We hadn’t traveled to Nana Bekum’s area around Chereponi, located north of Yendi, for several years due to Covid and tribal conflicts. What really limits our ability to visit these Churches is the flooding of the roads during the rainy season. We try to always visit during the dry season.
I was glad I told Timothy Niligrini we needed to leave at 7am this morning. The last time we visited Brother Nana the roads were very much improved. NOT so today! I had 6 metal communion tables roped down to the bed of the pickup. I must have done a decent job because the tables didn’t shift any and the roads were terrible. They were worse than terrible! The dust helped to hamper our travel time as well. It took us 3 full hours to arrive at our destination.
Five of the 6 congregations were represented at the Kablani congregation. These congregations are small in number and the majority of membership is greater than age 50. Nana took over the duties of interpreter for me today since these people speak a different language than Timothy speaks.
When we got there two congregations had not arrived so we drove down the road to the chief’s house to say hello and give him kola. When we finished with the chief we drove back to the meeting place which happened to be a school block. Before services Timothy and I handed out the gifts we brought to each of the congregations.
I promised the audience not to speak long because we were in the land of Heat and Sunshine and the room was HOT! The folks just smiled and chuckled. I spoke about the importance of teaching the children basic bible knowledge so they will not be lead away by denominational and Islamic doctrine. BTW, I kept my promise. Today’s temperature was 113 degrees F with a 117 degrees F heat index.
One of the church leaders passed away and his widow was present for the service. After the service we had a prayer for her and Kandie and I gave her some money in memory of her husband.
We were treated to a meal of rice with oil and seasoning and two small pieces of chicken for lunch. It was very good. Four women had cooked the meal so I gave each 10 Cedis . They were happy!
Before we left we went to Nana’s house to pour out 4 jerri cans (25 liter each) of water that we brought to Nana because he said water was a big problem for them. Heading back to Yendi the pickup had 2 communion tables and enough women to fill in all the spots left in the truck bed along with a bicycle. One table and some women dropped at the main road and the rest went on into the town so they could go to the Chereponi market.
On our way back after dropping off the people we passed by two boys standing by the side of the road holding up a dead Monitor Lizard about 3 feet long. We asked Timothy if he liked to eat the lizards and he said “OH Yes! It is a very sweet meat”. I reversed the pickup so we could ask the boys if it was for sale and if so how much? A man approached saying the lizard was 35 Cedis. Kandie said “will you take 25 Cedis?” He said “Yes”. Timothy was a happy camper! He was telling us how they will smoke the meat and put it in some soup. We arrived back at the compound a little after 4pm. I was bushed.
Our friend Red brought the metal shelving unit to the house earlier in the day. Kandie asked him if he could come help bring it in the house since Timothy was already here so now we have the unit in the back room ready for us to load it up.
Hope you had a great Lord’s Day! May God bless.
In His service,
Stephen and Kandie Taylor
P.S.
Please be reminded to send your name and email address to our daughter-in-law Melissa melissajoytaylor @ gmail.com if you want to receive the daily Yendi Notes. This is due to an email server problem we encountered that caused all your email addresses to be lost. Feel free to pass this information on to anyone wishing to get the Notes.
