Love each other as I have loved you. [John 15:12]

A few weekends ago, the 11 Americans working with AgriCorps in this region of Ghana met for the first monthly meeting. We had just spent our first weeks in our assigned communities and had plenty to talk about – crazy stories, complaints, weird discoveries, good and bad experiences, interesting living situations, and the things we miss about America. At one point, we decided to go around the room and have each person share their favorite moment from the last few weeks. Any of us could have easily mentioned a delicious new food we tried or seeing a beautiful, tropical part of Ghana or learning how to complete everyday tasks in a developing country or successfully implementing a new idea; but we didn’t.

Every single person told a story about how they connected with another person in some way. There were stories about making someone laugh, even though they didn’t speak English…not feeling well and having a student bring you a baby bird to make you feel better…walking your neighbor’s kids to school, hand-in-hand, every morning. Our favorite and most memorable moments are those that involve relationship with another person.

I want to share some of the people who have entered my life since arriving in Ghana.

Madam Peace is a home economics teacher at our school. She is also in charge of the girl boarding students, so she lives with us next to the girls’ dormitory. On the day she arrived, I extended my hand to shake hers as I introduced myself. She ignored the hand and went straight for the hug. I doubt we would have survived our first week of school without Peace – she has guided us around the school, taught us how to cook Ghanaian food, accompanied us to the market, invited us to her family dinners, given impromptu language lessons and greeted us every single morning with a cheery, “Good morning!!! How are you?!” She now refers to Kyler and me as her son and daughter, and treats us as such. We are extremely blessed and thankful to live with Peace!

Adwoa is Madam Peace’s 9-year old daughter. She was shy at first, but is getting more and more comfortable with the obronis (foreigners) living with her. Almost every night after supper, Kyler and Adwoa play the game they invented in the living room (which is mostly void of breakables). The game involves throwing/kicking a ball around and only has one rule: do not cross the board that is between the two players. By the end of the game, both Kyler and Adwoa are cracking up.

Mr. Sakitey is one of the agriculture teachers here at the school. Since day one, he has been amazingly helpful and has welcomed me as a co-teacher and co-advisor to the new 4-H club. I am always encouraged by his commitment to his students and their success. In order to help them improve their test scores, he has started a weekly “quiz bowl” after school. The students are divided into teams and he is posting their rankings as the year progresses; the students love the competition. Unfortunately, many teachers in Ghana put very little time and effort into helping their students learn, so the fact that Mr. Sakitey is taking extra time to do this is especially awesome.

Deborah is a boarding student I met one evening when I was sitting outside the house. She sat and talked with me for a while and I learned that she loved singing church songs. After singing a couple of songs in Twi, she started singing one in English, Ancient Words. I freaked out a little when I recognized the song – it had been so long since I heard someone sing a worship song I was familiar with. We sang together and she completely made my night! I see Deborah quite often and I can say that she is one of the most positive people I know. She makes me and the other students laugh when she is trying to tell me something (half English, half Twi) and I don’t understand but she, literally, cannot stop smiling.

Joy…is not technically a person. Joy is a male cat. He lives around our house because we feed him our extra food scraps. Sometimes he is friendly, others times he acts like a crazy jungle cat and freaks out when you get near him. I put Joy on this list for one reason: he kills the lizards, snakes and creepy things near our house. For that, I am grateful. J