Mar 28
Baby Naming at Tambɔna Preaching Point
Sumnibooma#1 Baptist Church, a place we visit fairly regularly, has a new preaching point in Tambɔna, a very small community a couple miles away. They erected a simple shelter in which they meet weekly for a worship service. Sumnibooma#1 sends two or three of its members to lead the service.
I had not yet been able to visit the group at Tambɔna but had promised I would do it soon. Rev. George asked me to go on March 25th to preach and do a baby naming ceremony for a couple there.
Often for such events I preach a sermon that has a theme that matches the meaning of the child’s name. However, this child had no traditional name (those are often connected to proverbs) and his English given name was Desmond. Desmond is an anglicization of the Gaelic locale Deas-Mhumhna, or “South Munster.” So basically, Desmond means “Irish guy from South Munster.” Kind of hard to preach a sermon in a rural West African village on that topic.
Thankfully, I found one claim that the American meaning of Desmond has become “gracious defender” (don’t ask me how). That was a much easier meaning to tie to Scripture since Christ is our gracious defender – our advocate before the Judge!
Mar 28
Visit to Namoori Escarpment
Whenever Dr. Vince “Tiiya” Waite comes to town, I take him out to Namoori to visit his old friend who is chief of that village. Often we go out to the Gambaga Escarpment just north of there after visiting with the chief and enjoying a meal together. Several of his courtiers guided us and took us to a new spot a bit farther east down the scarp.
There they showed us a natural spring that attracts wildlife year round. In fact, we saw a troop of about 10-12 wild patas monkeys running through the trees below. They also showed me a new path I did not know of that allows one to walk down the cliffs and get to the White Volta River.
It follows the trend that each village seems to have its own path down the Gambaga Escarpment to reach their farms, the forest and the river. So far, I’ve seen such paths at Gambaga, Dintigi, Namoori, Zarantinga/Namaasim, Sakogu, Baungu, Kpatiritinga, Nakpanduri and Tusugu.
-
- Men of Namoori
Mar 24
With the help of her older brother, KJ is getting pretty good at this walking on stilts thing!
Feb 2
The Ambassador’s Visit
January 28, 2018 was an exciting day in Nalerigu. Mr. Robert Jackson, US Ambassador to Ghana, paid us a visit with his wife and an entourage of embassy representatives. Among them was Mr. Jimmy Mauldin and his wife, both former missionaries at the Baptist Medical Centre. Jimmy served as the BMC Administrator for several years in the 90s. He is now the Economic Adviser to the Ambassador in Ghana.
Ambassador Jackson first received a tour of our hospital led by Dr. Tim Cahill and Mr. Stephen Yiddi. After which we had a meal together at the BMC guesthouse. All the American citizens living in East Mamprusi District were invited (my family, the Cahills and Rachel, a PeaceCorps volunteer in Jawani).
The visit concluded with a visit to the NaYiri in town. I was very proud of the wonderful welcome that Nalerigu’s paramount chief, elders and subchiefs gave our Ambassador. He too was very impressed and promised to continue to USAid’s efforts to assist the people of the Northern Region, specifically mentioning CHPS and indoor mosquito spraying.
The NaYiri gave the Ambassador an honorary title of Sumniraana or “Chief of Good Relations.” Ambassador Jackson graciously accepted and responded to the lunsi‘s call to dance Damba (watch their video clip on Facebook).
Dec 18
If you’d like to download this video to share with your church family you can use this Dropbox link.
Dec 12
Harmattan Haze
During our dry season we get northeasterly winds called harmattan that bring dust from the Sahara. Sometimes it causes clouds of dust to descend upon us and linger for days. It obscures the sun and coats everything in the house with a fine layer of dust. The worst we had seen to date in Nalerigu was back in early January 2015.
This past weekend set a new record for our time here with an incredible haze that filled the air.
Our house from 30 meters up
I flew my drone up and recorded some video along a route I filmed back in August when rainy season was nearing its end and everything was green. Keep in mind that this footage is of the same place (east of Nalerigu towards the creek) and at the same time of day (late afternoon) only four months later.
Dec 3
Time to Setup that Christmas Tree!
Every year we do a little timelapse video of our Christmas decoration. Last year we got fancy and made a 360° video version. This year we went back to the basics and just set the camera on the tripod.
See all the past years’ below: Read More
