Friday, April 3, 2009

Finally here!

Today (Friday) around noon, we finally reached our destination - the Baptist Medical Centre in Nalerigu - after almost 48 hours of traveling on about 8 hours of sleep. That is my biggest prayer request right now! I just laid in bed last night for about 3 hours trying desperately to sleep.

This trip has been blessed from the very beginning. We were really concerned that our bags would be overweight, but we prayed right before we went into the airport. Not only were they not overweight, but the airline attendant gave us great seats for both flights! Lots of leg room.

The flight to Frankfurt was an exercise in futility for me. Try as I might, there would be no sleep for me. The flight to Accra (Ghana's capital) was much better as far as sleep. When we arrived in Accra, a missionary was there to pick us up and take us to the Baptist Welcome Center and Guesthouse (which is kinda like a hostel). They had dinner for us there and even Sweet Tea! Which was probably a mistake given the restless night that lay ahead. But it tasted great! Who knew... my first night in Ghana I would eat cornbread and drink sweet tea.

We woke up at 4 this morning to catch our flight to Tamale (the 3rd largest city in Ghana). That was uneventful as well. We then met one of the workers from the Mission who would bring us to Nalerigu. We made several stops in Tamale first. (This really makes me want Mexican food, but the pronunciation is slightly different. Small comfort.) Our last stop involved a Coke, which turned out to be a huge mistake 2 hours later on the bumpy road! Actually, the road was paved for most of the way (about 2.5 hours) to Nalerigu. There was a portion that took about 15-20 minutes for probably 8-10 miles that wasn't paved. Our driver was VERY good at avoiding the potholes and biggest bumps. I asked him about 10 questions every minute. His name is Isaayaku (spelling may be wrong), which is basically the same as Isaac in English.

We have a cook who makes us lunch and dinner... and SWEET TEA! These missionaries sure have done a great job at bringing the light to these people! ;-) Our cook's name is Isaa, which is actually the Ghanain translation of Jesus. For lunch we had tuna salad sandwiches and for dinner, spaghetti. I refrained from the sweet tea at dinner to try to help me sleep a bit better tonight. We'll see.

So after lunch, we spent almost 2 hours walking back and forth on the compound trying to find people, print something, etc. It was very HOT. Then, we went to clinic and started seeing patients. Our first one broke my heart - a 9-month old baby who has probably suffered severe brain damage from nearly continual seizures for 4 months. She was very, very stiff and small. We could not communicate well with the mother, because she spoke a different dialect than what our interpreters speak. She looked heartbroken when we started to pray for the baby. I almost cried. Next we saw a 2-week old baby with a congenitally dislocated hip. She was the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. Then I saw an older woman with malaria, then we saw about 20-25 new nursing students in rapid succession to give them their school physicals. They use different abbreviations than we do, so we thought that a lot of people had parasites in their urine! What they actually had were white blood cells - which isn't great, but it's better than parasites!

So now I will tell you about Ghana. The country is beautiful. It is more green and jungle like down towards the coast (by Accra). Where we are, in the northern part, is more dry with red dirt. But there are some beautiful plants out here. I think there are plumeria trees outside of our guesthouse. I plan to take lots of pictures of the grounds tomorrow! Driving through the towns today, I just wanted to get out and spend all day taking pictures. The BMC complex is very large, like a ranch. All of the missionary doctors have their own houses for them and their families. Two of the doctors have kids at home. Everything is within walking distance, although we do have vehicles for getting to places faster. There are 3 or 4 guest houses with multiple rooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen. There is a school house for the missionary kids, which is where we can access the internet.

The people here are even more beautiful. They always have a smile on their faces and are happy to greet you, even if we don't understand each other. The ones who do speak English greet us in this way after we are introduced, "You are welcome." I love it. I think I've walked around all day with a big smile on my face. I can't wait to take pictures of them, too!

One last thing that I'm really excited about - our cook's wife, Joyce, is going to make us dresses to wear for Easter! We get to go to her house tomorrow and pick out our fabric and dress style.

Okay, I think I've written just about everything I can think about. Please pray for rest, guidance, for me to remember anything medical, and for God to do GREAT things. Love you all!

1 comment:

  1. Yeah! I am so glad that you are there and that you found sweet tea on the other side of the world! God provides even these little comforts ;-) (this part of your story reminds me of John & Amonna Sue). As you go to bed at night ask God to make His rest fall upon you. Read Hebrews 4 which speaks of not only rest from work & weariness but total and complete rest in God. Think of the trust exercise and fall onto your pillow as falling into God's arms to catch you and keep you. I love you! MoM

    ReplyDelete