Ghana and the Greater Mission Orphanage, Teschie

Trekking to Ghana

     Friday at noon Becca Noland, Deb Andrews and I packed up and headed towards Ghana and a spectacularly adventurous weekend. We travelled without much of a clue of where to stay or what to do, armed ourselves with Becca's prior knowledge of having been in the country and her ever-handy pepper spray.

     Backpacks, lightweight clothes and flip flops on we headed out of the Port Autonome of Lome, where the Africa Mercy is docked and bargained passage on a taxi to the border of Togo and Ghana, which is less than 10 miles away. What awaits you at the border I must admit frazzled me good. A hoarde - mob - of people pulling at you, offering to get you across the border (because my two feet won't work?), exchange your money to Ghanian Cidis, offer you marriage, wanting to give you a ride on the other side of the border, sell you eggs, bread, dried fish, anything. The mob yells and pulls in French, and the mob on the other side of the border yells in English. (At which point I conveniently forgot how to speak English and could wave people off with a "lo siento pero no te comprendo" :-) heehee.

     Once across the Togolese and Ghanian border controls, we got onto a tro-tro that headed to Accra, the capital city of Ghana and about a 3-4 hour dusty, bumpy ride away from the border. The sun was setting when the tro-tro pulled into Accra and I must admit at this point I was more than a bit nervous about it turning dark and our not having the slightest clue about where, in a city of 2 million people, we were going to spend the night. I had been sending up prayers for awhile pulling into the city. Well, we started off at the Accra Mall for food, and would you know it, up walk a couple of missionaries from YWAM in Noepke, in Togo, who both Deb and Becca had met onboard the Africa Mercy when they came to visit the ship the week before. We mentioned to them that we didn't know where we were going to spend the night and they promptly pointed out 3 hotels around the corner from where we were eating. We marched out in that direction, now late at night, past hordes of people and found a place to stay after only checking 2 different places. Whew. A safe place to spend the night.

     The next morning we headed off in a series of tro tro rides towards the Greater Mission Orphanage where Debra's kid's cousin works. Emily Marshall is her name and has been volunteering at an orphanage funded by Feed The Orphans. What beautiful little ones. There are about 46 of them currently. We spent the day playing with them, cuddling, getting our hair braided, singing songs and just generally loving on them. They claim your heart pretty quickly as they come running up to you, fling their arms around you and it's "mommy mommy mommy" for the rest of the day.

     We found a local hotel that night and a pool that we went to swim off the dust of the ages, that had glued itself onto us, and then Sunday morning returned to the orphanage to join in the Sunday morning church service they hold for the children. It was really encouraging to be there, seeing not only how well the children are doing, how well they are loved, but also at how many of them have been adopted! Maybe 8-10 children were already in the process, awaiting paperwork, judge's signatures, home studies, etc. There is even a brother and sister being adopted to a family in the US. One child's parents were 6 days out from arriving to pick him up, so there was a lot of excitement and hope in these little one's lives.

Debra and Emily

Don't ya just wanna eat 'em up?

Becca cuddlin'

    

     A lot of these little ones come from farther upcountry, some of them even have parents, but they get handed over to the orphanage in sheer desperation of poverty; they can't afford to feed and clothe them, let alone give them an education. Can you even imagine what goes through a parent's heart? What do you do when you have 8 children and can't feed them? Whew. According to Emily even the children who don't have parents who are wards of the State still have to have releases signed by any possible relative around - aunties, grandparents, brothers, for adoption. As African families are quite extensive, this also becomes an interesting part of the adoption process, all of it monitored through the Ghanian government to prevent child trafficking (also a big problem). It was interesting talking to the children and hearing about how they think it will be with their new families, what they've heard about America (or Germany) and hearing about how other children have settled in with their new families. Quite a few children are headed off for Knoxville in the next little bit, God-willing, so Deb is going to be able to visit a few in their new homes as well! Super cool.