August 31, 2021

Another senior missionary sister and I took a few hours to get more familiar with the back streets of Accra. Fabrics are a big deal here, the women wear dresses every day and those dresses are colorful with large patterns and lots of fabric. Batik is also popular. We found a small shop where the material, all batik, is made by the owner.   Dale and I drove to the Tema Ward for church, lucky for us it was the Primary program. The children had been divided into groups based on the song, Our Primary colors are 1, 2, 3, red, yellow, and blue. So cute to see some children wearing polo shirts in the colors with labels printed on the back. The children knew their parts and spoke out with pride!

Tema is where the first MTC was located West Africa. The building still stands and is used on Sunday for church and Friday for Institute. One of the stake presidency members is hopeful that it will be turned into a Gathering Place for the YSA and become a place of refuge, where no YSA will never have to be alone. 

On the way home from Tema we stopped in Ashaiman for our fourth concert since arriving. That stake loves music and performing. This concert had a flute, trombone, trumpet, synthesizer, and an organ along with a 30 member choir singing everything from opera, to Handel, to African chants. It was, as always, amazing. Mostly, it is an example of what vision can do in person's life. The roads leading to the chapel are thick with people hawking their wares from silver bowls on their heads and small plywood store fronts. Then, when you enter the walled church property, what is there, but culture of the finest level! 

When we flew to Ghana we met a man on the plane from Minnesota whose life work is to create jobs for Africans. He wants to build the middle class, because, due to the lack of jobs, a person either has money or they don't. Ghana has so many natural resources, but what is grown/mined here is sent abroad to be refined and sold. This man wants the cashews and cocoa that are grown here, to be processed here. We had dinner with him Monday. I didn't know that cashew trees have small pods (called apples) on them and at the bottom of each pod is a hard shell that contains one cashew nut. Currently, that nut is cut off the pod and shipped to Thailand for processing. Our friend wants to open a cashew processing plant in Tema by January. If that happens it would create jobs. Our hope is that we could supply him with a labor force of Young Single Adults.