I slept OK, and was packed, downstairs and had settled the bill by the time Paul came down. Our driver showed up a few minutes after I called for an Uber, and we made our way smoothly to the domestic airport for a short Africa World Airlines flight to Kumasi.

Just under 30 minutes after take off we landed in Kumasi. By road it is a 4 to 5 hour trip, so this is much better! We both collected our bags, and to my surprise I had difficult getting an Uber driver to respond to the airport! I’ve not experienced that before. So after a time, I grabbed a local taxi who said he knows our hotel and we set off.

Well, he didn’t really know it, he just wanted to make sure he got the fare! So I had to direct him to the hotel, and finally got him on the right road, and turning down to the hotel. Oh well, it worked.

Since neither of us had breakfast before leaving Accra, and it was now just about noon, we went to the restaurant for lunch. We ordered a large pizza that had beef, chicken, tuna and pineapple. It was plenty big enough for the two of us, and while a little unusual, it was pretty good!

This afternoon we are meeting with Adonijah Blay and his wife Ruth. They wanted to come to the hotel to talk, and he said they’d be here between 3 and 3:30 pm. They arrived right after 2! That’s OK, it gave us a little more time to talk.

After some good conversation, discussions of their backgrounds, and comments on Ghanaian custom and culture, it was time to go over to the Bible study. Adonijah got us a car and driver and negotiated the price. It was high by my reckoning, but then everything has gone up. We set off for the other side of Kumasi.

Unfortunately, there are sections where they are doing road construction (which might take years, who knows). Traffic was down to 1 lane, and it was evening time when everyone got off work, so we sat in a standstill for a long time. The study was to begin at 6 pm, and we didn’t arrive until going on 7! Nothing we could do about it, and everyone here understands.

I started with a few opening comments, and then turned the study over to Paul Carter – his first time to speak in Africa, and with a translation like his! Adonijah served as his translator.

He gave a good study on hope, citing several examples and encouraging us all about the hope and promised we have from God. At first he seemed a little uncertain with the rhythm of speaking and then waiting to be translated, but he quickly warmed to the process and did well. We had 25 in attendance, and it seemed all were quite attentive. In fact, unlike anything I’ve seen before, when he finished they applauded! (It could be they applauded because of the impact of the message, or the fact he was done – I’ll leave that for interpretation đŸ˜Š).

Adonijah and Ruth did not ride back with us since they live a different direction, but another member, Daniel Bottah, did ride with us because he lives out our way.

As it turned out, this driver is not one I will use again. He was not safe or careful in so many ways, blowing through red lights and tailgating, and then stopping in the middle of traffic to figure out where he should go with horns blaring. Plus, it was obvious this little car was having problems. It is an automatic, but you could hear the transmission slipping and sometimes just freewheeling. And Paul said he could smell burning transmission fluid from the back seat. We had discussed having this man drive us up to Yeji on the Sabbath, but with this experience I nixed that idea…

Tomorrow we’ll have a little less pressure as we prepare for the Sabbath.