The Midrand Property & Hogan Residence

 Okay everyone! Here I go using massive amounts of our precious data on our limited internet plan, all for you! Hope you appreciate it.  ;)

Here is a little photo tour of our current residence on Reaching a Generation's Midrand property. It is were Jacques and family lived before they established the farm and the Lodge. The house is a funny mix between a work space, living space, and hotel. It's a nice property, it kind of feels like being in the country right next to the city, which we like. Sometimes it's a bit unsettled with people coming in and out, but this week and next we have it all to ourselves, which is sooo nice! Our bedroom and workspace are upstairs (pics below), and we are usually downstairs only for kitchen use and eating, but sometimes we sit down there.

Alrighty, enjoy!

 The house is on the left. (later there are pics looking out from those upstairs windows)
The garage and Tommy's flat are on the right.

Front door on the left, kitchen door on the right behind the car.

The warehouse is in the background on the left, where all of the OneHope books are stored.

The big window upstairs is one of our bedroom windows.

Looking into our room. That's the window I mentioned.

It's a very nice, warmly lit room, with good windows. We like it.

There's a good amount of closet space on the side there.

Our artsy bookshelf again!
and me posing in the mirror ;)

 And here is our work space. Nice natural lighting.

New desks just arrived, so it will look a little different soon.

The wall on the left is the wall with the closets in our bedroom.

This is one of those front windows.

You can see a little play set out there, and on the right side you can see another house on the property which is currently being rented out, but they are soon going to turn it into a Bed & Breakfast.

The other window. You can see one of our neighbor's houses in the distance.

The little side window by Jon's desk looking over the driveway and the entrance to Tommy's flat.

My desk on the side, our bedroom door to the right, the bathroom door beyond that, the little "bridge" leads to a large room for guests, and of course the stairs on the left.

A little sitting room area. We don't use it much, but when there are other people around we spend a little more time down there. 

There are two little bedrooms to the left, and the door to the kitchen on the right.

Conference/dining table in the front room.

"Receptionist" desk... though there is no receptionist.  heheh

The space is still undergoing development as new furniture arrives ect.

Kitchen doorway

So glad to have a real kitchen to cook in.

That's the washing machine sticking out from the country, btw. No dryer right now, we use the line.

They got a microwave! yay!
(That's the security door in the foreground on the left, all doors and windows are barred because break-ins are fairly common anywhere around Joburg area)

Around the corner from the kitchen door going out behind the house.
Looks pretty in the light.

So, there you go! This is where we are living till we come home for the holidays (yay!!!), and we will return here in January till probably March/April when we are planning to relocate to Ghana for about 3 months. After that, not sure... Maybe back here. We shall see!

I have more pictures, but I'll save that for another post.

Also, eventually I'll get pictures of the people we're spending time with and working with. It just feels a little awkward to just randomly start taking picture of people working and what not. ~shrug~ I guess I just need to get over it.  =)

I'll post again soon.
Love you all!

-J&L

Life in Midrand

Lemme just say that living in Midrand is working out MUCH better for us than living at the farm. We're really enjoying it here.

There's just something about being isolated out on the farm that made it really hard to work and hard to function in general. We keep hearing confirmation from other people that their experience is the same, so it's not just us.

We've actually fully moved into our downstairs room last week since the bed arrived, and Taka arrived from Japan (he works with a branch of OneHope called Hope Education and is involved with a government granted program here in SA) and is up in the guest room. Mpho is living here, but every weekend she's back home with her family preparing for her wedding, so we don't see her as much. And Tommy of course lives in the flat next to us. We're enjoying having Taka around, he keeps it lively in the house. We're a couple of old fuddy duddies in the evenings/weekends if there's no one to get us to do something more interesting. ;)

So, we're actually going out sometimes and seeing things! (who'da known?) and being more interactive in general with Tommy and Taka around. It's nice. We went to the Friday night church service yesterday, and when we got back Taka taught the three of us a new card game, which we played till 1am! I haven't stayed up that late on purpose for a long time. haha but we were able to sleep in this morning, so it was worth it.

Also, we're feeling pretty good about work right now. It was a hard coming back to SA after working in the international office for a month. The work environment there is very good, and the work mindset is inline with ours. The work environment here in SA on the other hand is a little stressful and sometimes chaotic, but the last few days have been really good and we feel like we're moving forward. We are very hopeful about a possible candidate to take over our job in the Southern Africa region. And that is the end goal of our work here after all, to replace ourselves with more long term people.

We still have several things to get in better order before we hand over the work to someone here, but we're making progress in those things as well. Please pray for us that we have wisdom in pursuing and deciding whether or not this person is right for the job. At the beginning of September our boss Tom's right hand woman, the lovely Claudia, is visiting SA and we're planning for them to meet so that Claudia can help us in this decision. We're really hoping this is it!

If it is, we will probably be training and handing over responsibility for this region by the end of the year, leaving us to focus on West, Central, and East Africa next year. Southern Africa is a very demanding region, so handing it over first will make a huge difference in looking for people to take over in the other regions. We're planning on basing out of Ghana for a few month's next year and traveling from there through West and Francophone Africa, and also spending time in East Africa.

There is still a whole lot to accomplish and an enormous amount of things to simply keep up with in the meantime, but it's good to feel like we're moving forward in our bigger purpose here in Africa. Please pray that we will be able to juggle all of our responsibilities well. This job can be quite chaotic at times, as we have our hands in nearly every aspect of the workings of OneHope, rather than specializing in one or two aspects. It's a lot to keep track of. 

Thanks for listening/reading. =)
We really appreciate your prayers!
I love hearing from the couple of you who send me little notes and updates on yourselves, so please continue. We miss you all.

Much much love!
-J&L

Moved to Midrand + Out-of-Date Pictures of Room at the Farm

Hi all!

Well, as of Friday, we are now living in our fourth "home" this year. 1.) Our apartment in Boca, FL (lived there 7 months. The longest we've lived in one place since being married) 2.) The Forum (OneHope's headquarters), FL 3.) the game farm, South Africa 4.) Midrand property, South Africa (with some more of the Forum inbetween during July). Then we'll also be back home both in OC and SD for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and next spring we'll be living in Ghana for a few months.  Getting tired of packing, unpacking, settling, repacking, unpacking, settling... etc.

But, the good news is that Midrand is a good change. As cool as the game farm is, and Jon has said it the best, it is a great place to vacation but a very difficult place to work and to live. Midrand is right outside of Johannesburg. So, not only does it take about 7 minutes to get to the grocery store instead of 20-30 min, but there are also shops and restaurants there! and there are shopping malls within 15-20 minutes, and it's about 30-40 minutes to the airport instead of 2 1/2- 3 hours. AND! our friend Tommy lives on the same property as us and his church is an English speaking church which is very similar in style to a lot of U.S. churches, and it only 20 minutes away! Awesome! it's our first time going to church in SA, and it was very nice to go with someone we know who can introduce us to people etc.

As far as our actual accommodations go it's still a little unsettled. As I said in the last email, we are living in a little house on a property owned by Reaching a Generation, our major partner in Southern Africa, whose founder and leader is OneHope's regional director for S. Africa. Tommy lives in a flat above the 3 door garage which is next to the house that we're staying in. It is a small 4 bedroom house. The downstairs includes the kitchen, the "living area" which is office space, a full bathroom, and two quite small bedrooms. At the moment most of our stuff is in the larger of the small bedrooms, but there is no bed there yet, so we're sleeping upstairs in the guest room. Also upstairs is the master bedroom which is completely unfurnished at the moment, but is a very nice room, as well as another full bathroom, and an open "common area" which will soon be fitted with desks as office space.

Tomorrow (monday) we should be getting our bed downstairs. We are currently sharing the house with Mpho, who is the Communications person for SA, but she's getting married early next month and will only be working here, not living here at that point. Tomorrow our Japanese friend Takka (he's pretty American though) is coming (works for OneHope) for four weeks. He'll be staying in the guest room upstairs. And near the end of the month a team of 4 or 5 people will be coming through and will be staying on bunks in the master bedroom. SO, it is going to be a pretty turbulent month as far as the living situation goes. should be interesting.  Come September it will be a quiet house again, and hopefully we'll be able to move into the master bedroom (hopeful!).

So, here we are! Please pray that we adjust well. Pray especially for extra grace this month as a lot of people will be in and out of the house, and we're in a pretty small room right now. And please also pray that we will do better in this work environment than at the farm. We felt pretty disconnected from everything (the rest of our regions as well as the international office) while at the farm, so we're really hopeful that being here will help that. We also have faster internet here which will be quite helpful for our job, however we had to buy an internet plan using a wireless modem which is limited to 5 GBs a month. So no more video chats, and we have to be careful about any video/image upload/downloads, because they eat up a lot of gigabytes.

But, I'm using up some of that to present you with the pictures below! because my mama wants to see them, and perhaps you do too. =)   (I compressed the images so they're not as big of files.)

These are, obviously, a little late... but these are pictures of the room we were in at the farm. We actually really liked the room, and kind of made it our own a bit, so we were sad about leaving that, but happy to be coming to Midrand.

 The door is to the left.

Moira lent us the desk and chairs, which was great.

Inside view of the thatched roof.

We added that curtain to the open wardrobe.

And we made that lovely bookshelf to it's right!
It's made out of unfinished wood planks/shelves with brinks inbetween.
It's pretty cool. Kind of an art piece if I may say so   ;)

 

A glimpse into the bathroom. Showers on the right, toilet's behind the door to the left. 

 Our view out the doors and the window (there are curtains on both)

 Me standing looking weird outside our room, with the kitchen doors to the right an the alfalfa field in the background.

The kitchen

 

Jon in the kitchen. It was a very lovely place to sit and read our bibles in the mornings.

And our view from the back of the kitchen.

So, our living space was actually quite nice at the farm, it just was not an easy place to work, and we were so isolated from everything, out in the South African bush (which is nothing to the rest of African bush however).


Here we are! We had a great time back in Florida, and taking a little vacation time up in Virginia with good friends, and we got to see my brother Daniel a couple days in FL while he was on business, and now we're back at it. life and work in Africa. We're hoping to accomplish a lot in the next few months, getting some various operational things sorted out here in SA, and laying down some processes and procedures... and hopefully we will find and start to train the right person to take over what we will have hopefully sorted out here, so that we can then move our focus to the other regions next year and find people to do our job there as well. That's our end goal! working ourselves out of a job by finding Africans to take over and do it even better.  Please, pray toward that end for us!


We love you all! and miss you lots and lots.
Dad and Grandma, heal up quick! stay strong with all of that physical therapy! (yikes)

Cheers!  (as they say here in South Africa)

-J&L

p.s. Update on Rob Hoskins, president of OneHope: a couple of weeks ago he was able to go of of antibiotics, having kicked out that awful staff infection! It was a tough time for him being on antibiotics for three weeks which made him feel worse and increasingly week the longer he took them. We haven't had any updates on the prostate cancer, but he and his family are not very worried about it since they caught it very, very early. So praise God!

State Side - Pictures of the Game Farm - Living Situation Update

Hi

Well, we were in Florida for two weeks as of July 1st for annual budget and planning meetings for next year. Very busy weeks with meeting after meeting for each of our regions in Africa (very good meetings), and lots of time hosting and entertaining our international guests (which was a little crazy because we had just arrived in the States ourselves). Then all of the international guests fly back home, we got to have a couple days to ourselves to get some work done, and enjoy the beautiful Florida beaches, and NOW! we are in Arlington Virginia on holiday! We're visiting our dear friends Jeremy and Joanne who moved here from San Diego in January. It's so great to be with good friends, and to have some time off to enjoy with them. :)

We're definitely in need of a little vacation. There have been a lot of very good things about Africa, and we're learning and growing, and hopefully doing some good through serving as best as we can, but there have also been a lot of challenges, so it's good to have some time removed from it all to be refreshed and to process through everything.

While we're here in the states with fast internet, I thought I'd add some pictures! These pictures are of the Lodge and Game Farm, where we have been living in South Africa. It is owned by the ministry we partner with in SA. When we get back, we actually will be changing locations (I'll explain at the end), but we will still be frequenting the farm.

 

This is a view from the road as you approach this part of the farm. The large building ahead includes the gift shop, offices, and a classroom/rec-room down stairs, a large conference room up stairs, and the lodge restaurant is connected on the right.

Closer up! (look at the big pots on the right side. It will give you perspective for two pictures down)

Me wandering around taking pictures on the weekend that Jon was in Zambia. He was gone for a whole week w/o me.

There's those pots! ;)
The gift shop is behind me, and on the left is the restaurant patio, and in the distance are 3 chalets, one of which we were living in. It's the far right one.

That's it. Each building has one large bed room (w/ bathroom) on each side, and a kitchen in the middle. Our room is the one on the left.

This is looking right from our front door. That's a field in which they grow alfalfa.

This is looking straight forward from our front door at the next door chalet.

Looking left toward the center of the building on the way to the kitchen.

Around the corner with the kitchen door on the left and a glimpse of the extensive property of the game farm straight ahead.

This obviously is from a different week because Jon is here. ;)
The kitchen, obviously.

Yup. That's it.

Vanilla extract!!! yay! We bought vanilla beans/pods in Madagascar, and I'm making vanilla extract with them.

The tree on the right is in the center of a little pond that the antelope and wildebeests come and drink from at night.

A herd of Blessboks out in the open field area. They frequent this area. They are one of a large variety of of antelope on the farm.

Reflection of me in the Chalet window.

Looking back at the chalets and conference/lodge center from the field.

So, yea, that's it! I have pictures of our room, but they're on Jon's camera which we left in SA, and I forgot to put the files on my computer. =/  I'll post them when we get back, even though it won't be our room anymore. 

We will be moving from the farm, which is about a 3 hr drive North of Johannesburg, to a property in Midrand, which is about 20-30 minutes from the Joburg airport. It will be much more practical for us to the live there. For one thing, our main international warehouse for Southern Africa is on the property, and we have taken over facilitating the shipping of materials from South Africa to the surrounding countries (lots of the smaller countries don't have big enough programs with enough products to have the books shipped directly to them from the international printers in China or elsewhere, so they get shipped to South Africa and we are now arranging their shipment to their final destination). All that to say, it will be good for us to be where the main warehouse is. Besides that, we'll also have faster internet, better access to a vehicle when we need or want it, we'll be less isolated, we'll be close to the international airport, and it will be easier to find a good church for us. Also, the guy who does program/product design for Southern Africa lives on the property as well, and we'll be able to visit his church with him, which is nice. It's really helpful to at least know someone when joining a new group of people. We'll miss being near some of the people we work with who live on the farm, but over all we really think this set up is going to be better for us.

When we move there and get settled I'll take pictures of that place and post them too.

Oky, well, I've finally posted pictures of the place we were living, only just in time for us to move out! sorry about that ;)

I hope you are all very well, we love you all! It is very refreshing to be in the States for the month, but we still miss our lovely California and all of you who are there. We are always looking forward to coming home in November. 

Much love!

-J&L

Prayer for Rob Hoskins at OneHope

Rob Hoskins is the president of OneHope. His father, Bob, is the founder and handed the leadership of the ministry over to his son several years ago. Last week Rob went in for a medical procedure of some sort and ended up with a very bad staff and is fighting one of the worst strands of e-coli. He has had a high fever and will be in the hospital on antibiotics for 3 weeks to fight the infection. This week he and his family received even more serious news. The results of several tests done last week came in, and the doctors have told him that he has prostate cancer.

The cancer cannot be treated until the infection is completely treated, and Rob and his wife Kim and praying about what steps to take in fighting the cancer. Please pray for them. I’m sure is a very scary time for them as a family and they are in need of extra faith and strength in God.

This will also surely affect the ministry. Next week is the beginning of two weeks of the annual budget meetings at which OneHope workers will be gathering from around the globe to discuss next year’s ministry plan and determine what funds will be necessary to carry out our goals. This is a very important time of year for the ministry, and I’m sure it will be difficult not having Rob there during the process.

So please, keep Rob and Kim, their daughters, and the rest of his family in prayer. And please also pray for all of us OneHope as we are planning next year’s ministry and operations. And Jon and I could use prayer as this is our first time being a part of these meetings and we want to be prepared and do our job well, but we are still not entirely sure how the meetings work or what we will be expected to contribute. So, it’s a little intimidating. =)

Thank you all, we really appreciate your prayers for us, and we ask for you to please be praying for Rob and family.

We will be arriving back in Florida this Friday and will be there for the entire month of July. We are excited to be heading back to the States of a time, but wish we could be spending it back home in Cali. Since the internet will be faster and we’ll actually have it in our room, I will be posting pictures of the game farm we’re living on, and our room here, hoping to give you all a feel of what it’s like here.

We love you all and miss you very much!

Love,
-J&L

First Month in Southern Africa

Why, hello everyone!

I am the long lost Lisa Hogan who is supposed to be keeping this blog but haven’t posted since April until today.  =/ whoops!

Well, I’m back! Let me tell you, it’s been busy. After our West Africa trip we were in Florida for a week at the office. That week’s time was split between 1.) trying to catch up with emails and various needs that came up while we were traveling with no internet and 2.) doing errands and trying to get packed and prepared to move to South Africa! Well, we made it. 5 large suitcases packed, plus carry-ons, and the rest of our stuff stowed in the storage unit (except a few things that we left in the office…).

We left on May 7^th and arrived on the 8^th in Johannesburg. But we didn’t even get to see what was to be our new home! We stayed in Joburg, met the Southern Africa team the next morning. It was great to meet them in person after emailing and knowing their names but not their faces and personalities. Then the next day we flew to Malawi and were there with the National Director for a couple of days. Flew back to Joburg and finally took the 2 ½ hr. drive to the Game Farm, our new home! But… we were only there for two days over the weekend before driving at 5am Monday morning back to the airport and flying again, this time to Madagascar.

Okay. We only got to spend a few days in Madagascar, but it was extraordinary. Not only is the National Director, Gwladys, the sweetest, most amazing person ever (with a very short stature and a very fun laugh), but the country and the people are just soooo beautiful. The only two places we’ve been to in Africa so far that have really stood out against what we’ve been familiar with are Cameroon (lush green hills jutting up everywhere, covered in banana trees and fan palms) and Madagascar.

Madagascar’s people are a mix between the Africans and Asians from Indonesia and Malaysia (and others). This makes the people fairly diverse throughout the island (it doesn’t feel like an island btw. It’s very big), and they are really very beautiful. The landscape is also breathtaking. It is very mountainous and hilly. When driving you are almost always going either uphill or downhill, the only exceptions are the straight roads through the valleys. And every valley is filled with rice fields. From the air I don’t think I saw a single valley that wasn’t glistening with wet rice fields. This makes it very dynamic as the light reflects from the water. And it’s very idyllic to see big cows trudging thru the fields, and people wading through them or boating over them. In the middle of some fields there are sometimes groups of a few mud houses build on slightly higher ground. Those that live in them have to cross the field to get to the road.

And both the city and the villages are built on the hills, and they are all made out of very pretty clay bricks. Because of the steep ground on which they are built the houses are layered and build right against the slopes, and the streets wind up and down. We had no idea how anyone driving around the city knew where they were going; it was always up and down, back and forth, and you’d feel like you must have made a circle then you turn a corner and you’re looking down on a completely different part of the city!

The city (we were in the capital, Antananarivo) had good roads, though pretty narrow in some places, but as soon as you got out of the city there were dirt roads, and they were the worst roads we’ve been on. Besides just the general uneven ware and tare that happens from traffic on a dirt road, because of the hills when it rains streams of water flow over the road at various angles as they find their way down, and the water cuts into the roads. It takes a very, very long time to get anywhere in Madagascar once you’re out of the city. And it is very hard on the vehicles, cutting their life short.

We drove out into the bush two nights to be a part of the GodMan film projections in rural villages. (though it’s called “the bush,” it was really more like what you’d think of as “the country.” It was georgous!), and it was a rough ride. Yet. The roads we were on, aren’t the worst roads in the country. 70%, I think it was, of the country is rural. So most of the population are in villages spread out all over the place in the bush and the jungle with very basic dirt roads which are not maintained. The OneHope team in Madagascar sends out small teams far into the bush throughout the country for at least a week at a time. It takes days to get some places, and they sleep outside in the bush or in the jungle, so that they can reach the children and the families in these villages. It’s really amazing.

The country of Madagascar is very, very rich in resources, but the people suffer from severe poverty. It’s a very hard situation. The government and the ministries in the country are striving to teach people the importance of education so that they will think beyond themselves and the basic survival of their families, so they can learn to invest, to grow bigger crops, etc. This country that can and does grow pretty much any kind of crop or fruit has very little export, and surprisingly a lot of import. So there is a lot of struggling happening in Madagascar, but we were amazing at how many people and ministries, including government ministries, are working so hard to bring hope and a better future to their people and their country. It’s really incredible.

So, though it was a short trip, we enjoyed it immensely. We bought vanilla beans while we were there, because Madagascar grows the best vanilla apparently! And I’m making my own vanilla extract. =) and we bought a painting from the hotel we stayed in by a Malagasy artist. We love his art! And then we flew back to South Africa.  I went back to the farm that day, but Jon stayed in Joburg, because he had a last minute trip to Zimbabwe to help train some guys there, as it’s a new program in that country. He had a good time, while I had a pretty good time at the farm over the weekend… but I missed him. Plus I developed a cold, so that was no fun. He showed me pictures when he got back. =)

So, lets see… oh! And we stopped in Zambia at the end of our Malawi trip to meet up with someone. So, including France, we have been to NINE countries in a month’s time, and Jon has been to TEN because of Zim. He’s actually in Zambia again this week overseeing a shipment coming into the country. So… as exciting as all of the traveling has been… we have been so glad to be in one place for the last two weeks (tho Jon’s off again!). And finally we’ve begun to feel settled in a bit.

Work has been pretty crazy with various events going on here at the farm and we’ve just been handed responsibility for regional shipments in Southern Africa (some books are in too small of quantities for the countries with new programs to have them shipped directly to the country from international printer, so they are sent to SA and shipped from here to the destination country). It’s been a handful to say the least. Learning it and doing it at the same time. And our first shipment happened to be probably the most important one for the year! The 75,000,000th (3/4 of a billion) distribution event is happening in Zambia starting this week. And since Zambia’s program is just starting up we had to get books into country for this event! So, it’s been a high pressure first shipment to say the least. Anywho, that’s almost finished. Now only about 6 more shipments to facilitate!

So, anywho, that’s been a bit stressful, but all the same, we are glad to be getting more settled and starting to feel like we have a home. We’re living in a large room with a kitchen next door in the same little building (there are three buildings like ours which each have two rooms with a kitchen in between. They make about 2/3rds of a circle, so the rooms are like pie slices, but with flat walls on the inside and outside of the pie. The other room in our building is for guests at the lodge, no one actually lives in it, so we pretty much have the kitchen to ourselves. I’ll tell you more about the room later when I’ve taken some pictures of it! K?

Well, that’s going to have to do it for tonight! It’s pretty long… so I should probably stop anyways. =/

I hope you’re all doing well back home!

We love you and miss you!

Please post comments if you want to tell us anything! Or email us!

Byebye!

-J&L

West Africa Trip - the second installment

(I know this is terribly late! I had it written in a kind of short hand and only just got to filling it out. I'm finally working on a new post, which will explain why I'm so behind. It's been a crazy month and a half! -lisa)

4/21/11 (Thu.)

Okay, I need to not turn this account of our first trip into a novel, so here is a more brief account of our time in Togo (it was simpler, so it should be easier to be brief)

Yesterday morning we drove west from Parakou, Benin across the border into Togo, to the city of Kara. There we met Gid. (the Togo National Director) and Mat. (the Burkina-Faso National Coordinator). We only spent about a day and a half in Togo so there wasn’t time to participate in outreaches there, but as a result we did finally get to rest after constantly packing, driving, and doing outreaches. We had a nice relaxed to lunch with them. Jon had goat served in peanut sauce with a big blob of enyams (pounded white yams). It was really good, I tasted it. I was in the mood for something more plain and normal, so I had an omelet.

We then had time to rest at hotel. I read. Jon slept. It was pretty hot though... and it was the lowest quality room we had been in so far, because the room Gid. had reserved for us was no longer available. The President of Togo was having some kind of youth conference, so they took any rooms they wanted regardless of a reservation. The hotel we ended up staying in cost $7/night for our room because it had an A/C unit (which didn’t work), Tom’s room was $5 without A/C, and Jim’s was $3 with no A/C and a shared bathroom. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best of places. It would have been fine if it weren’t for the iffy cleanliness of the bed, and the fact that it was sooo hot and our A/C didn’t work, and we didn’t have a fan in our room. So we had a pretty wrestles night. Slept on top of the covers and prayed that we wouldn’t find lice or bed bugs in the morning! But we made it through, and though I was paranoid and kept feeling itchy for a couple of days it was only my imagination.

So, anywho, before that night, we were able to sit with Gid. and Mat., asking Mat. about his ministry, how we can serve him, etc. It was a good meeting. We are very happy and eager to hear from the team in the field about their ministry with OneHope and to find out their needs. That’s what we’re here for, to serve them and help them as we are able in bringing God’s word to the children in their countries.

For dinner we went to an African restaurant and had guinea hen, enyam, and peanut sauce. It was quite good. (the guinea hens are really pretty when they’re alive. They’re like very big grey quails.)

So, this morning we said goodbye to Matthias, got in car at 6:45, drove about 7 or 8 hours to Lome, on the coast of Benin, right next to Ghana border. Jon and I were jammed in front seat which was really only big enough for 1 ½ people. Tom, Jim, Gid. sat in back. The squished position made for a very looong drive. Some bad roads, not toooo bad though.

We arrived at a mission compound/ bible school around 3pm and finally ate lunch/dinner at 4:30 before spending time talking with Gideon to ask him about his ministry.

It’s about 7:30 now. We’re in our room. I’m all showered, teeth brushed, cooled down in an air conditioned room, ready for bed. Jon is passed out next to me but hasn’t showered or anything yet. He groggily said he would though. Heheh

Tomorrow morning it’s across the border to Ghana where we’ll be picked up by Pastor Elorm! (RD Eng. Speaking West Africa) We’ll be there for over a week, so we won’t have to be packing up our luggage every morning and transporting it back and forth between the car and our rooms! Finally we’ll be in one place longer than two days! Excited about that! 

Post Script: I'm not going to write full out about our time in Ghana, but it was pretty simple so I'll just give you a little briefing right now. 

Basically, we stayed in Tema, about an hour or two East of Accra (depending on traffic) on the coast. We had a great time with Past Elorm and his team. They took us sight seeing as well, to the rain forest canopies, which are suspension bridges between big tall trees. That was really cool, but unfortunately we didn't see any wild life besides plants and butterflies and mosquitoes. It wasn't very deep in the forest, and the animals are only really around there at night or early morning. But it was still cool. And we went to Cape Coast where there is an old castle which was used during the slave trade to hold and sell slaves before they were shipped to various countries. That was very interesting, and despite it's history, the castle was beautiful. It was bright white, and literally had ocean waves crashing against it on the coast side. And fishing boats lined the beach. Very pretty.

We also went on ferry ride across part of the Volta River with Pastor Elorm and his wife, which was fun. The bad experiences we had there revolved around pizza, which is just not very good there, and they don't seem to get it. But, I guess that's not the worst thing that could have gone wrong!  ;)

Then of course we spent time in the office there talking about the ministry and various logistical things, and we went and saw their warehouse where they keep the books and did random box count (counting the books in random boxes to see if the printer was putting the right amount of books in each box. unfortunately for one of the products there was a consistent shortage of 1-5 books... bad printer. *tsk*tsk*). Yup.

So, there is a very brief account of our time in Ghana.

=)

-Lisa