We are heading to the airport!

Please pray for us as we travel home over the next two days.

VIP

VIP does not mean what you think. VIP actually means ventilated improved pit latrine. Another new fact for you from Ghana. :-)

Hello again, everyone. Thank you for continuing to follow us throughout our trip in Ghana. Today was our last full day in Tamale. We were able to visit a village and meet with a wonderful DPO (Disabled People's Organization).

The pictures below are from yesterday when we returned to meet with the artisan whom we are working with to develop some prototypes of our technolgies with local materials.

Our first look at the wonderful job Mr. Musah did of re-creating our technologies.

The Black Stars

Today was the second day of the Africa Cup and Ghana's first game of the tournament against the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unfortunately, the DRC thwarted the Black Stars efforts to come out with a win. The game ended with a 2-2 draw.

This morning we attended a church service with a congregation of the Bible Church of Africa at the Radach Lodge, where we are staying in Tamale. This was a very lively experience filled with lots of singing and dancing which we joined.

This is our workshop group from Bolga.  On the last day of the workshop we were given traditional African smocks as thank you gifts.  Benedicta Pealore (Auntie Ben) the team leader in Bolga was our gracious host. (Pictured: Front row, second from the left.

On Friday afternoon we visited a rehab center for people with disabilities.  This center provides vocational training in a variety of hand crafts.  We conducted focus groups in order to better understand the challenges people with disabilities face in Northern Ghana. (Pictured above

g

Frafra

(pronounced fru-fru)

Frafra is the native language of the Bolgatanga area. It is also closely related to the national language of Burkina Faso. Ghana has over 20 languages spoken throughout the country. Most of the languages are in the Northern region.

Yesterday, we completed the workshop in Tamale. We had 32 people between the two days of the workshop. This group was very interactive. They were completely willing to participate in our activities and gave us great insight into how they are meeting the needs of people with disabilities in their ADP's (area development programs). Our team leader, Nathaniel, wants you to know that ADP actually stands for "angels don't pray" because they are already there. As you can see, he is a deeply edifying person.

Today, we started the workshop in Bolga. We had 16 participants, including 4 people with disabilities, representatives from Social Welfare, various World Vision staff, and Benedicta the director for this region. This group was very attentive and had unique and innovative ideas for how we can modify our technologies to better meet the needs of the people in their villages. They were also great sports about participating in our demonstrations, as you will see below.

Tomorrow, we will finish the second part of our workshop in Bolga. Then, we hope to do some tourist activities in the Bolga area before travelling back to Tamale in the evening, including possibly getting eaten by crocodiles (see link below).

Crocodile Pond

Please keep praying for us as we complete the last workshop and travel back to Tamale. We will not have internet for another few days. During that time, we will be meeting with a local artisan, travelling to a village, and exploring a local market. We will post again when we return to Accra on Wednesday.

Please keep Nate and Amanda (and Lyla and baby Kamban) in your prayers as Nate will be returning to the states on Saturday in anticipation of the baby landing.

Love,
The Messiah Collaboratory Ghana Team
Nate, Lamarr, Evie, Becca, and Chrissy




This was a very brave participant from our workshop in Bolga who volunteered to be a part of a demonstration in which he lost the use of one leg.

This is Nate explaining to the other participants what has happened to their friends and what they will be demonstrating for us.

 

This is our group after completing the workshop in Tamale. James, the man in the orange shirt, is the director for the Tamale region for World Vision. David, the man in the black shirt, also works for World Vision in DC.





This is one of the groups from the Bolga workshop during the morning devotion.





Aninwula!

That means "good evening" in Dagbani.

We finished the first two day workshop today. It was very successful. We learned a lot from them and hopefully they took a lot of new ideas away from the workshop. Then we travelled to Bolga. We will start our next workshop tomorrow morning.

We apologize for not being able to keep this updated, but we have not had Internet access.

Please continue praying for us as we continue our work. It is getting late here so we will write more tomorrow night.

The Ghana January 2013 team is getting ready to go!