Land use in Ghana

Land ownership is a little different from what we are used to in Canada. In Ghana, just because you own land doesn't mean that someone else won't live on it or farm it and call your land their land. One plot of land can be sold multiple times and to multiple owners and there are often long court proceedings over who owns what land. The only real way to secure land is to build on it and even then, you are not secure. Your must also be using the buildings you have built. Today we went to have a look at where Bishop Matthias plans on building the Bishop's residence (currently he lives in what is supposed to be the Dean's house and the Dean rents an apartment). The plot of land where the house is to be built is quite large, but already there are people encroaching. They have placed a couple of walls up to show that the land is in use, but right next to one of the walls a garden has been planted. Bishop Matthias plans on purchasing 300 bags of concrete to begin building next year. It is hoped that the new residence would be a place that could comfortably host guests.
We had some time this afternoon to catch up on some sleep and to try to process all that we have seen, heard and tasted. It looks like the service tomorrow is going to be quite something, so we are glad to have some time to recharge. We are also going to the airport tomorrow afternoon. Our flight leaves Accra at 11:25pm and we hope that we won't have any car trouble during the 3 hour drive. Thank you for all your prayers,
Jasmine Chandra

Bishop Matthias' first parish church (and in his hometown)

Enfants class at Hohoe

Little Academy of Santa Maria

And where is God in all of this?

A couple of times during the trip we have looked at each other in wonder and asked "where is God in this?". It seems that once we dropped Heather off at the airport, things started to unravel. Last night we had trouble finding a hotel, it was after midnight when we finally got settled. So this morning we slept in and had a nice breakfast. We visited the Cathedral in Accra and then started back for Ho. We have had a number of late nights, so we decided we wanted to get back by 5pm. 30 kilometres from Ho the car broke down. There are so many pot holes here that the cars are just rattled to pieces. So there we sat on the side of the road waiting for the mechanic to come. Two questions were on our minds; "where is God in this?" and "Which one of us is Jonah?". A few minutes later a truck pulled up with a couple of young men. They loaded up our luggage and started driving us to Ho. 8 kms from Ho the gear shift in the truck stopped working and we were once more on the side of the road wondering "Where is God in this?". One of the young men then went off into the village and found a mechanic who quickly fixed the truck. We made it into Ho by 6pm. We checked all the hotels, but there is a conference here this week and everything was booked (there is no such thing as reservations in Ghana). So we are at Bishop Matthias' place for the night and have enjoyed a lovely meal complete with Star beer from Ghana and fresh pineapple. Where is God? Everywhere...

By Jasmine Chandra

Wednesday..on the road again!!

We had an early start as we went back to St. Anthony’s to visit the schools before eight am. There are about 700 students and Father Simon was giving a session in the church for the older students. We saw all the great children and had breakfast with Simons family. We travelled on to the next parish, St. Paul’s,Bishop Matthias first parish as a priest and also where he grew up. They were another wonderful group of people and more smiling school children. This school is very large with two teachers for each level in one room with 60 plus students. Some of the younger ones sang for us. After we toured the church to see the progress we had a meeting with the wardens and leaders of the parish and lunch with Father Prosper’s family. Hilary the six month old boy slept on the floor as we ate and chatted. We also met the Bishops mother in this parish.
On we went again down the border between Togo and Ghana. We went in another road to visit an an anglican school and had a wild adventure there that cannot possibly go on this blog. After many treacherous roads we reached the Atlantic Ocean... 0nly then would Matthias ag.ree to take us back to Ho for the night The beaches on this coast are fabulous but the people very poor and there is no tourist development. It took us three hours or more to get back to Ho with several stops along the way. Our accomodations were not available so we searched for another hotel and got settled around nine. It was a l0ng day but each one holds special moments we will always treasure. I leave for home tomorrow so there is a sadness setting in that has more to do with the wonderful people here than any tourist site or long bumpy road.