Beautiful girl.......................... Children........................ Abu and his ball
The "Icecream Man" .........Dashena..the diaperless boy........ Abu bathing
Well here I am at 52. As with most birthdays we end up reflecting on what our age means, maybe what our parents looked like at that age, how many years we have left and the big one for women "do I really look that old?". I, of course, have more reason to reflect this year as I am in a strange country and getting older looking by the day.
I was asked awhile back to do the children's story during the morning worship service. What I thought was to be once or twice is now every Sunday. So I is got nearer to my birthday, I thought about some of my roles. Let's face it, I am the "Story Lady"...ugh. I am also something of a grandma at school and in the neighborhood. I am not necessarily happy about not being a real grandma, but it is nice to say, "I am not a grandma!" But now I am a grandma to about 100 kids. I am not the fun, games and music lady. I am the old, soft lady on whom it is nice to fall asleep. I even had a couple of small boys rubbing the wrinkled skin on my elbows and telling me how soft it was. I can not dye my hair here, so the whole world knows I really have gray hair. And I don't wear makeup as it would wear off before I got to school because of the sweat (and the kids). So, I am not the mischeivious, somewhat troublesome, youth I once was. I am not the young mom, or even the mom of teenagers. I am now the "old, gray haired, wrinkled story lady, that has soft elbows and is a comfortable place to fall asleep". I guess that is OK, because I like being that woman. That may be the scariest part of all this. I love nothing better than to hold a child, no matter how dirty, snotty nosed or 'wet' they are. I even have one baby who never has a diaper on. He is the sweetest baby and I take the risk because he is so tempting.
The children at our school are the lucky children. Many are fairly wealty by Yendi standards. I still cannot explain, in words, the poverty here. Our children, whom I call wealthy, still have rice only occassionaly and chicken almost never. When they are not wearing their uniforms their clothing is old and dirty. But the children in the neighborhood break my heart. Some do not go to school at all. Most are very dirty and their clothes are just better than rags (if not rags). I gave one boy, Abu, a soccer ball for my son Charlie's birthday. Abu was stunned and confused at first. I don't think he had ever received a gift. He has that ball everyday now. It is his most prized possesion (maybe his only). The center where I live is starting a kids club this week. The kids can come and watch a movie or play games. They may receive some bread and margarine. I am guessing that we will have over 100 kids the first week and it will keep increasing, especially if we serve food. One day, I took Abu just across the street with me when I was going to buy Coke from a small stand. I guess because I had Abu, the children thought they could all go. They came from out of nowhere and by the time I got to the store, I had 15 children with me. I bought 20 pieces of penny candy (or nickel candy now) and was going to distribute it. The kids went crazy and women and teenage girls appeared from out of the woodwork...from across the street, those walking down the street, next door...I don't even know how they got there. But there was soon a huge crowd fighting for the candy. Grown women were pushing the kids out of the way for the candy. The lady who owned the store took the bag from me and started distributing it to the kids and hitting the women! I was horrified, and learned not to openly give anything!
But I love the children. So, my picutres this week will be the children in the neighborhood. And I ask that you pray with me as the center takes on this new club. I pray that we can reach the children with Jesus message of love and that if they decide to serve food, that their resources will mulitply... we may be feeding 5,000 some day. And lastly, I pray that the center can find other ways of reaching out and helping the neighborhood children and their families.
.... and just an added note. I have a friend here who also had a blog and has some beautiful pictures of local life and some wonderful stories of what her and her husband do here. So visit them at http://yakubufamghana.blogspot.com/
