Saying Goodbye

This season of life here at City of Refuge is filled with volunteers. Ever since I have returned to Ghana, we have had visitors in and out of our home here. For the past month, we have had a group from Australia come to spend some time with us. YGAP is a group that raises funds for projects worldwide. They are raising the funds for our school building.

Today was the last day for our YGAP group. From the moment we got up this morning, we could feel the sadness creeping over the kiddos and all the YGAP team. Saying goodbye to the kids was always the hardest part of it all, both for the kids and for the adults. And when I see the kids start to cry...I just can't help but get a little teary eyed myself.

We took everyone to Accra and dropped them off for their weekend away. They will fly out of Ghana on Monday, after time resting and relaxing on the beach this weekend. The rest of us, the Ohio group, Tom (from the Australia team who was flying out later in the day), John and Stacy, and I got a little pizza and stopped at the tourist market so the Ohio group could bring home some gifts to their family.

On our way to drop Tom at the airport, John drove into a gas station to grab us some water. The tourist market made us all super thirsty. Accidently, John drove into the gas station through the exit only. A police man was standing there (to catch people doing just what we did) and he pulled John over and confiscated his license, telling him that he had to go down to the station to pick it up. Sometimes, these police officers here are just hunting down a bribe and it is so frustrating. Stacy got out to talk with the police officer as well, but he just ended up driving off with John's license.

We dropped Tom off at the airport (never fun to do when you have enjoyed a volunteer so much), and headed down to the police station. We all calmly walked in, hoping to get John's license back without any fine. In the end, an apology brought the license out and we were able to leave without another problem. Whew! What a night!

On the way home, we picked up some water (thankfully) and some shuya (some awesome meat with spices on it) and we chowed down.

I'm hoping we'll get to see some of these volunteers come through our doors again. What a pleasure it has been to have them partner with us in what we are doing here on a day to day basis. Looking forward to our next visitors coming through on Friday.