Goodbye Sisters and More Food

Some weeks are starting to look like ones in the immediate past.  Transfers come more often that once every 6 weeks, so it seems like we are sending and receiving all the time.  This week we said goodbye to 8 Sister missionaries.  Before we tell you a little about them, Nancy wanted to include this crude sign we see quite often.  We wondered what A.M.A. stood for.  They seem to control lots of things around town and it certainly wasn't the American Medical Association.  Our Ghanaian missionaries were unable to help us.  As it turns out, it is the Accra Municipal Assembly.  They do lots of things in the city including collecting property taxes.  We received a notice recently, that we were delinquent in our property taxes for the mission home.  The notice stated that if we failed to pay we could be arrested.   We found that a bit dramatic since the amount due was 130 Ghana Cedis, or about $32, and that was for an entire year.  Home owners would love the tax system here.

Now back to wishing our sisters farewell...this was a interesting and diverse group.  They were traveling home to Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.

Once again our photos show us eating.  Their farewell dinner this week was at Lord of the Wings.  Our office elders loved the place but the Africans.....we think it was a little too Western for them. 

President and Sister Heid with Sister Agboyin, who flew home to Nigeria.  Her one-hour flight to Nigeria was supposed to leave at 6 pm.  At 9 pm we received a call from her father who had not seen his daughter yet.  We were a bit frantic when we consulted the airline website only to find that the flight she was supposed to take didn't exist.  Somehow her father learned that it was delayed "big."  She finally left Accra at 10 p.m. and met her father at 12:30 pm Nigeria time.  Arik Airlines is notorious about delaying and cancelling flights at the last minute.  It does create some uncertainty and anxiety when we see that they are scheduled on Arik Air, especially for Nancy.

Pictured here, at our parting devotional, are 7 of the 8 sister missionaries, who served for 18 months.  One had already left that morning on the bus since she is from Cape Coast, Ghana, about three hours from Accra..  At least two of these sisters already have college degrees.

  Last minute photo taking and weighing of luggage!

This group of missionaries were waiting to get their Non-citizen cards renewed.  Ghana requires that all "noncitizens" pay a fee and carry this card with them at all times.  In our experience, no one has EVER asked to see it.  It is good for one year and must be renewed.  

 A little frivolity in the office

 Elders Bergeson and Hanberg

On Wednesday we were invited to dinner at the Heid's.  (Here we are again, eating).  We welcomed the President of the Ghana Accra West Mission, President Simpson and his wife, who arrived only a few weeks ago.  They brought with them our mission office counterparts, the Munros.  Both of these couples are from Australia.  It was a very nice evening.  Both Brother Simpson and Brother Munro were accountants before coming to the mission field.
 

This has become one of our favorite paintings.  This is hanging in the Area Office.

We went out to dinner with the Websters, ( next to Stan....from Australia and he is the Area Executive Secretary) and the Peines, (He is the Area Mental Health Specialist and they are from St. George, Utah), on Friday night.  We went to the Noble House, which is Chinese, but learned that there was also an Indian restaurant upstairs.  We decided to order some Chinese and some Indian and they served both cuisines to our table.  It was a very nice evening and the food was great!  Again more "dinner" pictures.

Our old apartment is getting renovated.  They installed the granite countertops this week.  It is starting to look like it will be finished before the Jones's arrive a week from Tuesday.