Ghana blog - day 3
Phil Green is on the ground in Ghana for the Wheels for the World distribution - he's bringing us a daily blog from the trip. Catch up on all the entries by following this link to our Wheels blog page.
Breakfast here seems to consist of omelette, beans and sausages... No cornflakes in sight, but once fuelled up we hit the road. We needed foam but, more importantly we needed Ghanaian money to buy it with! The currency is Cidis and it’s about 3.3 to the pound out of interest, but we headed to the bank to get some money exchanged. The first bank we tried didn’t accept good old Stirling… shocking, I’ll be having words with my bank manager when I get home! Another bank later and we had money for the foam. We then had to make two stops at different places as they are in short supply of the foam we prefer use. A sheet cost us 86 Cidis, about £26.
The drive to Kandu (I am not sure now if that’s spelt correctly!) took over 1.5 hours but people were ready and waiting when we arrived, so the team got straight to work.
I say this every time but the OT’s and Physios are just fantastic… I joke that the Physios are just glorified OT’s and vice versa but perhaps it’s not really a good time to joke when surrounded by Helen, Jill, Kathy and Katherine! Thank goodness they know I am joking... They do their job like clockwork, diagnosing the issues for each person then trying to get the right chair or mobility aid to match. If it needs some form of alteration they either do it themselves or ask Will or me for some ‘techie’ help.
Special mention for Katherine who did great on her first day of a distribution - by the end of the day she looked like she’d been doing it for years. Well done Katherine! Will is a seasoned veteran and he too on the techie side of things is just fantastic, coming up with different ways to modify and customise chairs.
Now before you think they paid me to say this, they haven’t seen any of the blogs yet so I assure you they have no idea I am writing this about them, not yet anyway!
I can’t, of course, miss out Graham and Reninca (although if you remember she’s in “observation mode” - so sits around doing nothing !) Joking of course, and she’s just slotting in great as another team member… but both of them are essential as they manage all the administration.
Pam then handles another essential bit, ministering to those who have been given chairs or mobility aids. I don’t envy her really as I can imagine it being emotionally as well as physically draining, but Wheels is about demonstrating God’s love in a practical way and I know she does a great job of sharing God’s word with those we help.
God is clearly here and actively involved. The day seemed to go really well with no major issues. Will realised on the way home that we left the drill behind but God had it covered as one of our hosts at the RC Church where the distribution took place had seen it and already taken it into his care for tomorrow when we return there for our second distribution.
As for me, I was helping Katherine work on a chair which needed some foot plate modifications. We have a shortage of straps but I’d early that day noticed a special strap hidden seemingly in a pile of blankets… there was just one and I’d pulled it out thinking perhaps it was there for a reason. Well there was! It was for the young man’s chair we were working on. It was a special foot plate strap and a little while later we had it fitted. Some may think its just coincidence but I think God’s involved in many of those - a God-incidence as some would say.
I got plenty of photos and video footage from the day and hopefully you may see some of them in the next week, but that depends on the internet access here. It’s strange of course as we take internet access in the UK for granted most of the time, but not in Ghana!
So at the end of day 3, I am thanking God for a great day and praying for tomorrow for more of the same, and again having the right chairs (or straps etc) for those who we get to help.