Lighthearted Adventures

Most of our days in Ghana were highly scheduled and down to business….and rightly so. But, we also had a few ‘lighter’ moments as well….

Two men of Asikuma who hold prominent positions in the village try some cheez whiz!

What could Doug be eating now?

Let's take a closer look.....hmmm...... He’s eating snails! Fresh ones. Meaning a few minutes ago they looked like this on the roadside… And while I am on the subject of food……for the first few days in Asikuma we couldn’t exactly figure out where the kitchen was for our hotel restaurant. They always came from ‘out back’ with our orders of food. One morning, Doug decided to go looking ‘out back’ to see what exactly was….well….’out back’! And let’s just say, our food was being prepared….Survivor style! That’s a goat being skinned and be-headed! And there's lunch!!!!!!!! And Jake's fish being seasoned... And guess who got to try to pound out some fu fu? Trust me, it’s way harder than it looks! While we were back there, I decided to opt out of taking a picture of the chicken who had just been slaughtered on the rock (you can thank me later). But, I was pretty impressed by their little outdoor kitchen. However, our surprise tour ‘out back’ was a reminder of why I become an instant vegetarian on our trips. It’s a good thing I like rice. And no blood shed or guts spilled when slicing open a mango. Alright, enough about food. Now for some cultural sights… Among the numerous things I’ve seen being sold on the roadside, I can now add coffins to my list. I am still amazed with how they do this!!!!!!!!!! An iron cooling off outside a sewing stand. And, oh look, our Kingdom Hoops guys are out for a run….wait a minute, who’s that white guy leading the pack?!?!? Oh, that’s just our resident Iron Man competitor, Doug. :) There is no escaping the leg lifts when Doug is leading the workout! The Kingdom Hoops boys also got a great practice in and learned 4-out motion offense for the first time…. And they got some encouraging words of advice and things to think about from Jake. And guess what? On our very last day in Ghana we got to go to the beach!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woot woot!!! (yeah, it was pure bliss)

And here are a few more pictures of JJ living it up in Ghana… he pretty much spent every waking moment with the Kingdom Hoops boys.

Thoroughly enjoying his goat's milk chocolate shake!!!!

Our last day in Asikuma we were able to do a bible study with about 40 kids from the village. Katlyn, Emma & I taught the kids about salvation through faith in Jesus by making salvation bracelets which the kids LOVED!!!!

I didn’t realize until later that the colors in the bracelets are actually the colors in the Ghana flag! :)

I feel like I could keep posting about our trip for days and still not touch on everything that happened. The other tripsters on our team have started sending me their personal trip highlights, and they are AWESOME! I can’t wait to post them, which I will do next week. Tune in tomorrow for details on the construction projects we will be starting on our August trip. SO EXCITING!!!!!!!!! And I’ve had many people ask me what we need, what donations we are collecting for August, etc. I’ll of course be letting you in on all of that too.