Our time here in Ghana has a lot of downtime in the evenings with no internet and only 3 channels on the t.v. ... one being Telemundo so that really isn't an option either. We have normally been back to the hotel around 5pm with nothing else to do for the evening. Greg & I have both agreed that besides not being able to communicate with the kids as much as we'd like, it really has been good for us. We haven't talked this much in years! (tonight we joked that it's the 15 year anniversary trip we didn't know we wanted - Hawaii sounds a little better to me;) If the internet had been up Greg would have been working for a few hours each night and I would have been blogging, emailing & checking Facebook. Instead, we've typically gone to the upper deck of our hotel, had supper some of the nights up there and cooled down in the evening breezes until the mosquitos come out. (although we really haven't seen many bugs, just 2 enormous roaches in our room that Greg bravely used my flip-flop to kill) Then, we've headed to our room to shower up and play some cards and I've typically typed up a blog that I can put up whenever we get to a Wi-FI location. Our room light is really low, we literally only have 2 really dim light bulbs so we have to squint to see our cards at times - it just adds a little flare to the game. ;) (PS - did I mention that I've actually won a few hands here?? You know that's amazing if you've ever played cards with me! I'm keeping the scoresheets as proof for Greg's family!) It's highly unlikely that the internet will be fixed at all while we are here since Sunday & Monday are holidays and the repair person won't be working and then we are gone to court all day on Tuesday, we'll stop back to shower and grab our bags and then we head to the airport. I guess that is ok, Greg & I will have time to talk through and process nearly everything before we get on the plane without any of those "pesky" internet distractions. I am hoping to sleep hard on the plane this time! (I only slept about 2-3 hours on the flight here, but Captain Phillips was a good in-flight movie!) So, after all of that, I guess what I'm saying is that this may be our last update until we touch down in NYC early Wed. morning. So, please pray hard on Monday night that all will go well in court on Tuesday. We have to be there by 9:00am and we hope to be seen right away in chambers before the judge goes to his regular court. Please pray that we are granted a FULL adoption order, not a temporary adoption which would mean we have to come back in 2 years to finalize. This should all be done before most of you rise on Tuesday morning!
There is another Bethany family flying in later tonight and we are disappointed that we won't get to see much of them or share any time traveling or sight-seeing with them. We will be gone sight-seeing on Monday while they meet their daughter and then we are picking up E and bringing her to our hotel to sleep over with us on Monday night. Hopefully we can connect with them Monday night even though E will be here. Supper or something together would be nice.
Today we got up early (5:45am - that's 12:45am in WI!) to get ready for church. (the a/c kicked back on sometime during the night so we actually slept pretty well) Our driver was to be here by 6:30am to pick us up. Turns out he was early and arrived by 6:15. They like to keep us on our toes here! ;) That was fine, we were ready because there wasn't much we could do ... no water this morning to shave/shower or anything. We took about a 30 minute drive to meet the Bethany social worker, Naa, at her church. She attends a very nice Presbyterian Church and we were greeted warmly outside by her pastor. The building was really nice and Presbyterians in Africa are much the same as in America ... they arrive late and all want to sit in the back of church. :) The service was actually very similar to ours at FPO, just a little longer and the praise songs (although there were few) were a bit more lively. (they did sing normal hymns also that were unfamiliar and all sounded the same to me) It was good for us to again be the minority in a setting like church, it helps us to know how E will feel back in Oostburg. The teachings were very biblically based and Greg & I had to listen very carefully in order to understand the service. Almost everyone speaks English here but their accents make it very hard to understand at times. It was a great experience overall - we are glad we got up early for it!
After church we were dropped back off at our hotel to eat some breakfast and the driver went to pick up our guide, Patience, and E to bring them to the hotel for us to head to the beach. (our hotel is very close to the ocean so it just made sense to do it that way) What we thought would be about 1.5 hour wait ended up being a 5+ hour wait for them to come back because they had car trouble. While we are glad we weren't along on the ride when the car broke down, it really cut into our time with E today because our driver and Patience had to pick up the other family at the airport in the evening and that all takes time to drive around the city.
After they finally came we headed to the beach. E gave us the silent treatment again in the car but by the time we got to the beach she was ready to play. That girl has no fear - she loved the huge waves and kept trying to pull us out further but the waves were big and strong. Even when she'd get swept away and go under she didn't really seem to care - she's crazy. (she didn't like the salt water very much though!) We spent about 1 hour playing in the surf and then headed back to the hotel to shower up and get her some supper. She ate in our room and then we had to bring her back home already. She got really quite again in the car and wouldn't talk to us at all. Before we knew it she was sound asleep on Greg's lap. It was absolutely adorable. :)
I'm cutting this short because Braden finally got us on Facetime and we only have 10 more minutes of Wi-Fi before we have to leave. :)
Love to all,
Robin
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