A heart full of gratitude

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows”

-James 1: 17

Each Thanksgiving, my family gathers together to eat fabulous food, laugh until our sides hurt, and most importantly, give thanks to God, from whom all blessings come. This Thanksgiving, I cannot be home with my family. I cannot indulge in the WONDERFUL food my aunts, grandmother and cousins prepare. I cannot enjoy the ridiculous jokes my grandfather tells. Even so, this Thanksgiving, I have a heart FULL of gratitude.

Living in Akatsi, Ghana for the past 3 months has taught me that we truly have SO many things that we take for granted. I have learned to be thankful for running water, electricity, a refrigerator, quality medical care and so so much more. In America we are so fortunate to have our basic needs met on a regular basis. That’s far more than most of the world can say.

Our girls came from a place where life is much harder. They lived in mud huts, slept on the floor, worked long hours, ate and slept little. Now they have three meals a day, running water, new clothes and a “family” that loves them very much. I have never seen anyone so thrilled to have such simple things! The first time these girls saw a sink they giggled endlessly and could have played in the water for hours had we let them! Mama Celestine announced that she purchased new flip-flops for the girls and they shrieked with delight and ran to the courtyard to see their new treasures! They slept on the concrete floor beside their bamboo bunk beds for the first few weeks because it was what they were used to doing.

We are so blessed. I cannot express the extent of my gratitude for everything I’ve been given! I have the privilege of living here at the Yellow House with my wonderful husband and eight beautiful girls! I get to wake up each morning to see eight beautiful smiling faces and spend all day listening to their broken English, bickering (no, they are not perfect), their laughter and energetic singing. There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Happy Thanksgiving from Ghana!

 (This turned into "happy birthday" five seconds later) 

Love and miss you all!

Eat some turkey for us :)

Kate and Landon

All Eight-Safe and Sound!

Meet our three newest girls! 

From Left to Right, Sarah (8), Regina (7), and Richlove (9)!

The girls minus Gloria

The Great Eight:
Sarah, Dina, Godsway, Richlove, Sarah, Lucky, Regina, and Gloria!

Helping Mama Helen prepare lunch

We're so happy to have all eight girls-safe and sound. Thankyou so much for your prayers and support-this wouldn't have been possible without all of you! More pictures to come :)

Malaria strikes again...

As many of you know, Landon and I have spent some time in the Akatsi hospital this last week. Landon was diagnosed with malaria, and was admitted to stay overnight. He is now almost completely recovered. Thank you to all of you who have been praying-we appreciate it so much!

Landon's response to his positive malaria test?
Laughter. Why? "Vikings always laugh when
they get malaria." Oh Landon...

Unfortunately, our sweet Sarah received the same diagnosis today. She couldn’t keep anything down all morning and she was running a fever of 103.1! She really had me worried! I gave her a dose of Tylenol and we headed to the hospital.

Sarah (pre-malaria)

I soon discovered that there’s no triage here. If you have a dangerously high fever and are behind fifteen elderly men with sore throats, you won’t be seen until they are. We waited for three hours until we saw a doctor (I was SO thankful for that dose of Tylenol!) and finally, she was admitted. They drew some labs and sure enough, malaria it was! Sarah got an IV (which she handled like a champ!) and slept the day away. 

Teddy, Ellie, and Mercy are currently in Yeji to bring the remaining three girls home! This means that Landon and Helen and I are here at the house with the girls. Helen is fabulous, but doesn’t speak English. Needless to say, we’ve had a pretty crazy day! While I was at the hospital with Sarah, Landon was busy playing hours of hide and seek, teaching English lessons and rounding up all the live crabs that had gotten loose in the kitchen!

Between Landon and Sarah, I’ve had more than my fill of the hospital (It’s usually not a good thing when the nurses know you by name)! It’s definitely not the most pleasant place to pass the time, however, I did learn some valuable lessons during my time there.

When Landon and I first got to our room, the aide came in (she said her name was Florence Nightingale) and said a beautiful prayer about the fine line between life and death, and how we can trust the Lord to take us only when He is ready. She prayed for protection over Landon and for a rapid recovery. It brought tears to my eyes! I realized that we have such an attitude of entitlement sometimes. We think we deserve to live a full, healthy life just because we have always had access to high-quality medical care. These nurses have a sober perspective of life and death because death is so real to them! If you’re in the hospital and your condition is declining, it just might be your time to go.  As scary as this is, it has some good truth to it. We were created and are sustained by God, the maker of heaven and earth. Every breath we take is a gift. We are not guaranteed another minute on this earth, let alone another day. So let us be grateful for each breath we are given (and for the fabulous medical care we get in the States)!

Sarah and I are now back at the Yellow House, and very much enjoying the change in scenery. We were welcomed back with shouts of “Sarah!, Auntie!” and many hugs.  It’s good to be back. We will soon have three more girls to add to the family! We’ll be sure to introduce them to you as soon as we can :) 

Thank you all so much for your love and prayers!

We love and miss you!

Kate and Landon

the patient and I

One of the two very crowded waiting rooms
on a Monday morning

A shot of our beautiful girls with their new tailored dresses!
Africans love their colors :)

Have a lovely week! :)

The Rescue: Part two (with pictures!)

Alright, thank you all for bearing with us as we figured out a few technicalities. We have made this a private blog and now have permission to share pictures, videos, and stories. Please encourage anyone who would like to see this blog and is "not invited" to email me at kateloftin23@gmail.com. :)

And now, without further adieu, here are some pictures of our girls!

This picture is one of my favorites. This was the first community we visited and the first of the five girls we were able to meet. It was very surreal. Here, Bernard is asking Godsway if she would like to leave the lake and come home with us. Much to our delight, she accepted! :)

The next day we woke up very early to drive to the lake and meet the girls. Unfortunately, our driver didn't know where he was going...he turned around numerous times and asked many people along the side of the road for directions. We had very strict time restraints that day, as we had a plane to catch, and were getting a little nervous about meeting the girls at all! Thankfully, we found a man on a bike who was willing to lead us to the lake-side. He rode down many narrow walking paths, and we followed in our tro-tro! Joseph (the volunteer) brought the girls to the roadside to meet us :)

Here they are! From left to right we have: Godsway, Dina, Lucky, and Sarah. Gloria was clinging to Ellie, she was pretty shy at first. 

They're each holding a small plastic bag containing all of their possessions, which was not much. 

Gloria and Sarah-they were exausted!

Lucky and Gloria

It's amazing how quickly these girls bonded! They had never met before, but acted like they had been friends their whole lives!

Sarah

Lucky :) wearing Landon's sunglasses

Gloria

the scenery was beautiful!

They were so excited to see the airplanes go by! They stood and watched the entire time we waited for our flight!

Lucky and Godsway

Dina and Sarah

They were so animated on the plane ride! They squealed and giggled with every bump! We were just glad our neighbors thought it endearing :)

After a LONG 13 hour travel day, we finally arrived in Akatsi! Helen and Celestine prepared a delicious feast for everyone.

We had Ak Ple with okra stew
(They eat it with their fingers! We, opted for spoons)

After dinner, the girls washed dishes, bathed, and got ready for bed! As tired as they were, they were up giggling late into the night.

Lucky

Gloria, Lucky, and Sarah

Gloria, Dina, Godsway, Lucky, and Sarah!

All five safe and sound at the Yellow House!

Thank you all SO much for your prayers! We appreciate them very much!

The Rescue: Part 1

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity and of emotions. We are now, extremely happy, exhausted, and most of all, very thankful. As many of you know, we were able to rescue five precious girls from Lake Volta and bring them home with us to Akatsi! We couldn’t be more excited!

We left the house early on Monday morning and travelled via tro-tro from Akatsi to Accra, via airplane from Accra to Kumasi and finally we took another tro-tro from Kumasi to Atebubu. It was a very long travel day! 

We stayed in Atebubu several nights while working with the volunteers who have been on the Lake locating the girls. The events of the next few days left us feeling discouraged and disappointed. Each day brought a new set of obstacles. There were moments when we had doubts as to whether we would be able to bring any girls at all, but in the end Teddy and Bernard worked everything out with the Social Welfare Department and we were given permission to retrieve five girls from the lake and bring them to their new home! (We hope to return to the lake as soon as we are able to bring the three more home).

Before bringing the girls home, we had to cross Lake Volta in a small wooden fishing boat (shown below) to visit the different communities in which the girls were living. We spoke with the chief of the village who had many questions about who we were and where we were taking the girls. He was happy to release them to us after hearing our our plans to care for them and eventually put them in school.

  

We are now all safely back at the Eight Oaks home. The girls are wonderful and they seem to be very happy here! We are excited to tell you all more about them in the coming weeks. We are feeling blessed and grateful to be here.

Due to Eight Oak's privacy policy, we are unable to post pictures of the girls here. We are in the process of finding a way to make pictures available while respecting the privacy of the girls and taking the necessary measures in preventing pictures from being circulated without proper permission. We have plenty to show, and know you are anxious to see so we will make them available as soon as possible!

Thank you all for your love and support. We will post again soon.

Kate and Landon