We are spending the night in Tamale tonight because when we got to the Registrar General’s office this afternoon the documents were ready but they still had the Americans registered as Ghanaians. Please! The guy helping us said that the problem was not from their office but it was from the Ghana Revenue office. He went with us to the Revenue office to see if he could get them to change it while we waited. When we got to the office the changes had already been made and the fault was from the Registrar General’s office. So we went back to his office to check with his people that do the processing and sure enough part of the changes had been made; 3 of the 4 men had been changed from Ghanaians to Americans. When he found out that one still had not been changed he started the process to get it changed. Of course we had to pay to get it changed and we had to pay the processors for making new copies! Give me strength! We sat in the office until it was closing time and still they could not get it to print out correctly. We were asked to come back in the morning but not too early; we should come around 10:30.
We were afraid that we would have another long day sitting in the office so we packed a bag so we could spend the night. We were warmly welcomed by the Indian couple that run the hotel we stay at when we are in Tamale. We had a lovely Indian meal; we ate far too much but it was delicious. It almost made the waiting in the Registrar General’s office worth it! NOT!
We did not leave the mission house this morning until after we closed the Child Center. Meri, one of our interpreters, is pregnant again. This will make her 8th child. Meri is the one that has the son that has sickle cell disease. If you remember earlier in the year he had a serious sickle cell crisis that it caused stroke like symptoms and he was unable to walk or talk. Meri said that he has learned to walk and talk again and that he is doing much better; he is no longer in the hospital and he has come back to Yendi. He must not yet be as strong as he used to be because Meri said that he was going to go back to school pretty soon but he was not going to go to his regular boarding school rather he was going to stay at home and go to a school in Yendi.
A very malnourished child came to the Center this morning. He weighed 8.8 pounds and was 11 months old. This is the second time he has come to the Center. He actually gained about 6 ounces during the past 2 weeks. We would have like to see more of a weight gain but any gain is a point in the right direction.
Please keep the work in your prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
