November in Aburi

So, the first few weekends in November, a few of my friends and I went to visit Auntie Jean. Auntie Jean, the preschool teacher at our school, originally from New Zealand, was married and has been living here in Ghana with her family of 5 for about 15 years. She lives about one hour outside of Accra, where the buildings are farther apart and there are rolling hills of green. A few weeks ago was my first visit "up to the mountain" (this is what she calls it-because it is a higher elevation than Accra). She had been needing help to clear some land for her children's ministry. "Children of the Light" has been a Christian, reading, teaching after school program that Auntie Jean started in her area about 5 years ago. It has been a growing mission for so long and has an established reputation in the surrounding town of Katasie (which is in the region headed towards Aburi). While walking towards the land area, there were children calling her name from all directions. She has TRULY shown these kids the Lord, and it was an incredible blessing to see for at least a short period of time.

We were prepared for some hard work and a mind-clearing time out of the city, and that's exactly what we got...

Heading from the road to the land is this trail a few inches wide. Before you get into the thick of it, though, you start out with a beautiful view of the hills...



Once we arrived, there was plenty of work to be done. The strong manly men started by working together to move an enormous rock.



Before it was pulled high, and while their hands were all underneath it, the following creature popped out and everyone IMMEDIATELY stopped what they were doing...



We made sure to take care of it after the picture was taken, but this was the largest scorpion most of us had ever seen. Most likely even larger than some we've seen in zoos!!!

In order to plant grass-to make all the weeds go away-we needed to clear a bunch of rocks, and this is how they were carried to the rock pile....totally African right??



Once we were all tuckered out for the day, we took a group picture and headed home, until the next time. You can see all of the brown land, and the next week when we showed up, it was all covered in grass seed. What an accomplishment!!



The next week, we got RIGHT to working on the next section of uncleared land. Ben started and machete-cut an area about 10 x 10 feet. It was super-fast!



While he was doing that, the other Ben was yanking out stumps left and right!



Meanwhile I was working on some major weedage with Christy and the other Meg.



After tuckerin' ourselves out again, Auntie Jean offered to serve us lunch! Yummy!! :) Her 5th grade son was cooking this cabbage stew over the fire and keeping watch on the rice, while she was organizing and working hard.



One of her boys offered more meat for the stew:



we said, "No, thanks!"

It was a wonderful lunch of rice and stew and it was such a blessing to spend the morning up "on the mountain". Thank you Lord for your land and for our knowledge and abilities to cultivate it. Amen!