of our totes, etc. It took two van loads and three cart loads to haul all of our belongings… in only 3 hours with 4 men [including Chad]! Impressive! Elayna was so excited…. She kept saying, “I’m ready to go!” She had her backpack with a few toys and books that we didn’t pack…. And was traipsing through the house ‘helping’! Chace on the other hand was a little worried…. Our stuff and Daddy kept leaving and he wasn’t going along…. He kept clinging to me to make sure we didn’t forget him! Finally everything was out… Chad and Serenity rode our bikes over… while the children and I went in John’s lorry… and lastly the hand cart piled high with furniture! Storm clouds were rolling in and threating to rain…. So we were glad we had gotten an early start! Wow, it seemed like a lot of stuff for this small 2 bedroom duplex! The master bedroom is the biggest room in the house! The kitchen is the next to smallest room [the toilet, and shower room are the smallest J]…. The living room is considerable smaller than the other house and the hall… well it’s about as big as most of our halls in America… but the other house the hall was more like a wide veranda! But after measuring things… we actually fit everything in! The big 6 ft. x 8 ft. shelves are in the living room along with our living room set. The 7 ft. x 4 ft. shelves fit in the hall in between the back door and the window. And the refrigerator, stove, 5 ft. counter, and 7 ft. x 3 ½ ft. shelves all fit in our tiny, 8 ft x 9 ft. kitchen! Yes, it looks like wall to wall furniture… with everything within reach… but it works! J That is if there’s not a lot of people in there too! J It was fun to see how much stuff we could fit into such a small space! Most of the kitchen was unpacked by 11:30… and we heated up leftover rice for lunch [thankful I had that]! Chad, Bro. Samuel, and Bro. Seth all went to the other house by 12 to wait for the landlady and get the money. Bro. Samuel was saying that since they are breaking the contract and causing us so much trouble that she should give us all the money back. But Florence couldn’t see that she was causing us any trouble at all…. And of course, she couldn’t let us live in HER house for free! So she deducted the 2.5 months that we had lived there… but she did pay Chad back for the water bill that we had to pay in order to have our water turned back on. All in all we are grateful that she did bring back the money that she owed us and we can put that towards our next rental house! My dear Hubby was going from one thing to the next all day! The house that we moved into still had to have the septic pipes hooked up… and the kitchen sink pipes put in….. and some ceiling fans installed! They had promised to do all this [minus the fans] on Mon. and they did… but they hooked up the wrong side of the duplex! In the other house the tile flooring isn’t finished… so we couldn’t just move in there instead! After Chad got the money around 2pm…. He and Bro. Samuel went and paid the lady that owns the house we are living in temporarily! Then they bought 3 ceiling fans… and had some electricians come and install them… till they were finished it was suppertime. We had more leftover rice J and just as we were finish warming it up…. The plumber came to hook up the kitchen sink! When he saw Serenity and I in the kitchen… he thought maybe he should wait… but we told him no we are finished you can hook it up! Dear Bro. Samuel, was also here all day helping Chad and making sure everything was hooked up and working before the workers all left! By bed time we were all ready to for a good nights sleep! J
Let me tell you a bit about our new home! We live in a shared compound [I guess you can call it a compound]… with our house, the duplex, on one side and directly in front of us is 7 rooms… all attached in one long house that are rented out. In between, is about 20 ft. of dirt [about a roads width].The apartments do not have a toilet or shower room inside… but around the back of them is a shared double outhouse, and double shower stalls. And out front is an outdoor spigot… to which each tenant fills his/her bucket of water and uses it to bathe with. Around this outdoor spigot there is a mud puddle… to which the children take great delight in! J Our lorry friend John lives in one of these rented rooms. Most of our neighbors are young adults… but there is one 10yr. old girl that lives in one of the rooms… and Elayna had attached herself to her! In fact both of the children have been the neighborhood attraction! Elayna was ‘helping’ one of the ladies wash dishes outside on her doorstep! It will be a good opportunity for Chad and I to speak the language and learn from the people! We know God has us here temporarily for a reason!
Please continue to pray for our Ewe teacher… we were going to have a class today but he called and said that the pain in his left arm/side has become too severe and he was going to go to the hospital! And also pray that we can grasp this language!
You can also continue to pray for our health… we have been very blessed the last several months with good health and we don’t want to take it for granted! Now with rainy season around the corner [we got a tiny little shower last night]… the mosquitoes will be more plentiful and malaria more probable!
Thank you to all of you who have been lifting us up to the Throne of Grace…. We sense your prayers! May Jesus bless each one of you in whatever corner you are serving Him!
Pressing toward the Mark! Chad & Elizabeth and family
