A little sun, a little fun!

Yesterday, John, Stacy, Nina, and I went to Latae which is a village up in the mountains here in Ghana. We went to go visit with Letitia, who is a teacher that John and Stacy had met at DTS here on the YYAM base. It was beautiful in Latae. From the rooftop of Letitia and Felix's (her husband) house, you could all the way to Lake Volta. Letitia said it was even prettier at night with the lights of Tema and Accra sparkling in the distance, the stars above. What a beautiful place to live. The rooftop was a little warm though! I got a little sunburned today. Of course, I usually wear sunscreen everyday, but just happened to not wear it yesterday. What are the chances, right? So, I'm a little pink and now I know, when I'm going to be out and about, sunscreen is key!

When we started talking more to Letitia more about Latae and the people there, we found out some things about Latae that are pretty heavy. There is a shrine there (many people, though they claim to be Christians, worship idols) and there is a deep spiritual heaviness in the area. They deal with a lot of craziness, but probably what they see most is sexual sin. Girls in the area usually get pregnant before the age of 16. There are stories of molestation and rape. There is just a heavy, heavy spiritual darkness over the whole area. Before the year is out, we want to return to pray over the land of Latae and claim it for the Kingdom. Letitia and Felix work hard to bring the light of the Kingdom there, but it can't be easy with so many battles going on around them!

After talking with Letitia a little bit, we began to talk about the school. She is very open to coming and partnering with us for this next year. She seems like she is always looking for new ideas on how to teach and is one of those "life-time learners". I think it will be great to have her on the team. She seems like she will bring lots of ideas! So, we found our first grade teacher. We still have to hear from Gifty and James (a couple we asked to teach and administrate the office) to see if they are willing to work with us in these roles this next year. We'll see! It looks like it's coming together!

We have also been praying about a name for the school. We've had lots of ideas pop up, and Stacy kind of had a vision of a mango tree with deep roots as part of our school crests, but we hadn't come up with a name we loved yet. Yesterday in the car, I was thinking about what we want for our students and just thinking about the people here that profess that they are Christians and then their lives are just so different. We really want them to be rooted in Christ. As I was thinking that, Stacy said, "What about Faith Roots Christian Academy?". I loved it and said that we can put Ephesians 3:14 under the roots where it says "rooted and established in love". John then said that he was thinking about that scripture just before I said it. So, we felt like God confirmed that!

Faith Roots Christian Academy
Where children are "rooted and established in love".

Love it!