Our First Adoption...

We have added a new member to the Willingham family. This is Buck.  He was a stray, but seems very healthy (albeit skinny) and he obeys commands.  It's a win-sin situation: we get more security and enjoyment and he gets a home.

Fran (and everyone else in the house) also loves him.

This is our guard, Thomas.

We're working on fattening him up.

He's a big boy.

Family Time

We spent this past weekend at Barb and Roy’s house on the campus of Ghana Christian University College.  It was a time of welcome rest, yummy food, and warm conversation.  

We were able to visit the bead factory where they melt glass and mold it in a variety of shapes and colors (pictures at the end of post).  We also watched a fun black-and-white Sherlock Holmes movie and spent hours of Saturday morning talking over multiple cups of coffee.  On Sunday we visited the church of one of Roy’s students and split up to observe and take notes on children’s Sunday school classes in order for Roy to meet with the church’s teaching leadership later and offer some ideas.  Hearing more about Roy’s work was one of the best parts of the weekend.

Only in Africa

I saw a hilarious commercial yesterday as I sat waiting for my smoothie at Starbites across from the school.  An African mother and her little girl were making jello in a very American-looking kitchen.  They poured it into a mold and gently set it in the freezer just as the lights went out.  The next scene showed them happily playing games by candlelight as the father came home from work.  They all excitedly pulled the jello out the freezer and it was miraculously set!  The scene changed to a diagram of the freezer’s engineering and an explanation of how it stays cold even when the power is out.  The slogan?  “No lights, no problem! Samsung refrigerators: Made for Africa!”

It’s amazing how little power outages affect people here.  It happens regularly, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours.  It’s not even enough to interrupt a conversation.  Life goes on.  I can feel myself adjusting to this sense of unflappability.  You can do so much without electricity.  Try making a list just for fun.  You might be surprised.  But I bet you don’t have such a high tech freezer as I do!  :-) 

Chapel Prayers

This week in chapel (5^th-12 grade), we had a prayer service.  We sung and spoke a little bit about what prayer means, then we invited the kids to come to the front and write prayers on colored pieces of paper and pin them to two big boards.  

“Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.  I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.”  Psalm 34:3-4

Here are some of their prayers:

God Moments

Students come and go often at AIS.  Third Culture Kids are often highly mobile due to the nature of their parents’ jobs.  Our enrollment will never be set because we accept new students throughout the course of the year; each week has brought at least one new student.  

This week I (Daesha) had morning duty and I ran into a woman who was dropping her upper elementary daughter off for the first time.  I had met the family once before as they toured the school and answered some questions, so she came over to me to ask some more.  I already knew they were not evangelical Christians.  As we spoke, something incredible happened.