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

Some pictures of our FINISHED house!

Hey everyone! We finally have some interior shots to show you! We've tied up a lot of loose ends this week, and can confidently say that we're finished preparing and READY to rescue some girls!! 

Thankyou all for your prayers, encouragement, and support! We appreciate it more than we can say!

Enjoy the pictures! :)

Adorable bamboo bunk beds for the girls room!  :)

Our "breakfast nook" in a corner of the main room

More seating in the main room (it's a HUGE room!)

Our cute little pantry with a window out into the hallway!

More bamboo furniture!

Our lovely kitchen! The carpenter JUST finished the
cabinets the other day-we are so pleased with how they turned out!

Our bedroom so far!

Please forgive the terrible lighting-this is the back hallway! The bedrooms are all on the right, the door to the far left is the bathroom, and the door right next to it leads to the courtyard. The carpenter just installed the cabinet beneath the sink as well, and surprised us with the mirror! It's so nice to have a mirror again-we were beginning to forget what we looked like! :)

The courtyard by night.

Me, sporting my new Ghanaian dress!

This past week, Landon and I had to go to Ho two days in a row to get our passports stamped. Travelling is always tiring here, but the scenic views in Ho made it very worthwhile!

We had lunch at a restaurant with a beautiful view! It overlooks the entire town of Ho (above). The mountain you see in the background is called Mount Adaklu. It is one of the highest mountains in Ghana, and I believe climbing tours are available. Needless to say, we hope to do this at some point during our stay :)

Thanks for checking in-hopefully next time we post we'll have some pictures of our girls!

Please pray for us as we leave for Lake Volta on Monday!

Much love to you all!

Kate and Landon :)

For some great before and after pictures of the house, check out this post on the Eight Oaks blog: http://www.8oaks.blogspot.com/

We're almost ready!

Hello everyone!

We are pleased to report that we were finally able to replace out computer! I’ll (Kate) try to catch you up on what’s happened since we’ve last blogged. We have so much news, I hardly know where to start!

We have been living in the Yellow House (the Eight Oaks home) for almost two weeks now, and we are loving every minute! It is the PERFECT house in so many ways! We have the most helpful, caring Ghanaian neighbors possible (our hosts)-they have even offered to sleep here when we are out of town so the “thieves” do not come again.  They are wonderful. The house itself is very spacious and comfortable, and is really starting to look like a home!  We are very excited to have eight little girls running around here and making use of every square inch! 

Our bamboo furniture finally arrived yesterday! We’ve been very busy moving all the beds, tables, chairs, benches, etc. to their proper places (bamboo is surprisingly heavy and doesn’t come apart!). Pictures to come soon :)

Since I’ve last blogged, we have found the staff for the Eight Oaks home. We couldn’t be more excited about them! They are a mother daughter team: Helen (the mother), and Mercy (the daughter) who is 22 and wants to be a nurse :). Helen will be coming to the house every day and leaving in the evenings, and Mercy will live here full time. They will be helping us with household duties; mainly cooking and cleaning, but will also spend a lot of time interacting with the girls. Our hope is that Helen will act as another mother for the girls, while Mercy will fill the older sister role. We are very thankful to have such wonderful women to help us care for the girls!

An update on the girls:

We will be leaving for Lake Volta on Sunday, November 3^rd! It is a very long trip, but we would like to take Mercy and our host, Bernard, with us. They will both have a lot of interaction with the girls, and it’s important that they are able to see where they are coming from. Also, it will likely be the first time these girls see white people and they may be very scared of us! We will be so glad to have some Ghanaian friends along to help communicate with and comfort them. While on the lake, we will meet each of the girls for the first time early on in the week, and wait in a nearby town while the paperwork is completed. We will then come home to Akatsi with all eight of our precious girls!!! We are very excited and can not believe that the long awaited rescue is only weeks away!

We very much appreciate all of your prayers, and wanted to give a few specific requests:

Please pray:

-For the girls and for all the children on Lake Volta. Pray especially for these eight-that God would prepare their hearts for the rescue and calm their fears.

-For a safe and smooth travel week (especially on the way back with all the girls!)

-That God would continue to guide and direct our paths. He is so good-it’s amazing to see how smoothly things have gone so far.

-For wisdom and for continued health.

Much love to you all-you are missed!

Kate and Landon

When it rains here, it pours!

Our courtyard!

 

Here, they are weaving Kente cloth, which is traditionally worn only on special occasions or if you are a person of great rank. It is a very intricate process and takes several weeks to finish one cloth!

His progress so far. Please take note of the chicken :)

Trying some delicious coconut water!

A quick update

It has been a while since our last post… As many of you know already, the house that we have been staying in was broken into a few nights ago. Our computer, among other things, was stolen. Access to the internet will be a bit infrequent until it can be replaced. We are a bit sad about the pictures and documents we lost, but everyone is safe so we are grateful for that. Fortunately, Teddy and Ellie have been gracious in allowing us to use their computer when we need it so we will not be completely out of touch!

Anyways, renovations on the Eight Oaks home are complete and we moved in yesterday! Now that we are living here I have been able to start clearing the lot and turning the soil for our garden. We already have several fruit trees that seem to be producing well and a wide variety of vegetables grow well in Ghana’s climate. There is a lot of work to be done, but the soil seems healthy and productive so I am looking forward to seeing what we will be able to grow!

While no official plans have been made, we have been in contact with Touch-a-Life and everything seems to be moving along as planned. We hope to make our first visit to Lake Volta very soon.

We will be posting some pictures as soon as we are able!

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

Landon and Kate

Our front porch!
For more pictures, see the Eight Oaks blog:
 http://8oaks.blogspot.com/2013/10/pictures-finally.html