Church, Anamabo, our last day of our trip

We knew that there was a small branch just outside of Busua on the way back to Accra so we went in search of it. We found a church sign that said to follow this direction. We turned into a parking lot and then nothing. There was a man washing a car in the parking lot so we asked him if he knew of the church and where was it. he said that we would have to park our car and then walk the dirt path to get to it. What? That's cool! We found the dirt path covered in puddles of water but still didn't see any signs, so we kept walking. We passed some people who were building a house with mud blocks and some cement too. They told us to continue on the path. Finally, we see this small hand painted sign pointing to turn on the path.

This was the first view of the sign from the top of the dirt path. It's pretty small but it's in there so keep looking. The church was this tiny building and it had already started. We didn't anticipate that it would take so long to get there. You'd think that the prophet walked in or something. Everybody kept staring. I'm sure a big part of that was due to the fact that they probably hadn't ever seen a white child or at least not one in a very long time. There were only about 20-30 people there and the speaker was a 10 year old boy from primary. The kids in Ghana are amazing! The faith that the people have is comparable to the faith of the pioneers. They may struggle in leadership and how to do it, but not their faith. We often compared the US to the saints in Ghana in that in general, we have great leadership here who know how to direct the church and know what to do, but our faith is starting to waver. The saints in Ghana showed me that. It is very common that when a foreigner comes to church that the bishop will ask them to speak because they want to hear from us. Often time the ex-pats in ghana are for the most part general authorities so it is a treat, but to hear from me? So of course after the second speaker sat down (who was a young woman), the bishop walks over to Craig and asks him if we would both stand and bear our testimonies for 5 minutes each. They didn't speak english that well so I don't even know if they understood me. But when Craig stood up he decided that he was going to try to speak in twi. You should have heard them when he started, "AAOOHHHHH!" and lots of laughing. I think some even clapped a little. They were just so excited to hear an obruni try to speak their language. Once he sat down then they had the adult third speaker get up. Everyone must speak like once every 2 months. That's including the children! In Relief Society there were only like 7-8 women and the lesson was spoken in twi. i just listened and turned pages when they turned. Every now and then, they would turn to me and say in english, "Sis. Waite we would love to hear your perspective on this." Ummmm...."can you ask the question your wanting to know in english?" So they would and I would answer, but who knows if that wasn't just said by someone else. It was fun anyway and afterwards they kissed and hugged my children over and over and gave hugs and kisses to Craig and I. I wanted to take a picture of the building soooo bad and the people, but I knew that as soon as I whipped that out, we'd never leave! The entire congregation came out to wave us off at the door and as we walked away we could hear them laughing and talking with excitement. is that what a super star feels like? I guess I had my moment.

At Anamabo, the wind was ferocious. It sprayed water all the way up to the chairs. It was sunday so we let the kids play in the sand and we relaxed on the chairs. The water was too dangerous for anyone to swim in. Some young tourists decided to try it out, but of everyone staying there, they were the only ones.

I guess that the wet season really takes a toll on the beaches. Anamabo is the same place where all my beach pictures from our Christmas trip are taken. You know, all the ones that everyone thought was soo pretty. Well, this is what the wind and wet season does to the beach during this time of year. some of the palm trees were starting to lean from the lack of support of the beach. I wonder if any actually ended up falling over. We walked down to this little rocky area to look for seashells and found so many that we decided to spend our last day, Monday, looking for seashells. We got up and of course it was overcast. we went to the rocky area again and spent 2 hours just looking for seashells. Now, I've told you that Ghanaians will just go to the bathroom anywhere right?! So as I'm searching, I keep seeing these piles of something. It looked weird and covered in sand and just (I won't go any further in describing it). Anyway, it dawns on me that it's human fecal matter! UGHHHH! So of course I bring the children over to look at it and said now don't touch ANYTHING that looks like this. I was pretty grossed out, but it only got worse. As we're searching many locals who walk the beach to get from here to there would stop and just watch us. I guess they thought we were pretty weird. Anyway, 2 children stayed and watched for awhile and after some time decided to go, but made sure that they did a pit stop on the rocks to poop. After that I said it was time to go. As we were walking back, I saw something brown floating on the water being pushed onto the beach and dragged back out with the current. Sure enough more poop. Whether that was human or animal I don't know, but I just decided that we were being invaded and that it was time to gooooo home! So we left with our arms full of seashells that I washed thoroughly in the hotel room before leaving. EEwww gross! Just thinking about! Nothing like poop to ruin your day :)