It is 7:30 pm and we just got back in the house. We have been to Jegrido for the funeral of the lady that Steve went to the burial on Monday. They usually bury on the day the person dies or the next day if the person dies late in the night. Then on the 4thday they have a small funeral if the person was a woman and on the 3rd day if the person was a man. Today was the 4th day; Steve was invited to speak at the funeral. We were supposed to be there at 4:30 but as we were on our way to Timothy’s house to pick up him and some of the brothers he called and said that we should wait until 5:30. We just drove slowly and then stopped at the church building to see the storm damage and check the mango trees for fire blight. We were not happy when we saw that both the mango trees had the blight.
It took the people a little while to gather; while we waited on them we passed out disposable face masks to the people as they arrived. Ghana’s government still requires face masks for public gatherings. Our thanks go out to all of you who have given us money for PPE and money for “whatever comes up”.
This morning Nazo, the day man, came to the compound with an older lady that needed assistance. The roof on part of her house blew off a few days ago when we had the big storm. We loaded Nazo and the lady in the old van and went to her house to see the damage. The lady was a widow. The roof had already been replaced; the lady had borrowed the roofing material and had no idea how she was going to pay the debt. She said she did not know what else to do because all of her belongings were going to ruin if there was more rain. She said that she borrowed 500 Cedis worth of material and that she only had 50 cedis to pay so she still owed 450 Cedis (about 80 dollars). But that would be like us owing 5,000 dollars and not knowing how we would ever pay it back. When Steve handed her the money to pay for the repairs she squatted down in front of him and started to cry! She was so happy; she just kept holding the money to her chest and thanking us over and over. We pass her thanks on to those of you who help us with the work! You will never know how much your kindness means to the people here in our area.
We finally finished raking and burning the leaves from the mango trees that had to be trimmed. There are still a few smaller trees on the property that will be cut in the next few days; then we can start raking all over again.
Thank you for your support!
In His service,
Steve and Kandie
