Fabiana sent an email to some special friends and family, asking for donations for their trip with Ghana Make a Difference.   Jake, who is 13, read the email, made flyers, passed them around to his neighbors and collected THIS!  What an amazing effort!!
He was looking for a service project to do.   He collected needed toys, towels and sheets for the sweet children in Ghana. Thank you to all of you who helped Jake in his project by donating!
Jake said to his mom, “Just think, in a couple weeks some little kids in Africa will be kicking around a soccer ball I helped collect for them!”  Jake’s mom is ‘so grateful for sweet moments like this’.  Ghana Make a Difference is grateful for Jake!  He is a perfect example of the impact of one person in the lives of the children of the West African Children Foundation.
Thanks Jake!

The power is out again, so as I’m writing this I’m sitting on the concrete next to a window in the volunteer house, trying desperately to catch a breeze.

On Friday, Patrick and I worked on making a door to the bathroom at the orphanage. I actually felt like I was a big help, which is shocking because we were… building a door… and Patrick still, days later, calls me a good carpenter. I think it’s because I solved one problem (too hard to explain, I tried and it didn’t work so I will spare you all), but as soon as I did that I guess I gained his respect and anything he builds now he includes me in. He even handed me the saw and hammer a couple times so you gotta know I’m in the carpenter’s club.

Yesterday at dinner time, Camryn (another volunteer) brought magazines and scissors to the kids… you would have thought we gave them iPods! Then LOVED it and fought over the scissors to cut out pictures. They held those picture so close… pictures of random things! like a little sketch of shoes! They cut out so carefully and held so close… it was adorable how much they cared. Some would point to a picture and ask me what it is… “Fruit Loops… a kind of cereal” “Snow… it’s really cold and falls from the sky” (I don’t think they believed me) they are so interested in everything.

I am never alone when I’m at the orphanage. It is the most wonderful feeling, each time you walk in the kids RUN and JUMP into your arms without fail. Yesterday, Gifty, one of the triplets, was constantly by my side. We hung out in the shade and watched as the older boys played football (soccer) with a tiny tennis ball. I want to go buy them a real soccer ball.. I think they have one somewhere but it isn’t pumped up so thank you Stacey for the pump! I will find it and blow up the deflated balls there. David, thank you for the actual American football, they love it!