I went with a team of 10 people to the Village of Hope near Accra, Ghana, West Africa June 5 - 13, 2006. It is an orphanage, school, and clinic. We painted the alphabet with corresponding pictures in many of the classrooms. We also built shelves for the library. Spending time with the children was the best part and I know it meant a lot to them and to us! The following posts are filled with images from my trip and are not necessarily in order.
There were gorgeous butterflies everywhere!
(Click on photos to enlarge)
Wednesday through Saturday, I worked with others from our team and some of the kids on painting projects in the nursery (I believe it was up to 2nd grade).
We painted the alphabet with animals in one room and the alphabet with objects in another room.
As you can see, this photo was taken before we went back to add white paint over the mistakes. (yes, I messed up the D... but I wasn't the only one to mess up!!) :)
Later, numbers and cute cartoons (such as dancing crayons) were painted in the younger classrooms.
This is Bob, our fearless leader to Ghana!
Some of the men built shelves for the library.
Turned out very nice!!
Wednesday night, we joined some of the smaller kids in their Bible class/Singing.
These cool, huge lizards were everywhere! I even saw a super, huge one for a brief second that must have been an iguana or something. Scared me silly.
The next few photos are of some of the kids that I got attached to. This little boy is Mawuli.
This is Mawuli (left) and Stella and Selamatu (girls on the right) under a Mango tree. They were very curious about me when I was photographing the butterflies. They followed me around and took me on a tour of the campus. They giggled at me for collecting rocks. I explained that a friend from the US had asked me to bring her back one and that they are very interesting to me. She found a really nice one and gave it to me. I plan to make it into a necklace.
This is Victoria and Joyce and I can't remember the name of the girl behind them. They were fun, giggly girls who liked to play lots of games.
8 comments:
Such neat pictures! I didn't know you were going to Ghana. Alot of people where I work (Harding Acadmey of Memphis) go to the Village of Hope and we work to save money for it every year. I'm sure you've met Tommy Drinnen?? I would love to go one day.... I envy that you can just up and go places like that. Thanks for sharing the pictures!
this is tiny hiny by the way. :)
Ha, that's hilarious, TH! BB's been after to me to post the photos. Yep, Tommy was pretty much in charge when we were there. He's great! It was an awesome experience and I hope to go back some day. I encourage you to find a way to go. I plan to post more photos this week!
Great pictures!! I am so glad you had a safe and successful trip. Thanks for sharing the pictures!
Joan, I love the pictures!
awww . . . very sweet pictures of those kids. Very good work all around!
Most excellent Dear Daughter. Love, Mother
Joan, my name is Fortune and a child of the village of hope. Unfortunately I wasn't around when you were at the village but I greatly agree with you that all the pictures you snaped were truely from the campus of the village. Its all due to you and other brethrens' support. God bless you all.
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