At 1:00 this afternoon the heat index was 131 degrees. Now that is hot! There is a storm brewing; someone near us is getting rain; there is lighting all around us. We are praying that we will get some too. Things are getting pretty dry.
This morning Steve was able to get Amana’s annual tax return filed but Nazo and my phone numbers had not been changed. This afternoon we made another trip to the tax office. They are not happy to see us and we are not happy to have to be seen! They fixed the phone numbers for us and we were able to file both Nazo and my tax return. When we filed Amana’s they tried to charge us a late fee of 630 GH; almost 100 dollars. The officer that was helping us said that he would work on it and see if he could remove it. Evidently he was successful in taking off the excess charges and we did not see any excess charges for the other taxes that were filed. We think that we have finally finished the annual returns. Steve will double check tomorrow and make sure no other late fees have appeared.
We were seriously short-handed in the Child Center this morning. Meri’s oldest son Aliu, who has sickle cell disease, was admitted to the clinic yesterday afternoon. Today Meri came to the mission house and said that they were going to move him to Yendi hospital because he needed more care than they could give at the clinic. We asked her what was wrong with him. She said they told her that he had typhoid and malaria plus he was having a sickle cell crisis. Zorash did not come back to work again today; she is still dealing with her sick brother. Mr. Iddrisu did not come until almost 11:00; he was at the Ghana Card office trying to get his number. He was not successful. They told him he would just have to wait until the card was processed. Nazo did not get out of the Ghana Card office until the middle of the afternoon; they took his picture again and reentered his information. He only thought that he was going to get the card and number today; they told him that he would have to wait a few weeks for it to be processed.
Steve and I had Amama come to the Child Center and interpret for us today. She is a great interpreter and she does not mind telling the women what is what! We had one difficult case this morning. The grandmother brought her mentally delayed daughter and 2 month old baby to the Center. The mother was willing and able to breastfeed the baby and had plenty of breast milk but the grandmother was determined that we were going to provide formula for the baby. When we told the grandmother that the baby was not a candidate for formula the grandmother got annoyed and refused to talk to us. When she left the Center she went to the clinic next door and brought back the mental health nurse who believed that the mother did not have any breast milk. We expressed a ton of milk into a small feeding cup to prove to the nurse and the grandmother that there was plenty of breast milk. The nurse was so surprised. She could not believe that they had lied to her. The grandmother refused to give the baby the milk that we expressed and went away in a huff!
Thank you for all you do! Please pray that we get the rain that we need.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
