Week 13
This week has been one of new challenges, new adventures, tender mercies, and miracles.
As usual, we started the week going to district council, this time in Winneba. We love interacting with these amazing missionaries and sharing in their discussions of what is going well and what they want to improve.
The more we interact with these missionaries the better we get at remembering their names, how to pronounce their names, and a little bit more about them.
This week, the power has been off more than it has been on. Elder Judd has had to make regular trips to the gas station to fill the gas containers for the generator. He is now on a first name basis with several of the attendants there. One of them, Martha, has had the missionary lessons before and has said that "one day" she will come to our church.
Wednesday morning we left at 6:30 a.m. and headed up Crystal Palace Road, our"favorite" pot-holed, washboard, bumpy road to go inspect apartments in the Ofankor Zone. That early in the morning we encounter many people walking along the road, whatever road we are traveling. Very few people own vehicles. Their only way to get somewhere is to walk, whether that is to go get water, go to work, go to school, go to the market, or go to where they can catch a tro-tro or taxi.
The woman is carrying her morning water on her head and the man is probably going to work, with his machete in hand. Machetes are seen everywhere, especially out in the bush. Notice the condition of the road.
Not sure where this family is headed, but they are going there together. Again, notice the condition of the road!
Women with their containers of morning water on their heads going to their homes. It is amazing that they can do this without slopping any water out! Please notice the condition of the road. Crystal Palace Road is about 12 miles long and takes 55 minutes to drive because of the condition of the road.
At the apartment inspections, we again filled the truck with trash, outdated books, extra pamphlets, and clothes left by transferred missionaries. The missionaries seem to be grateful to have help de-cluttering their apartments. They especially enjoy the chocolate-chip cookies that Sister Judd gives them. It is interesting, however, that many of the African missionaries say they are "too sweet". Their non-African companions are grateful to be able to eat their share of the cookies!
Elder Ngozo and Elder Ellis (from Lyman, WY and is "related" to Tammy Moore through marriage) at Adoagyiri)
Elder Uele and Elder Tanner at Nsawam
Elder Chicaba and Elder Brunson at Anyaa
Sister Kpahn and Sister DeGraffenreid at Medie
One of the apartments we inspected was that of Sister DeGraffenried and Sister Kpahn. Sister DeGraffenried is from Kenosh, Utah. Sister Kpahn was born in Ghana, and her family moved to Canada when she was 6 or 7 years old. She grew up in Canada, but her family maintained the Ghanaian culture and tribal language. She is a tremendous asset as a missionary. It was her birthday on Wednesday, so Sister DeGraffenried purchased a Ghanaian dish called Tuo Zaafi.
The clump in the middle is made out of ground up corn and cassava. The stew/broth is ayoyo soup made with LOTS of pepper (pepe), onion, garlic, ginger, anise, cloves, rosemary, and nutmeg with intestines as the meat. They invited us to celebrate with them for lunch, so we had a new culinary adventure.
Ghanaians eat with their right hand. We are not there yet, so they let us use spoons. The pepe was a LOT too much for Elder Judd! 😛 The intestines were a little too much for Sister Judd!😆
Our next "exciting" adventure began about 4:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. The power went out like it does so often. But this time when Elder Judd went out and started the generator, it did not provide any power to the house. The Electric Company of Ghana (ECG) power provided some electricity. However, none of the AC units worked and several outlets and lights no longer worked. What did work was sporadic and cycled on and off. The voltage regulator acted crazy bouncing from zero to lower that should be for the input voltage that should be around 220 volts. We texted Ebezener, the housing coordinator, around 6:30. When we didn't hear from him by 9:00, we called him. He had been driving and had not seen our text. He sent Isaac who brought an electrician. When they took the cover off the breaker panel, they found all kinds of burnt wires causing the problems. They also found several switches where the wires shorted out and needed to be replaced. They left to go get supplies and came back in the afternoon with another electrician and began to rewire the house. In the meantime, we were struggling with not having AC or fans since 4:00 that morning. They finally had enough finished by about 5:30 p.m. that the living room AC was working and we could finally start to cool down. It was one of the more challenging days we have experienced. In addition to being hot and miserable, we had no internet so we couldn't do any of the work we needed to do, and Sister Judd could not do laundry, washing all the clothes we brought from the missionary apartments. It was also emotionally stressful experiencing this and not knowing how long it would last. Sister Judd cried for the first time since we have been here.
They finally finished with everything around 8:30 p.m., but the ECG power went off again about an hour later and we slept with the generator singing us our now familiar lullaby. The next morning Sister Judd was able to do the laundry with the generator running. However, she could not run the washer and the dryer at the same time. And whenever she ran the dryer she had to shut the AC off. So again it was a rather long day, but at least we were able to get some things done.
Saturday we had a miracle we would like to share. Sister Judd is going to share this experience in her own words.
The first Sunday we were here in Awutu Breku, we met Sister Jane. She is a young widow, whose non-member husband died two years ago. The Aldous' (the couple we replaced) had helped her prepare her husband's name to take to the temple to be baptized and confirmed. She was anxious to have the rest of his work done, but was unable to get into her church account to access the FamilySearch records. Helping members in Ghana (especially in the more rural areas) with their family history can be a challenge because very few members have smart phones or computers and they have a hard time remembering their usernames and passwords. With everyone we have helped so far, we have had to call Global Support in Salt Lake to get help in resetting their password. That requires having my US phone connected to the internet in order to make the call, because for some reason Ghanaian phone numbers will not go through. Also the person has to be with me while I am talking to Global Support for security reasons so they can verify the person's identity. Jane's work schedule was such that she could not meet with us during the week. Global Support is opened 24/7 except for Sundays which made it difficult for us to get together with Jane at a time when we could make the call. We have been trying to connect with Jane for three months now but have not been successful. We had made an appointment with her for Saturday at 5:00 p.m. at her home. We had not been there before so we asked the missionaries to help us find her house. I was concerned about the internet, because without power we would not be able to access FamilySearch or call Salt Lake over WiFi. I had promised Sister Jane earlier that somehow we would solve her dilemma so she could access her church family history account and find out about the status of her late husband's ordinances. I was worried that because of the frequent power outages this week, Jane would be disappointed again. So with lots of prayers, we headed to meet Sister Jane at her house. We stopped at another members house that lives close to her to get better directions and then called Jane when we got to the "junction" so she could come out of her house and guide us the rest of the way. When we got into the house, Elder Judd plugged in the router and all the lights turned blue. That means we have internet. All that day at our house we had red lights which means no internet. That was the first miracle. Then I got on the computer to sign in to FamilySearch. Jane had given me a little book that had several different usernames and passwords in it. She could not remember which one was the correct one. As I looked at what she had written, I felt the prompting to try a certain one. When I typed it in, I was totally surprised that it was the right one!! In fact, I exclaimed, "Oh, my goodness, it worked!!!" That was the second miracle. Jane and I quickly got to her family tree and found her husband. When we clicked on his ordinances, it showed that all his work had been done, with the endowment having been done just a few weeks ago. That was the third miracle. Jane was so happy!! It was the first time I think I have ever seen her smile.
She can now start the process to be sealed to her husband. We then checked on the names of his parents and were deciding on what information Jane should gather in order to do their work. As we were doing so the internet stopped working, and we could no longer access FamilySearch. I then realized what a true miracle those few minutes had been with Jane. I felt in that moment that the Lord intimately knew this sweet woman and her struggles and deep desires and orchestrated the timing of all that happened to let her know that she was loved and being watched over. It also strengthened my testimony of the Lord's love for me. I knew in that moment that he also knew of my struggles and deep desires and confirmed to me that I am exactly where I should be at this time serving where He needs me to serve. That sweet confirmation helps me to get through the more challenging days like we had this week.
On the way to Jane's house, we had Elder Yobana take a small video of all the construction (and destruction) that is happening in our little village because of the road expansion. The market is moving onto the side streets as all the shops and stalls are being bulldozed over. It is quite a disruption for these people and their livelihoods.
On the way back from Jane's we passed a Tro-tro that had gotten too close to the deep gutter/ditch that lines all the roads everywhere. We always have to be careful of this hazard everywhere we go.
On Sunday, we again had no power in the area, so Sister Judd used her Ghanaian fan the whole time we were at church. After we sat down in the chapel area, the Branch President, came over and asked us to share our testimonies in the meeting, and so we did! During the second hour we attended the Book 1 Gospel Literacy class. This was their last lesson in Book 1 and they will start Book 2 next week. Rena and Anita are the learners and Brother Yaw is the teacher. It was wonderful to be with them and witness how this program is working to bless their lives.
Rena, Anita, and Brother Yaw
We also love visiting with the branch members after meetings. They are all so delightful!!
This is Rihanna. Her birthday is April 29, the same day as our daughter, Allison. When Rihanna realized this, she began calling us Mommy and Daddy.
We hope you all have a wonderful and blessed week!
Love,
Elder and Sister Judd
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