December Update

    Merry Christmas!!!

    Sorry it's been a little past time to write an update. Sometimes, I am amazed at how fast time passes, and we have been really busy here at the end of the school term. Our last update was mainly about our trip to Volta. Since then, we have been very busy with finishing up the first term of the school year, and planning for classes next term. Our volunteer season has pretty much wound down. We had a couple large groups last month, but with them gone now, things will slow down a bit. It will be a little lonelier here in our house too, as Autumn has left for the states for two months. 

     I won't lie... The holiday season has been a little difficult for us here. We have made the best of it though. For Thanksgiving, we had been saving up food items that volunteers had brought for us, and we had a very traditional Thanksgiving celebration. We had turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green been casserole, sweet potatoes, pies, and my favorite dessert, cherry delight. It was nice to have a little piece of home, but it was still hard to be away from family. 

    Christmas will be much the same, but it is really strange for us to be where it's 95 degrees and dry, when we are used to snow. I can say with out a doubt we will NOT be having a white Christmas here!

    We also wanted to thank those of you who have sent us letters, even though we may not have received them. The ones we have gotten are two to three months old! If you would like to send a letter, please email us for an address of a volunteer that would be able to bring it with them. We will be sure to get it this way.

    Dawn and I did get to take a couple days and relax at the beach. You can read a little more about that on our blog if you like. I tried to post some pictures, but we have been having a lot of issues with our internet capabilities lately, and uploading photos, whether it's to facebook, our blog, or in emails, it is almost impossible. I think part of the reason is that the season is changing here. It's getting hotter and the air is much drier and dusty. You can see the dust in the air, and I think that is causing some issues with our cell reception. This season will last for the next few months.

    On Christmas Day, we are planning on going and handing out meals to street/market kids (these are homeless kids who live/sleep in the market), so we would appreciate your prayers for that. The building projects here continue to go strong. The Corm office building is nearly finished, they are putting the roof on the new children's home now, and the new apartment house is nearly ready for the roof. God has continued to provide funding for these projects in amazing ways.

     We also wanted to let everyone know that we will be coming home for 6 or 8 weeks in early April. Caylan, our oldest daughter, will be getting married! We are extremely excited for the wedding, and to come home for a while, but it's also a trip home that we had not planned, so we would appreciate any financial help we can get to help with airfare.  We also would be happy to come and share about our experience here in Ghana so far, and to give a ministry update, especially for those churches that have been supporting us faithfully. Please email us and let us know what dates you might have available so we can start making our schedule. We have not confirmed a definite date that we will be home yet, but probably the first week in April. We will also be figuring out where we will be staying, but would be happy to spend some time at different places if folks would have us! 

Prayer requests:

Health/healing - Many of the staff and kids have been sick with colds due to the changing season, and some with malaria.

Christmas Day ministry to market children

Caylan - health and being apart from us for holidays

Second school term starts on January 12th

Thank you all so much for your continued prayers and support! Praying that you all have a blessed Christmas!

Cayle & Dawn