Emmanuel, the evangelist died last night. Emmanuel was one of the first Konkomba evangelists that my parents hired. He was on payroll when we first came to Yendi In 2001. Over the past 4 or 5 years his health has been failing. He has had dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease. For the past 3 years he has not been able to attend class or church but we kept him on payroll because he has small children and we did not want him or his family to suffer. Emmanuel did not know how old he was so when he was hired he just picked an age. He underestimated his age. In Ghana you can retire at 60 and Emmanuel was much older than 60.
This morning when Timothy heard that Emmanuel had passed away he went to the village to greet the family and see what they wanted to do about a funeral. Just because Emmanuel is a Christian it does not necessarily follow that his family will allow him to have a Christian funeral. The family told Timothy that they were going to bury and perform the funeral according to their traditional customs. This afternoon we went with Timothy back to the village to give our sympathy money and the money that we were holding for Emmanuel in his savings. We gave part of our gift to his wife and part to his brothers. Steve explained to the family that now Emmanuel was gone he would no longer get monthly pay. They were not happy about that; they said that they thought we should extend it for some more months.
His wife is the property of the family and they will find another man to marry her. All children belong to the father’s family so the uncles will take the children. It is all very strange and sad.
After we got back from Emmanuel’s village we went to visit Abduli Fusheni; the paraplegic that we have been helping for a long time. His sister sent us a gift of yams and agushie seeds (gourd seeds). It was a very nice gift. Zorash went with us to visit Abduli so we shared the yams and seeds with her.
We got the shipment of formula this morning. The guys that brought the formula brought us back 100 Cedis. They said that because we bought in bulk we were getting the wholesale price. Now that is a first for us; someone giving us back money!
Asana, the 19 year old girl that has been crippled since birth came to the mission house this morning with her mother and a couple of her little brothers. The older one was about 5 years old; he delighted in waiting for the mangos to fall and running to pick them up. He was not eating them; he was filling his mother’s bag. So cute! I imagine he will enjoy them later.
The air conditioner in our bedroom is not cooling. Boat, the A/C man is here working on it. All we want him to do is top it up with gas but no he wants to clean it too. Maybe we will sleep cooler tonight.
Thank you for all you do for us and for the work.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
