Blessed to have Bless

playing a sweet bottle cap game! it was fun! Bless taught me!


the tro-tro! i was not lying when i said that about 30 people fit into this 12 person van!!! gotta love Ghana!

This is my dear friend Bless! (He is doing the victory dance sisters!!!) He is such a blessing to me while I have been here! Bless could fit into my family perfectly! He is ALWAYS dancing, singing and just one happy kid!! Thankfully i get to see him all day long because he is in the Kindergarten class with me!! ahh he makes me happy! When i get home i will post some videos of him dancing and singing!! It really brightens my day when he dances and plays the drum! He is 7 years old and can play the drums like no other! Its amazing!!! I also taught him the "Victory Dance"! haha it is sooo cute!! I will have to post a video of that too... the "victory dance" is just when you shake your hips and move your pointer fingers up and down... it is the cutest thing!!

(monkeys!!!!)

Well this week has been amazing like always!! Megan and I were able to go to the monkey sanctuary!! It was amazing!! Its this natural place where you go deep into the jungle and the tour guide does the "monkey call" and all these monkeys come swinging on branches from every direction!! There are about 300 of them and we got to feed them bananas from our hands!!! :) It was sooo fun! The monkeys were so cute and would peel the banana from your hand!!

Calvin (this pic is also for my sisters!! i pulled up his pants really high and let him walk around the whole day like that!! hehe)

We also got 5 new children at the orphanage this week! It was so sad but i know they will start to fit right in with the rest of them. First we got little Gilbert who is only 3 years old.. his mother is very ill and his father is no where to be found! Then we got 4 more children whose parents died in a car accident! It broke my heart when they first came here because they are ages 8, 13, 17, and 18!! gosh these children are still too young to have no parents and no home anymore! they are all such strong children and i look up to each of them for their strength and courage and faith! It was pretty sad because the first day when little Gilbert came to the home.. he tried to run away. He walked up the 3/4 mile driveway up to the town and a few hours later we found him at the police station.. someone had found him and taken him there! ahh that was sort of an emotional day to say the least! He is doing much better now and i love it casue he LOVEs me and megan since we were here when he got here! He just thinks we are one of the kids so he loves to come and play with us and sit on our laps!

washing my clothes!!! this is how they do it here and the woman are amazing at it!! their hands can move so fast its pretty much better than a washing machine!!

Teaching has been going really well this week!! the children are learning so much! i feel so accomplished here! courage finally learned how to spell his name and he gets so excited when i ask him to write his name on his paper! when we first got here he couldn't write his name. now we are working on letters with him and daniel who are really behind with that! they are both 6 years old and cant recognize any letter but the letter A!!

K so funest day ever!! megan and i buy our own water here from these plastic sealed bags.. and we have so many stocked up because we drink a lot!!! so we had about 30 bags that we had drank from and so meg had a genius idea to fill them back up with water and use them as water balloons!!! so one day we filled all the plastic bags up with water and when the older kids came home from school we hid behind the fence and threw "water balloons" at them!! the boys thought it was funny but the girls didn't like it so much.. haha one girl pearl didn't think it was funny at all!! haha but we had a good laugh and got them pretty wet!!

some of you were wondering about your names depending on the day of the week you were born. so here they are! this is what you would be called if you were in africa.. so firgure out what day of the week you were born and now you will know your name!

so for girls.. sunday- akos (thats me!), monday- adzo, tuesday- abla, wednesday- aku (thats megan) , thursday- yawa, friday- afi, saturday- ama

for men... sunday- kosi, monday- kudzo, wednesday- komla, thursday- koku, firday- yao, saturday- kofi!!

so i love the culture here!! everyone is sooo soo laid back its awesome! we went over to someones house and they weren't there so instead of coming back another time.. we waited and waited and waited.. for about 30 minuiets and then we stayed for about 2 hours just talking!! it was soo funny to me and meg and i were like... k bye!! but they just kept talking! it taught me more about patience and just how Ghanians are.. they are soo hospitable and kind! they treat us like royalty here! we were watching Ghana futbol the other day (its really a big dea lhere!!) and someone bought megan and i a coke just becasue!!! it was really sweet!!

k sorry my time is running out! i love you all and miss you!! give your chidlren a big hug and kiss and tell them how much you love them! tell them how lucky they are to have you and i hope you tell your loved ones you love them often!!! Love and miss all of you!