My Street, Lilly Lane!!

the front of our lovely house

"Prison in Paradise" - the top of the wall w/ barbed wire & a palm tree

Julianne working on carrying "Junior", a random baby at the soccer game we went to

Me dancing to the beat of the drums with all of the Africans taking pictures of ME instead of the other way around as usuall :)




These are just a few pictures to let you in on a little bit of my life here in Africa :) - I will tell of all of the wonderful stories of having no water for days, no electricity randomly, sketchy internet, coffee pots on fire, etc... etc... Hope everyone is doing well... please leave comments and send emails/facebook messages to let me know how you are all doing!!!!

As I write this, my students are laying down for quiet time… today has been a good day, no, an EXCELLENT day!! Mostly because I haven’t had to send anyone to the principles office, like the first three days. I still only have 6 of my 9 students, one of which only speaks and understands French, another speaks Korean and very, very little English (but understands it well enough to figure out what’s going on), I have two teachers kids (which is challenging), one who is not told no by her guardian & is not used to being told what to do, and one who is four, but is super helpful and makes my life easier by doing things like sweeping the floor voluntarily. They are all great kids, and I already love them… but they have given me a headache or two already. The first day was really tough for Noe (the boy who only speaks French). He was confused because his mother told him that after he ate she would be there to get him, meaning after lunch. Well, we have a snack at 9:45, so when she didn’t show up, he wasn’t happy. He was polite to me (I think anyway…) but I could tell he was frustrated, so I got the French teacher to come talk to him. He started freaking out and screaming, so she had to take him in the hallway, and he didn’t like that, so he hit her. He definitely got taken to the principles office (ok, technically I didn’t send him…)!! The next day, Maxine decided she didn’t want to do anything I said, and that she would ignore me… I was at a loss for what to do, so I asked Tim (the Director) to talk to her… she did the same to him & ended up having to sit in his office for a while. On Friday the Preschool teachers son (Silas) didn’t want to leave his mom, or come into the classroom. His mom took him to the office to have Tim talk to him, and he ended up falling asleep, so we are thinking he was just tired…
All that said, today has been a great day!! Noe made it all the way through lunch without even getting upset, Maxine is following directions and obeying, and Silas is his usual smiling self J. One huge prayer request though is the preschool teacher, Auntie Jean. She lives an hour away up on a mountain and she started bleeding on Saturday night. They were able to make it down the mountain and into the city in time and got her to the hospital, and praise God there was a surgeon there!! She very easily could have bled to death, but it wasn’t quite her time yet, she made it & is doing much better. Please pray for her & her family, her husband is not a Christian.
I am doing really well here; I love the people, and even the food!!! We are finding a place quickly among the teachers, the community, and the church. The church has a big futbol match this Saturday against another church in the area, and a few of us are going to root them on!! Check back later for pictures J - The Facebook albums in the last post have been updated with, more pictures, click them again to see!! Here is another with pictures of my students and classroom! Enjoy!!

http://cedarville.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030851&l=97b90&id=141300005

Walking home from school - this is my street, my house is up on the Right.

Oh the places you will go...

As I think of that statement, made by an incredibly wise man (Dr. Seuss of course!!), I am blown away by the blessings that are falling in our laps. We have already had so many amazing opportunities and met some incredible people... one example of this... there is an Italian woman living here in Accra with her son & 2 adopted daughters, and their house has been turned into an orphanage and school. These kids are some of the most amazing children I have ever met, and are so grateful for the things Romana is doing for them. I have had a desire to work with an orphanage long before coming here, and knew that there was one in the area. Romana is an amazing woman, and it just so happened that upon arriving, our house was scheduled to have its electricity off, so I stayed there at the orphanage with her. She took us in & treated us as one of her own right away. I mentioned wanting to get in and work with the kids casually. Well, about a week later, after all of my roommates had arrived (all of whom I love, and I will tell you all about them as we go), I was talking to Amanda and discovered that she was also interested in working with the orphanage. Long story short, we talked to Romana and she said she would love for us to help out whenever we can, and it just so happened that the next day they were taking a field trip to a bead making factory, and she had room for the 2 of us to go!!!! Going with these kids and visiting this "factory" was such a blessing... we got to see the process to make the glass beads, sooo much hard work goes into each and every bead. Afterward, we went to another of the teachers at AIS's house and had a snack before the hour long drive back to the house. The kids were all so truly gratefull for the small snack, and played games with the 2 other girls that came as helpers. This is just one of the experiences I have had so far... I have failed to be diligent with updating this blog, but I have been taking lots of pictures!!! The most recent adventure was a trip to the HUGE market in downtown Accra (Mikolo Market), details to come (of that trip, or maybe another!) - Please feel free to leave me comments or shoot me an email, I would love to hear how you all are doing, and chat for a few minutes!!!!

If you would like to see pictures of the bead factory click this link below, which will take you to my Facebook album:

http://cedarville.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030089&l=67699&id=141300005

For pictures of the trip to the market, click here:

http://cedarville.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030356&l=4ad94&id=141300005

I am in Africa!!!

I am in Africa… I am in AFRICA… I AM IN AFRICA!!!! Everything went smoothly with all of the plane rides and layovers, only one short delay, but that didn’t cause any trouble, since I had another 7 hour layover coming up in London (after the supposed to be 7 hour, turned to 9 hour one in Toronto & 2 hours in Chicago)! I got to the airport and had no trouble in immigration or customs (the immigration officer wasn’t even going to say a word to me until I thought he asked how I was & I said “I’m good, how are you?”And he said “I’m doing well, and you?” Uhhhh… “I’m good!” I laughed on the inside J My bags arrived all in one piece, everything still inside the locks, and only minor cosmetic issues on the bags themselves (a few small scratches or stains, but nothing terminal!) After my long 2 day plane ride, I was very ready to go jump into bed, but I was also excited to see the city, my house and the school. Turns out our electricity was off that night (it goes off for 12 hours every other day, alternating between day and night each time), so were to stay at the local orphanage with a wonderful woman named Romana (she is Italian to the hilt!) I got to meet a few of the children, and I am so excited to go back and work on volunteering there! I also learned today that there is another orphanage locally that takes in children with special needs! I can’t wait to visit this one and possibly see about working there as well.
There is a missionary family here that has taken such good care of us, feeding us and letting us borrow their internet (the school has internet, but it is a little irregular), and carting us around so that we can get things set up. They have 3 kids, all of which are super fun! Their 4 year old son will be in my kindergarten class next year, and he says the funnies things, makes the funniest faces, and makes me so excited for school to start!!
We made our first meal today as a house (the three of us that are here, Mariah, Julianne and I), spaghetti and plantain chips… yummy!! Ok, so we still don’t have any food in the house, but we are going to the Medina Market tomorrow (I can’t wait to see that!!) Yesterday we went to a place called “Freddy’s Corner” to get my cell phone, and it was CrAzY!!! There were people everywhere, you could barely move, people trying to get your attention to try and sell you stuff… and have I mentioned that we have a driver for the school and he is the best driver that you will ever see?!!!?! He maneuvered our school van (not car) out of the “parking lot” (which was really just the sidewalk in front of this place) and on to the street without killing anyone… AMAZING!! J We are very grateful for William and his awesome driving skills!! It is so weird to have people doing everything for you but walk basically… there are gate guards that let us in and out, who take our bags and carry them, and take out the trash, a cleaning woman who is going to clean, iron and do our laundry, and we might even get a cook a couple times a week. They are such a blessing to us, and I just hope that we are to them as well. It is hard for me to not feel bad, but when I realize that if we were not paying them to do these things; they would have no income, which makes me feel much better!!
Today we experienced getting stuck outside in the rain for the first time… wow… it was so neat, you could see the rain coming down the street, like a wall moving toward us. It was not so neat that Daniel (our gate guard during the week) didn’t hear us ringing the bell and we had to wait a few minutes in the downpour before we were let in. Just before it started raining we took a taxi (my first EVER! And it only cost us about $1.00 total!!) to the A&C shopping mall, and then walked back and Mariah bought some super cute earrings from a street vendor for $.50… fifty cents!!! We were almost home, but stooped a few doors down at the “Fair Lady Clinic” to talk to Frances, the brother of the secretary there. He was a wealth of knowledge and gave us some good advice for taxis and getting around, as well as told us about that special needs orphanage I mentioned above, and he actually works there, so it may be pretty easy to volunteer there knowing him! Now we are hanging out at the school, waiting for William and Laurie (the driver and the missionary) to come and exchange money for us, and possibly go with them for dinner. I hope everyone is doing well, and I would love to hear from you all! Thank you for your continued prayers… here are some things you can pray about:
1. Those who still have flights coming in.
2. The director & his wife & the other couple working at the school still need housing.
3. Those in the community that we are meeting and getting to know, that we would be an example of Christ to them if they do not already know Him, and that hey would be open to accepting Christ if not.
4. Things are EXPENSIVE!! I WAYYYY underestimated my startup costs, things like electricity converters, stabilizers and transformers are very expensive, and we need them ASAP. I wanted to buy a small plastic drawer chest for my bathroom, it would cost around $20 in the states, here it is anywhere from $50 - $100 depending on where you look… just to give you an idea J With all that said, I really need more support. Thank you so much to all of you who have already committed to supporting me, but I would urge you that if you have not done so, you prayerfully consider it. If you would like to, you can get in touch with my mom for hard copies of the forms and info, or ask me, and I can send electronic copies of it.
If you made it all the way through all of that, bless you!!!! I certainly didn’t intend to write so much, and hopefully I will be better about writing more often so that the entries are a bit shorter J
Al l my love in Him,
Ashley

(Pictures to come later... when I can figure it out!!!)