A Tentative Itinerary

We’ve had a lot of people ask us just what we will be doing on the trip, when we are going, and when we are getting back.  Here is a brief itinerary for everyone.  We hope that you will pray for us every step of the way.

Manny will be the first of us to leave.  He flies out of Lexington on March 4.  This will be the first time Manny has been home in seven years, so he will be using the extra time before the rest of us arrive to visit with friends and famiy.

The rest of us leave Lexington one week later on Sunday, March 11.  That Sunday will be a busy day for us.  There will be a commissioning service at church (we’ll do one for Manny before he leaves) and we will head straight to the airport after the second service is over.  From Lexington we fly first to Chicago then to Washington D.C. where we change planes once again for our flight to Ghana. 

We arrive in Accra, Ghana at about 1:00 pm (local time) on Monday March 12.  Once we get off the plane in Accra we’ll board another smaller flight to Kumasi where we’ll be met by Manny and his family.  We’ll have the rest of Monday to unwind a little from all the flights and try to acclimate to our surroundings as best we can.

Collage of Accra Pics

On Tuesday we’ll spend the day in and around Kumasi, getting to know a little about the city and the people.  On Wednesday we’ll begin the first of our days in the villages of Bedassi and Oyoko.  In each village we will be holding vision clinics during the day and evangelism meetings in the evenings.  If you’ve read Mary’s post about Fuzzy Vision/Fuzzy Memory you got a glimpse of what is in store for these clinics.  We are taking 2,000 pairs of glasses plus the vision refraction machine and other equipment so that we can do vision tests in the villages.  The glasses are all used frames and lenses that have been donated for this purpose.  I know 2,000 pairs of glasses seems like a lot (well, yeah it is a lot) but we have to take that many so that we can be sure to have a representative sample for whomever may need them.  Look for more information on the clinics and glasses in a later post.

Wesley Methodist Cathedral in Kumasi

The clinics and the evangelism meetings will continue through Saturday.  We’ll be staying at the mission guest house run by Manny’s dad at night and driving to the villages each morning, staying until we finish each evening.  We are not sure yet what exactly to expect from the revivals but Todd and I are preparing to preach each night (four times total). 

On Sunday we will spend a good portion of the day in church (their services last just a bit longer than ours).  The rest of the day’s itinerary isn’t planned but we will probably just enjoy the Lord’s Day and experience worship and fellowship in a new cultural context.

We are not completely sure what we are doing on Monday yet.  In order to get a better price on airfare we decided to leave for Ghana a day earlier than expected, so we have an extra day on the trip.  We may go back to one of the villages or we may explore Kumasi a little more.

On Tuesday we will drive south for the coast to stay overnight in Cape Coast.  While we are there we’ll visit some of the local historical spots like Elmina Castle (built by the Portuguese in 1482) and maybe even Kakum National Park. 

On Wednesday morning we’ll make the short drive along the coast to Accra to head to the airport.  We leave Accra at 10:15 pm local time and arrive back at Dulles (Washington D.C.) at just after 6:00 am on Thursday March 22.  We’ll then fly to Chicago and then back to Lexington, hopefully arriving on time at about 3:30 pm.  

Please continue to pray for us, for the trip, and for the people of Ghana.