Small Things, Small Minds

They say that small things amuse small minds. I am sure that whenever people see us 'webosas' (what they call white people in Nigeria), I'm sure they think something similar as we are totally fascinated with the mere simple things of life--like these boys selling oranges in the rain outside a gas station near Ile Ife in Nigeria,

or this transport gassing up in the next lane getting ready to deliver eggs to the market.

As you can tell, we spent this last week in Nigeria. This very likely was our last trip to Nigeria, but in our job, we never say never, as new things come up every day. We had a special assignment to visit some individuals in Lagos and we took the opportunity to visit the rest of the missionaries as well.

As much as we hate flying into the Lagos airport, we love the missionaries that serve there. We have seen these missionaries several times during our short time here in Africa and they are now getting use to seeing our pale faces.

Two Zones of Legos Missionaries

We accomplished what we came for even though the week wasn't exceptionally pleasant. The highlight of the week is the dinner and send of for Elder and Sister Baker whose last day in the mission field was Wednesday. President and Sister Karkari cave them a final meal in style--complete with Nigerian dancers. We had a lovely night. Afterword we met with the senior couples--the Wingets (humanitarian aid), the Jennings (perpetual education fund), the Johansens (office couple) and the outgoing Bakers. We learned a new card game called $1.35--no, it's not poker, but its as close as you can come here in the mission feild.

Dancing in the Mission Home Parking Lot

...From the small minded missionaries,

Elder and Sister Fife

"Me Wo Eye"

As you walk down the street in Ghana you may hear "Obruni, wo ho te sen?"  or "e'te sen?" for short. You won't know how to respond except to just smile and say "hello" in return.

Soon you will learn that "Obruni, wo ho te sen?" means 'white man, how are you?" and you may even find yourself responding "me wo eye" or just "eye" (pronounced eye-yeah) which means "I am fine".

The fact is that you will be hard pressed to find a Ghanain who is not fine. Try stopping a begger on the side of the road (you know, the ones with tiny feet curled up under them as they push themselves around from car to car on a skateboard); say "e'te sen?" and you will always get the same response, "eye--I am fine"--usually acccompanied by a  big ol smile--even if you don't have any pesewas to give.

Life in Ghana for us this month has been, you guessed it--JUST FINE. In fact, things are going pretty swell. Yes, we are getting anxious to be home (and I am just plain trunky).

Our mission this last month saw us traveling to the brand spanking new Ghana Kumasi  mission--just weeks old. We stayed at the mission home, fixed the new mission president and his wife (president and sister Holmes) some scruptious sweet and sour chicken and had a great time with our good friends the Zolls and the Thanynes. We met the new office couple as well--Elder and Sister Palmer, and even managed to get some health training done.

We say a lot of different things while on out little trip, including this snail farm from Asinofo.

We did our normal stops along the way as there are always missionaries in need of something or other. We spent a couple of hours in Nkawkaw with missionaries trying to track down some medication. 

 

Michelle gets snap happy whenever she sees a cute kid...like this one we found at the snail farm. By the way, anyone need a few thousand pictures of cute African kids?

The Zolls took us to the kente weaving village just outside of Kumasi. Here, African artisans weave long strips of kente cloth all through the day. Then sell it for just a few dollars to anyone who looks in their direction.

Here is Michelle trying her hand at weaving.

As you can see, the weaving machine is pretty basic. Each foot pedal controls half of the fibers, and so alternating them causes a weave in the fabric.

The real highlight of the month found us Asuom for Hannah's baptism. We met Hannah a month or so ago with the missionaries who were teaching her. Check out one of the previous blogs. We were very happy to hear of her baptism and even happier to hear that she asked us to come back and do the baptism for her. Needless to say, we were excited to go.

Here you see the whole branch turned out for her baptism. There were 7 people baptized, including Hanna and her mother. Here in this tiny little branch smack dab in the middle of Ghana in the tiny little village of Asuom it is not uncommon to see one or two baptisms a week. Its the same in every little branch (and even the wards) throughout West Africa.

I was fortunate enough to baptize five people on this particular Sunday. The branch president introduced me as John (for John the Baptist). Here is Alice, Hannah's mother. The font of course is a portable font brought in so our missionaries wouldn't have to travel all the way to Abomosu for each baptism.

Finally, here is Hannah...

You can't tell by the picture, but she had a big grin on her face most of the day. Michelle and I brought her a new set of scriptures--she was very excited. We were so thrilled to be part of this special day as this is the part of missionary work we often miss out on.

Anyway, as you can see, all indeed is FINE here in the mission field.

...Once again,

Elder and Sister Fife

Hidden Beauty

Can you find the hidden prince?

Like the prince in an enchanted fairytale, Ghana has a lot of hidden beauty. We often get so distracted by all the poverty and filth that we don't see the beauty right before us.

We passed by the Adaa falls a couple of times, but never really have taken the time to walk down the path to see what was there. We thought it was just another set of falls, and nobody really talks about them. There are many such falls marked on the maps here in Ghana, but this one has by far been our favorite.

Its only about a quarter mile down a path, but it is a decent into some exotic movie set.  I was just waiting for Tarzan to come swinging in on one of the vines. This is truely God's county.

Just another little treasure we've found to lift our spirits once again while here in Africa.

..from the beautiful Country of Ghana

Elder and Sister Fife

Christmas...at Long Last

How long must you wait, yes...endlessly wait?
To know what's become of your Christmas-time fate?

You've asked and you've watched as the days have gone by,

"It's coming, it's coming!" has been the only reply.

But now since we've finally delivered the stash,

I have posted some photos, so we no longer will clash.

Happy Kids in Africa with the School's New Footballs

New Footballs

School Kids with Their New Footballs

Without further adieu, I bring you the official Fife Family Christmas in Africa blog post.

I don't know who was more excited, the kids or the teachers

 Yes, I know it has been a long time coming, but something like this just takes time.

This last year we had a solomn Christmas. Morose with thoughts of home, we 'endured' here the best we knew how, hoping the season would pass quickly so we could get on with our mission. I think it is one of the toughest days for missionaries, it certainly was for us. We missed the being around the kids, we missed the decorations (at least Sister Fife did), we missed the snow and the cold weather. I even missed being on call--I think I have have spent most of the last ten Christmas mornings in the hospital.

We thought of home and how the season would pass; with the usual holiday cheer and the family gift-giving. Un-be-knownst to us, the holidays passed as expected with but one exception, and we have been the beneficiaries of that exception here in Africa. This year, instead of drawing names and exchanging gifts, the Fife family decided to donate to a charity project here in Ghana.

We were suprised to find Kelsey show up in March with a huge dufflebag of soccer balls--I think we started with 60 of them. Oh, excuse me, down here they are called footballs. You see, during our travels this last year, we came across a number of schools that could really put them to use as the kids often play football with some rolled up rags.

Passing out the footballs

In addition, we received about 20 some otoscopes for the rural clinics we've been to--as most do not even have the ability to look in an ear. Finally, there was a little money left over--and we've put that to use as well.

Let's start with the footballs. I am going to share the photos from only one school which we visited a couple of weeks ago. This school is in a village called Achirimatang. I know that is not even close to the right spelling, but the village is not even on the map. In fact, you can't even get there on a road, its just a path to the village, even so, the school serves about 200 kids from around the area.

The path to Achirimatang

The village has no running water or electricity per-say. The kids study by lanterns at night that are charged by the merry-go-round they play on during the day. We showed up unannounced to find the headmaster and some of the teachers sitting in lawn chairs in the shade of a big ol African tree. We had a very warm reception and the teachers were ecstatic to have the footballs. The school doesn't have much, and this is the first time the kids have had real soccer balls to play with.

This is the activities director for the school

Anyone want a football?

As you can see, what the school lacks in supplies, it more than makes up in enthusiasm and just plain happiness. You can't walk through this place and not get a big ol boost. To be here is to be happy. The headmaster took Michelle around to all the classes so she could take pictures of all the kids...each and every one of them. She wasn't allowed to leave a classroom if someone was left out. There isn't a kid in Africa that doesn't like having his picture taken.

Look at these kids in school and tell me you had it tough. I bet your classrooms had walls, and windows, and books, and everything. Here there are desks and a chalk board. The classrooms have a tin roof and as you can imagine it gets really hard to hear when it rains. In fact, we went to a couple of these such schools on rainy days, and the school just closed right down. At home we have snow day, here there are rainy days--its just too loud!

I could show you a million of these pictures, and they are all just as neat. It's just that it would take all week to get them all uploaded with this slow internet. This teacher was soo funny. When we brought the balls out he just kept saying t'ank you, t'ank you, t'ank you, t'ank you...over and over again. honestly I stopped counting at fifteen and he kept going, and going. Needless to say he was very happy.

T'ank you

They let the kids out of one class to show us a very special thank you. Here they are warming up their hands, getting ready to give us a warm thank you clap.



Everyone Loves to Play Football

Soccer balls (I mean footballs) delivered, we then got to go and visit one of the nearby village homes. Here we are sitting in the kitchen. Just think about girls camp, only with dirt cabins instead of log ones.

Hangin out at home

Chicken in the Kitchen

 To date, we have given out most of the otoscopes. We've given a few to some clinics. The following photos are from the University of Ghana's new audiology training program. The church's humanitarian program is responsible for much of this new program. Soon (in about 2 years) Ghana will turn out its first African trained audiologists. Presently the church is bringing in a different audiologist every few weeks to teach a different part of the program. Here the students are getting some practical experience in the audiology lab. We initially gave them four otoscopes to use, but got talked in to giving two more. We were happy to help in this pioneering program, at least in some small way.

The patient here is Elder Boatang who just arrived home from
his mission to Sierra Leone--lost his hearing on his mission

One of our favorite places in Ghana is the Golden Jubilee Orthopedic Training Center. One of the little projects we have done is to help this child, Rebecca, get back and forth to her appointments and x-rays and such. She was unfortunate enogh to be born with a club foot and hip dysplacia. She was fortunate enough however to be a patient at this most remarkable place (see the previous blog on water babies). She's had one set of surgeries so far and is waiting for another. Lately she has developed a pretty significant contracture in her left foot and needs some intensive physical therapy to loosen that foot up before her next surgery--aiming for November. Anyway she has to be admitted for two months for daily therapy.

Turns out we had a bit of money left over--not much, but it was enough to pay for her room and board for 2 months, physical therapy for 2 months, and even a set of x-rays. At home, it probably would only be enough to pay for the gas, but here with the help of the Jubilee Center, we were able to cover all of the expenses she has. It really came at just the right time as well because our funds for her have just run dry.

 Any way a GREAT BIG T'ANK YOU, T'ANK YOU from all of us here in Africa to all of you back home. We wish you were all here.

...Grateful in Ghana

Elder and Sister Fife

Sister Fife with Baby Daniel--Rebeccas Little Brother

Ain't No Cure For The Summertime Blues

...sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do
'cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

It’s now Wordsworth or Longfellow, it’s not Robert Frost or even Shel Silverstein. It’s Alan Jackson and he may not the best poet in the world; for that matter he may not be the best singer in the world, but his words do a better job than I can describing how I’ve been feeling over the last few weeks--until this last weekend.

In short, I’ve been stuck in a rut…and a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out; but unbeknownst to Mr. Jackson, there really is a cure for the summertime blues…and I found it right here in Ghana. Really, I have found it before, but just had a memory lapse.

I found it again while visiting Abomosu this weekend. No, it wasn’t found at the genuine Fourth of July barbeque we went to—complete with juicy hamburgers, tangy chicken, genuine down- home potato salad, macaroni salad, and home-made apple pie. It wasn’t even the company that we kept, (although hanging out with Abomosu’s favorite missionaries is really, really cool).

Elder and Sister Dalton (our favorite Abomosu Missionaries)

Fourth of July Picnic

I found it in the life a young woman whom the missionaries took us to see. Her name is Hanna. She lives life in a crumple of a body. One that would be strong and healthy and beautiful like all those around her, but that has been withered and shriveled by the effects of a tumor that has robbed her of all that the rest of us take for granted. To look at her, you would never guess she has lived some 18 years; she is small like a child, but worn and weary.



Hanna

She started taking the missionary discussions not long ago, and they are worried that her health won’t allow her to be baptized. You may wonder yourself as you watch her walk—she struggles with the least bit of exertion, but I see her strength. It is an inward heart-of-a-lion sort of strength with a courage few of the rest of us will ever know. She walks to church every Sunday which is only a quarter mile away and it takes her about an hour and a half just to get there. She is choice. She attends primary because that is where the kids are that are her size. Last week, she stood and quoted verbatim several chapters (yes, chapters) of scripture from memory.

Her momma has taken her to the doctors and tribal healers, and is waiting for the medicine to help take the swelling down so she can go in for surgery—she takes an aspirin and paracetemol (Africa’s version of Tylenol) each night to help with the pain. What momma doesn’t really understand, it is quite clear that Hanna does…she knows better. She knows that things are not going to get better—only worse as time continues its inevitable erosion of her body. She knows her time is fast running out.

My take is that not only does she have a volleyball sized tumor in her stomach that should have been taken out years ago, but has now developed pretty advanced heart failure as a result—thus making a successful surgery here in Ghana very unlikely. She will not be here with us much longer. I tried my best to answer all of mommas questions, but with much lost in translation, I am not sure how much really sank in.

When we finished, I asked Hanna if I had made her sad. She just gave me a knowing smile that said ‘nothing can make me sad’. So she is going to press forward and be baptized here in a couple of weeks, continue memorizing scriptures, and courageously live her life the only way she knows how—happy, and strong, and healthy (at least on the inside).

Everything that we associate in this life with happiness—she lacks, but is happy anyway. She has no money. She lives in a little mud hut with sheets for doors and windows. There are no fancy cars and the food is simple. She has her family and friends that love her, and she has found the gospel of Christ that gives her faith and will comfort her in the rough times to come.

I have learned a lesson; we could all learn a lesson. Everything I need to be happy is close at hand. I don’t need to run around feeling sorry or miss’n my cabin or missin real clothes, or missin my baseball caps, because they really don’t mean anything anyway. Sure, not having the family here is hard, but they will always be there—one way or another. So what is the cure for the summertime blues? The cure is simple, it's realizing that happiness is not found in material things or even in our health. It is found in the relationships we have with our family, our friends, and our God.

So today, I count my blessings. My children are healthy and happy. All three are doing well. For now, we all have our health. We have food to eat and a roof over our head. Our family at home supports us. We are staying strong in the gospel of Chirst. What more is there?

...counting our blessings in Ghana
Elder and Sister Fife

Happiness in Kwabang

This kid in Abomosu can ride very well
--even with a bucket on his head!

This is a black scorpion on the road--we stopped for a picture,
then ran over it so it couldn't sting any of our missionaries
you can easily loose a leg to the venom--very painful!