Ghana Update

Hello Everyone: This is Lisa and Laci...we are both doing well! It has been awhile since I blogged so I will try to give a brief update of what we have been up to the past few weeks. As I stated before the power goes off several times per day--whenever it wants to and for as long or as short as it wants to! So we have just learned to live around that minor inconvenience. We are still trying different Ghanian dishes--but the favorites seem to be banku, fufu, and kenkey. They are all somewhat similar but made differently and sort of remind me of mashed potatoes. We have also had lots of chicken, goat meat and lamb. A couple of days ago I had Ghanian pancakes which are very close in taste to pancakes in America. But I don't want to give the impression that all we do is eat! We spend a lot of time in the community and at church gatherings. On Sundays we are typically in church for 5-6 hours since we attend both services. We have all preached at least twice so far at 2 different churches. As you can imagine--the services are very lively especially at offering time and during the time to fellowship. Lots of singing in both english and twi (the main language here in Akropong) as well as lots of African dancing! I haven't figured out how to load my sermon yet but when I do I will post it. As part of our duties we attend schools to do a worship service with the children. Yes, the Ghanian schools include a devotion service every Wednesday at the schools. We each will have led a worship at 8 schools over the next few weeks. The children (primary school-high school) are a lot of fun. They treat their worship service as if they were at a high school football game or a R&B or rock concert! It is so amazing to see them get that excited about God! The US would do well to look to the Ghanians as a model for incorporating prayer and worship back in school. Before school the students all spend time cleaning up the school grounds. The US should also take note of that--the students here are excited to be in school and are very eager to learn. In addition to the schools and church--we have attended a couple of funerals. Here in Akropong, they only hold funerals every other Saturday. At the funeral service you could have one person being funeralized or as many as 9 caskets in the front of the church. Mama Beatrice (Popa Nyarko's wife) said that they have had as many as 22 people being funeralized on one day. I couldn't imagine that in the U.S. But on the Monday after the funeral they do what is called Ayiasetena which is when the pastor and church leaders go to the home of each deceased member and do a mini sermon and assist with the reading of the will and public acknowledgement of who will be designated to oversee and handle the deceased family affairs. The 3 of us will all each have the opportunity to preach a funeral on a Saturday at the church as well as assist at the burial sight and then do a sermon at the Ayiasetena on one of the Mondays. My time is almost up so I will stop here and continue in the next blog.