Wishing the week would never end...

July 13, continued….

We left Labo Labo, waving to the children. It had been a fun visit, full of promise and hope.

Seems to me that there are no “shortcuts” in Ghana. There are many villages, but you may travel many miles between populated areas. So often it seems that we drive a long time to get to whatever destination we’re seeking. AND the roads --OUCH. The main roads are paved, somewhat -- but there are as many potholes here as there are stars in the heavens! Our driver, Ben, is great at dodging the worst holes (while going about 90 mph, I might add) -- but that makes for a lot of careening and hair-raising moments!

Our next stop was Kpeve. We had to have phonics lessons on how to pronounce this town’s name. For a year, we’ve been saying “Kah-PEH-vey” only to learn that it is more like “BEH-vey” -- I guess we live & learn, huh?

Last year, David & I visited the Kpeve branch of Christ Harvests the Nations. Pastor John Johnson is passionate about sharing Christ with many people. He is stationed at Kpeve, but oversees many other church plants in the Volta Region. The Kpeve church was established 3 years ago with about 5 people, but it has grown significantly in this time. Last year, the church met in a thatched roof hut with bamboo slat walls. We were excited to see that this year, we’d meet in a newly constructed wooden building with a tin roof -- a great blessing for us when it began to pour rain! We’re excited about the growth we see at this church!

David was invited to be a guest on a live radio broadcast, which was very exciting for us all. He left with Lizzie, who is also with Christ Harvests. She’s recently recorded a cd and this radio broadcast was also an opportunity for her to get some publicity. At any rate, David & Lizzie left with a local pastor in his car, zipping off in the pouring rain.

Meanwhile….we loaded into the van and headed toward the church. On the way, we tried to tune in for the radio broadcast. Mostly we heard a lot of static, but at last we recognized David’s voice! We heard the last 2 sentences of the interview -- oh well! He was able to secure a recording of the interview, however!

The church service in Kpeve was really cool. Each of us spoke a few words, then Bishop Godlly and Pastor Johnson preached. We gave the kids glow-in-the-dark snap bracelets -- as we drove away, we could see the bright green, yellow, orange, and blue bracelets bobbing in the dark as the children walked home into the night.

We had a rare treat this evening -- we spent the night in a nice hotel! Chances Hotel is a large hotel and conference center in Ho. We had a nice clean room with a comfortable bed, hot water showers, and even a television -- we watched “Good Morning Ghana” on Tuesday morning!

Road trips can be quite grueling. We travel miles and miles over poor roads, packed tightly into a van. If you want to know the distance between the seats in our van, measure the distance from my backside to my knees -- then subtract about two inches! I’ve been wedged in pretty tightly as we traveled along -- but so have my companions. Fourteen of us crowded into the van, along with food and luggage for 4 days. It could be very easy to start getting on each other’s nerves, traveling in such tight quarters. But we’ve spent the time with each other as friends, laughing, joking, and singing.

One of the young men in our group, Ben, is such a neat fellow. His quick smile and easy-going nature makes him everybody’s friend. We’ve all been searching for a wife for Ben. It’s all in fun -- but we’ll point out a young lady and say, “Hey Ben, how ‘bout THAT one?” And he’ll just smile, sometimes voice an opinion or two, hahaha! At one point this week, Ben said, “I wish this week would never end! I am having such fun!”

We all agreed with Ben…and the realization that our time here is fleeting made tears sting my eyes….