A lot of schools = a lot of kids. For Ghana in general and for us! Kids do make up half of Ghana's population compared to just one-third in the U.S. Their high school (I have to call it senior secondary there) system is interesting... students have to take national exams after junior high school and rank their top five schools. They get in based on their exam scores. Luckily, most of our kids that have gone through this rite of passage have gotten their first school choices. They're smarties. They work hard. Yep, I'm proud but hoping the younger ones are learning from the older five and follow suit in their study habits.
We spent time at six different schools this trip, for various reasons...all good. =) We only had one full weekend in Ghana this time and we spent it traveling to the see the kids in boarding school - we surprised them all! We rented our own tro tro and took along most the crew. Saturday we traveled to see Noble at Bishop Herman College (really a high school) in Kpando - about a two hour drive on some very bumpy, pothole covered roads. But we did get a beautiful view of Ghana's landscape and Lake Volta as our tro tro climbed up a very large hillside.
Noble wants to be a doctor and is on his way. From the first day I met him, he has been very independent but so loving, a hard worker in everything he does, and has always taken his education seriously....I always had to make up practice math problems for this kid and I don't think I ever stumped him. He tends to have some of the top report cards among our kids. I got to see his report card from his first term of high school this year. He did well, but he is hard on himself and tells me it isn't good. He is still adjusting a bit to a new school and new level of studies, but I have no doubt he'll conquer this too.
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| Noble's High School |
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| School grounds |
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| Noble. This is his freshman year. Check out that Cardinal's t-shirt! |
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And because I can't resist....here's my sweet Noble back in the day.
This is when he first stole my heart in 2007. |
When Noble is home from school, he is able to send me messages through WhatsApp and I cherish this time with him. I was so blessed on New Year's Eve to be able to chat back and forth with him and ring the new year in right along with him as we counted down to midnight in Ghana!
Our visit was too short with Noble, but so happy to see him! We headed from Kpando back towards home and stopped in Have to visit our next school. There's four boys at the Have school: Emma, Frank, Sammy and Richard. Since we weren't far from home, the boys convinced us to hijack them for the night - my mom then had to convince the headmaster to let us take them! It worked!
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| L-R: Richard, Sammy, Emma and Frank |
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| Richard and Sammy. Richard gives some of the best hugs ever...he's one of the top three huggers in our group. |
On Sunday we headed to a town called SogaKopi to visit Peace at her high school, St. Catherine's. We knew that Peace was to be baptized that morning and then there would be a ceremony at the church so we set out early on this 2 1/2 drive to make it in time to celebrate with her. She knew we were in Ghana, but she didn't know that we were coming to see her! We were happy to have our four Have boys with us. We also took our good friend and a mama to the kids, Constance so we had a full tro tro which led to some fun singing of worship songs along the way.
We were quite surprised ourselves when we got to Peace's school. After the church ceremony, Peace was called up to the front of about 400+ people and named the school prefect! This all girl school was chanting her name as she went up and gave a speech! I couldn't believe it! She sounded great, very mature, not nervous. My mom, Constance, her sister, Patience, the rest of her fan club of 15 and me were in the back in shock just looking at each other, smiling ear to ear and shaking our heads. Knowing Peace, none of us should be surprised. She has always been so personable and a go getter, but wow, I was so proud seeing her up there. This girl might be the first woman president of Ghana someday! =) Thank you, Lord for your perfect timing that let us be in Ghana and actually at her school on such a big day for Peace. It was an honor for us to see her and her accomplishments firsthand; thank you for arranging it so that her family and loved ones would be there for her.
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| Filling bellies before the long journey. |
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| Luckily the boys saved some for Sika. |
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| Peace and the others who were baptized. |
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| Sisters - Peace and Patience |
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| I'm so proud of her! |
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| Peace was surprised and happy to catch up with all of us. |
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Peace circa January 2007.
She welcomed me immediately on my first day at the orphanage, took my bag and hand
and gave me a tour. This little girl made me (the adult) feel so comfortable and at home. |
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| Beautiful girls |
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| A long day. Elolo pretending to sleep. |
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| Peace's school |
We also visited three schools in our neck of the woods in Ho/Sokode. We moved Sika to a new home, which meant she needed to switch schools too....usually a tough if not impossible act in the middle of the school year. But God was paving our way the entire trip. Constance's connection with a headmaster at the local school proved invaluable and we got her enrolled. My mom and I ventured out on our own to Sika's old school to get her records and let them know she was transferring. We were told what a great and respectful student she's been and her grades from the first term were all very high! Good job, Sika! Then we headed to her new school to enroll her and order her uniform.
I also had the sweet, sweet honor of walking Elolo to school everyday as he held my hand the whole way. I was worried about causing any extra 'unwanted' attention for him, but he either was oblivious or didn't care because he had me come all the way up to his classroom to meet his teacher, Madam Perfect. On the last day, he asked my mom if she would come with us in the morning to school. She sure does love him....because it meant being up before 6am. That day he walked hand in hand with both of us up to his classroom so that my mom could also meet the teacher. I'm thankful for his teacher, she is a Christian and cares for Elolo. She told me that Elolo is her friend and when I thanked her for her hard work teaching these kids, she responded that Jesus is the Master Teacher! Amen.
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| Elolo's school |
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| A clean and ironed uniform. Ready for school! Success! |
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| Fridays are sports day at school. He really wanted to take his new birthday soccer ball but I was too worried he wouldn't return with it so he convinced me to let him take this bat (tucked in his backpack) and a ball. The bat came home, the ball was confiscated. Oops, didn't think about it flying and hitting the school buildings. =) Not a success! |
