Have You Ever Gone to Church with Your Bus Driver?

Katie & Hilary

We did!

This morning we were invited by our Tro-Tro driver, Dominic, to worship at his church: Calvary Assemblies of God Church. He was so excited to show us where he worships with his family. Many of the girls dressed in their new African attire. Upon arriving we were greeted with joyous singing and musical instruments as we walked into the church. As the pastor got up to welcome us, a surge of panic came across our group when he said, "We have just been informed that one of our guests, Elizabeth, has prepared a special song to sing in front of the church." We all looked at Elizabeth and could see by the confused look on her face that she didn't know what he was talking about. Thankfully he was talking about a different visitor because an Elizabeth from German y stood up and made her way to the front of the church. We all felt relieved for our Elizabeth who was NOT prepared to sing a song!

After her song, the pastor gave a lively message titled, "Making Your Life Count." He preached from the Scripture: Romans 8:35-39 which talks about how nothing can separate us from the love of God. After an encouraging and challenging message, the pastor asked Dr. Clerico if he would close the service in prayer. He said it was a very humbling experience, but felt extremely honored that he was given the opportunity. After the service, we were able to meet several members of the church who eagerly invited us back to worship with them next Sunday. We were thrilled to learn that the church had just recently started a school for kindergarten and first grade and have goals to expand into a complete primary and junior secondary school.

After church, we headed back to the Fairhill Guest House for a great lunch of rice and chicken soup. It was a big hit with the group and was quickly eaten! The afternoon was free for some to nap, do laundry, or catch up on journaling...while others ventured over to Cape Coast Castle, which is an old slave trading site. Because Dr. C has been before, the group did not get a tour guide, they just walked around and soaked in the tremendous views. They were able to see the fishermen pull their boats in and watched the activities of the people in the village below. The group had a little scare when they were touring the dungeon and the power went out! Thankfully they used the flash of the cameras light to find their way out. Once out of the dungeon, they were welcomed by a 10 degree drop in temperature due to the thunderstorm that was quickly approaching. They decided to end the tour and head back to the Tro-Tro as rain began to fall. We definitely experienced the rainy season today! It absolutely poured for 3 hours.

What better activity is there on a rainy evening than to put together two 500 piece puzzles?? Well that's exactly what some of us decided to do! They are works in progress... After laboring over our puzzles, we took a break for dinner and had a book sorting party afterwards.

6 boxes of children's books had been donated to our Ghana schools by Charleston County Reading Council members and by Barnes and Noble of West Ashley in celebration of its spring Teacher Appreciation Week. In addition, the South Carolina International Reading Association donated $1200 which was exactly what we needed to cover the extra luggage cost of bringing the books with us to Ghana. SCIRA had chosen our Ghana program as its 2010-2011 international project and Dr. Clerico emailed them at the beginning of June to let them know when we would be leaving. He was expecting that we would have to pay the extra shipping costs out of our own budget; but the week before we left for Ghana he received a check in the mail for $1200! He had not told them about our needing money or how much it would cost to ship the books...God is such a great provider!!

The night ended with some obsessive-compulsive puzzle activity and with preparing lessons to teach during our first day at St. Cyprian's Basic School in Efutu-Koforidua Village tomorrow!