Nkwanta.Day 1

Here it is...the long awaited, much debated, epic saga of the Nkwanta missions trip. Enjoy!

Nkwanta. After leaving Accra, and battling the first 3 hours of relatively (and surpisingly) good roads we stop for lunch. Lunch decides to take forever and the boys humor themselves by watching old karate movies with no point. Diana busies herself with calling Danial and then quickly hanging up. This past time goes on for 20 minutes (much to the delight of us girls and the confusino of poor Daniel) until he finally calls back the number. At one point, Evans gathers us together and we tentatively begin to practice our songs for that evening. It should be noted that the bathrooms at this place were of a dangerous sort and never ever go by yourself or you may be trapped forever in the dungeons of the washroom. After eating our fill of chicken and rice we again set off for another 3 hour car ride through dust and mountains. We arrive at the hotel (Hotel Kiliminjaro) in the afternoon and begin to unload and unpack. As we are unpacking, Melinda suddenly becomes distraught,"Quackers! Where's Quackers?!?" Quickly the horrible truth became realized by Melinda, Yva, and I...Quackers, Melinda's quacking friend, the delight of village children, the STAR of the children's ministry was GONE!!!! This was not to be born and with sickening realization Melinda remembered that the bag with him in it had been carelessly tossed into the Ike's car. This would not have been a big deal had not the notorious THREE been riding in that same car. Grudgingly, we were forced to leave Quackers to his fate (whatever that may be) with Daniel, Conor, and Evans.
A bunch of us decided to explore, so while the Ikes were shown around by the Chinns, our merry crew set off for a grand adventure. We followed the Chinns to the school and were bombarded with kids and animal s and Alex began to face her fear of goats. Dinner that night was of chicken and rice and would continue to remain so until we left. We set off for a village somewhere over the hills, where exactly I know not since we arrived in total darkness. They had placed the T.V. under their ancestor tree go and after singing our songs, the word of God was told. They (the villagers) had us sitting next to a fetish and in the air you could almost physically feel the spiritual battle raging as Satan had a fit while the Jesus story was presented to the village in their own language. After 1 1/2 hours we left (I had never realized that the film was in fact 2 HOURS LONG!) and on the car ride back, we had a quite...um...spirited discussion. I suppose I must take the blame for it, it was I who told Yva that a flashlight was not a torch, which set Conor off on a 20 minute speel about flashlights and torches. This in turn caused for a heated discussion between the entire car. After much constructive arguing and Yva going, " Tina, just stop talking! Look what you've started! It's all your fault!" and me saying, "Fine, blame me, all
I'm saying is..." and Conor arguing, "Flashlights originated in 1930...what are you saying?! I can't believe this!...", we arrived back at the hotel, had a team meeting, and fell exhausted into our beds. Well, sort of.