The Beil Family Blog

Time has flown. We can't believe we have been here for over a month now. We hope you will enjoy the picture we have posted. It took us an hour just to get that one picture uploaded - we will try to post some more next time we get a chance.

 So here is a breakdown of a typical week.

 Monday -

 Monday is everyone on the teams day off. Jennifer goes grocery shopping every other week. Getting groceries is a half a day project because you have to go to at least 3 (usually 6) stores to get your produce, meat, and miscellaneous items. On a non-shopping week we go into Adum. (Adum is a downtown area where you can find most anything - but knowing where to go to get a specific item is still going to take some time.)  It is a Ghanaian version of Wal-Mart except it is many separate shops about 10 city blocks wide and it only has about half of the products! On Monday evening we play soccer with some of the other team members and the Ghanaian teenagers and local kids. There is a soccer field right outside of our house (we will try to post a picture of it next time - the field is all dirt - so that takes some getting used to.) The field is considered to be very nice for Kumasi, in fact several semi-pro teams play there.

 Tuesday-

 Tuesday begins Brett's work week. Currently he is in charge of all of the maintenance for our compound and the outside of the church.Things are not put together very well at all here in Ghana. The Ghanaians don't necisserily fix things how they are supposed to be fixed, they just work on them until they work that day - so there are usually pleanty of things to fix.  He is also a teacher at the Bible institute which meets every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday before church (his schedule for teaching varies every week.) Jennifer has been catching up on some data entry work - she is recording  the names of the souls saved every week. (It was backlogged from January - so this takes up most of her free time.)

 Wednesday-

 Same happenings as Tuesday except Wednesday night church. All of the Assistant Pastors have been on a rotating schedule for the Wednesday night service. Brett got to preach 2 weeks ago - the title of his message was "What will your Legacy Be" (He did and amazing job - can you tell who is writing this letter?  hahaha) The Wednesday night service usually runs about 160.

 Thursday -

 Every couple has a date night on one night of the week. We have chosen Thursday as our date night. Since there are other mothers on the team we just take turns with babysitting so that saves on money. There are quite a few nice restaurants in the area. Most of the restaurants are connected to hotels. The prices here are quite silly. You will pay the same price for Filet Minon as you would for ground beef (Brett certainly does not mind this).

 Friday -

 Another typical work day

 Saturday-

 We get to go soulwinning every Saturday morning. We usually go to a place called the racecourse. It is obvious that the people there do not see many white people because if we start talking to a few people, crowds start to surround us. This is both a blessing and a curse because we want everyone to hear a FULL presentation of the Gospel. We have had to tell people to wait till we finished with one group so that we could start over and talk to them personally. The people here are very religious, but it has been engrained in them since they were children that the only way to get to heaven is through good works. So we really try to be thorough when we go through the salvation plan and really emphasize that JESUS is the only way. A very high percentage of the people we talk to get saved and are very happy that we took time to teach them from the Bible

Sunday-

 Brett starts his morning off going to the church with the other men to put up the tents for the Sunday Schools.

Since Josh and Rachel have gone back to America to have their child we have taken over their Sunday School class and Junior Church. The class has children 4-7 years old (with a few 2-3 year old brother and sisters) This past week we had 166 children. It is quite an adventure. We really enjoy the kids. We usually get home around one o'clock and then leave about four o'clock to make it back for Sunday night church which starts at 4:30.

 So that is a typical week for us....

 Jackson is growing very fast. Please pray for him - he is teething, and also has had a high fever the past 2 days.

 We love everyone and miss you very much!! Please contact us - we would love to hear from you..