Sunday

Apologies for not posting more frequently...the past few days have flown by in a flash. And it seems that every time I finally have time to post, the connection is slow, or down. But to re-cap the past few days....

Friday
...morning Mike flew down to Accra to pick the Destiny team up in the evening. During the day he took care of some errands and had a very sad discovery when he went to visit one of his good Ghanaian friends, also named Michael. M was calling out his friends name in the courtyard where he lived, only to be greeted instead by Michael's brother who told that he had recently died. The sudden death was caused by some sort of pancreatic cancer; apparently he passed within a day of receiving the news. We are very saddened about this news and mourn the loss of Michael's life, together with his family.


Here's a picture of the 2 Mike's, and Mike's daughter, Olivia (then nearly 3) on our last visit.

The Destiny team arrived at around 10pm and M took them back to the SIM Guesthouse for the night.

Meanwhile, I continued consulting with our client and several of his staff members about how we can improve the businesses (their Social Enterprises), which support numerous human service ministries here in the Northern Region.

In case it hasn't been mentioned before now, this part of the country is especially poor. Whereas a monthly income in the southern region might be $150-$300 a month, here it is anywhere from $50-$100/month. The population here is 95% Muslim.

Our client, has a passion to show love-in-action for his neighbors by finding ways to meet their concrete needs and is very entrepreneurial in sustaining the programs which include: Micro Finance for women , Goats projects (where a child is given a goat to raise, breed, and in turn pay for his own schooling), sanitation and health services, a sewing school, shea-butter production (a project resulting from the recommendation of our last visit 3 years ago), and many, many other incredible ministries. We are privileged to be used by God in this work.

Saturday
M and Destiny team (to be introduced specifically very soon) toured Accra and dined at Ryans. Meanwhile, we 3-musketeers remained in Tamale, visited the local open-air market (not the smells of the Monrovia Farmer's Market, I can assure you) and ate more plantains.

Sunday
This morning, Pastor Asare and I went to pick up M and the team from the airport and, after breakfast, we all went to the church service here at the Radach Centre. If you've never attended an African worship let me just explain it this way: irrespective of denomination--yes, even the Southern Baptists dance during the singing here. We are talking conga lines here.