One More Celebration!

Once a month we help the church with a process they call "Speaking". During this time church members come in to pay their tithes, get a receipt, sign up to participate in communion, and meet with the pastor or associate pastor for prayer. Myself, Ann Elyse, and Lukata (and even Laci) have rotated to help out with these different duties. On Friday (June 29th), however, we each took time to meet privately with several of the members who came in. We prayed with them about their personal situations and offered advice and words of encouragement. They were all very appreciative and I look forward to spending more individual time with different members who share many of the same concerns as we do back home in America. After we finished we went to Popa Nyarko's for lunch as we always do. But they surprised Laci with a birthday luncheon--jollof rice, grilled chicken, spicy goat soup, fried plantains, I think a salad, and even cake and ice cream. About 20 of the church members and staff showed up to celebrate with us. After so much food I think we were all ready to rest and go to sleep! On Saturday we participated in another funeral and on Sunday at church a cousin of the deceased came up and introduced herself. Popa Nyarko had us stand up and said we were visiting from Princeton, NJ, so she wanted us to know that she was also from NJ although her she grew up right here in Akropong. She then invited us to come visit her in Accra for dinner where she is living right now. We plan to definitely go see her before we come back to the states. Well my time is up on the computer... until the next time... Lisa