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Thank you for sticking with me through my random ramblings this past year!! Yesterday I made it safely home. This past week has been a bigger mix of emotions than I have probably ever experienced in my life... there should be at least one more post once I get a chance to slow down a little and think things through!

In one week

In one week...

• I will get to see family and friends
• I will probably feel clean for the first time in a year
• A little more variety and tastiness will be added to my diet
• I will be able to sleep in past six without having kids outside doing chores or knocking on my door.
• I will experience air conditioning
• I will drive again (maybe-yikes)
• I will have many things right at my fingertips

but I have a feeling I would give it all up again...

• to be able to give the kids here another hug
• to sit and talk with them about life
• to have them up to my apartment to bake and dance and be a little crazy
• to read with them
• to comfort them
• to teach and tutor them
• to experience with the kids everything that life brings their way

I don't know what my next step in life is, I haven't felt ready to fully commit to anything in particular long term. I do know that a big chunk of my heart, thoughts, and prayers will be back here with the kids, and right now I'm not exactly sure when I will next see them, but I'm glad God is here and with them when I am not and he is infinitely more capable than I am.

A busy week!

The summer months (although that's not what we call them here and it doesn't seem like summer since we are still in school) have brought many exciting people to the home! This past week we had a visitor to the home who did some puppet shows for the kids which they absolutely loved, and some of us staff got some training in puppets. There is a lot more that goes into doing puppets well then I could have ever imagined!

I also got the opportunity to visit with some people from North Dakota and Minnesota as a team one of my friends is on came by for a day to visit the home, help with painting, and talk with the kids. What a blessing! The boys are very happy with their much improved bath house.

And, this week I finally convinced some people to come along with me on an adventure I've wanted to have since I got here. We woke up at 5 to go to the train station in Kotoku and ride the train into Accra to market.
I was not disappointed. The train is definitely one that would have been taken out of service a long time ago if it were back home. It took us a little over two hours to go the fifteen or twenty miles into town. sitting facing into the next car it was a little questionable watching the car behind us rocking back and forth (or maybe it was ours doing the rocking) and seeing the many people standing and hanging out the windows. But we made it in one piece to market and had a busy day wandering through finding the things we needed.

I look around at the kids at the home and I see so much potential.

· kids who will be amazing leaders who are loved and respected by their peers

· a boy who could become an amazing inventor

· future teachers

· a future soldier

· a future doctor

· a writer

· dancers and singers

· mothers and fathers

· pastors and missionaries

I hope and pray they get the opportunities to be those things. Walking through the village paths and looking at the people around Ghana outside of Accra, or on the streets in Accra there are so many children who have potential but no opportunity for a good education and no support from people who love and care. Things that would make it possible for them to have the opportunities to become many of the above things.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with being someone who has a shop and sells vegetables, pots, or anything else for a living. I know God has placed them there and has a plan for them. But I also see the dreams of some of the kids here and the gifts and talents they possess and I hope that there will be a way for them to have a future doing those things.

As I start to think about leaving (in a month ahh!!) and I’m still unsure about if/when I will be back I start to worry about the kids and wonder what will happen to them. Not that I have control over their futures or can do anything at all without God, but I selfishly sometimes feel like while I’m here I do. I pray that the seeds planted in their lives by myself and the people before me will take root and grow as some of them are nearing and entering “adulthood.” And that they would have the support, discipline, and means to do the things God has called them to, and to do them well.