Dr. Klu at Kekeli

The bottom photo is of Dr. Klu who is finishing the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Ewe and will soon begin the New Testament. He is a true scholar of the church and and a font of wisdom about traditional African spirituality. This morning he gave a presentation to us and the gathering of the pastors in preparation for the induction of the new moderator.

The top photo is of our lunch which included fufu and grasscutter, a large rodent which lives in the forest. The people hunt this creature for food. The Bremen Village training farm is teaching rural farmer how to raise them for food and income. Zimmerman and Bourdain be warned, we too are up to adventuresome food.

Wli Waterfall

The tallest waterfall in western Africa located outside of Hohoe in the Volta Region. Enjoy our photos.

Bremen Village and Leprosarium

Our first stop of the morning was a training farm called Bremen Village. The EP church trains farmers in organic farming and families in health issues among many other things. This is the outreach to the rural poor communities in the area.

We saw the rabbits, grasscutters, snails, turtles, mushroom growing, all things the farmers can use for sustainable farming.

The photo is us at the leprosarium. This is where the cured lepers live since their families have shunned them thinking the disease is contagious. the stigma attached to leprosy keeps them exiled from the community. The EP church treats the few people who still contract the disease and houses them for the rest of their lives. We came to bring greetings and a box of flip flops as a small token of our love for them.

The morning has been amazing and meaningful. We are off now the Women's Activity Center on the church campus.

Monday Morning Journey

This morning we made a slow journey down the road through the market. Market day outside of Ho is every five days. You can see it was a "mob" scene, so busy with people selling and buying. This was after our early morning introduction to the new admininstration of the EP Church. We will be present for the installation of the new officers on January 11.

Sunday Worship

Here we are after worship Sunday having lunch at Dr. Fiakpui, a gyn who lives in Chicago. His family hosted us for lunch after a very long worship service. It started at 9:30; we arrived at 10 AM and ended worship at 1 PM. Most of us took videos so you'll have to wait a bit to enjoy the photo of the actual service.

Our host, Rev. Dr. Seth Agidi, an Eden grad, was preaching the sermon in honor of the retired manager of the Kekeli Hotel on the church compound where we are staying. It was a joyous celebration and a great lunch afterwards. The drive from Ho to Alavanyo was about 2 hours so we were happy to get out of the bus and dance in church.

Our program continued in Ho after supper where the program officers of the EP church shared with us about the women's, men's and youth programs. We were all tired and happy to retire after the program.

We have airconditioned rooms with ceiling fans. Some of us have turned our air off during the night because it cools off enough to sleep comfortably without it. The cold showers feel wonderful in this heat and really don't feel cold at all....

We are missing home, of course, but have found a new home among the Ghanaian people.

Election Celebration

The elephant is the symbol of the losing party so the people were saying the elephants have been sent to the bush. You can see in this photo a mock coffin with the letters NPP on it, the initials of the losing party. White is the color of celebration so you will see white scarves and even white chalk on the faces. The parade went back and forth for quite a while crowding the road so no traffice could get by. When the people saw us, they chanted Obama....There is a sense that oppression has been lifted.
The inauguration will be on January 7! So we'll be here for that as well. The transition is so quick because there were two run-off elections after the main one. This has been an exciting and quite different experience for the people here. So far this election celebration is the highlight of the trip...Of course we have a lot more to go.

Here we are just arrived at the airport in Accra, Ghana. It was a 9 hour flight from JFK to Accra. Our hosts were waiting for us when we left the terminal. They scooped us up and ushered us to brunch at a lovely hotel, complete with swimming pool. We were wishing we had our suits on to jump in.
After brunch we drove 2 hours to the city of Ho, where we are staying for a week. After getting settled in the hotel, we had lunch and rested for a while until dinner. We are well fed as you can see.
Saturday we had a driving tour of Ho which ended at a fabric shop on the main road through the city. Just before we pulled up, the national election results were called and the celebration began. There was a spontaneous parade with a mock funeral of the losing party. The new president is named Atta Mills representing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) something like our own Democratic party in the States. The music and dancing is still going on throughout the city.