We began our day at an eye clinic which sees over 16,000 people a year and helps with every kind of thing you can imagine. They do basic eye care as well as surgery. The staff is doing amazing work and the place was well cared for and in the process of expanding. They desperately need new equipment and would like to raise the money to get the equipment overseas. They will need approximately 30,000 U.S. dollars to get everything in and set up. This will enable them to do cataract surgery the way we do it in the U.S. They have the trained doctors, just need to get the equipment here. This is their cost for an up to date clinic. They are continuing to add on. Amazing work...truly amazing.
We then made our way to St. Nicholas Seminary. It was founded in 1975. It is the center of training for West Africa. It is an Independent Anglican Seminary and its dean (Victor) has been elected the new bishop of the Cape Coast. He has served on the Anglican Doctrinal Commission, The Covenant Design Group, and now the Indaba group.
Today Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Guinea, Sudan, and Western Sierra Leone all have students there. It has raised up and trained 4 missionary bishops. Currently there are 40 students. We were able to visit with them and they were wonderful! They train men and women; though they don't have the dormitory space they would like. So, they are building the dormitory as we speak as well as a new chapel.
They were wonderful hosts and sang with us and we shared our experiences as leaders and as seminarians. I love spending time with seminarians anyway...so this was a delight.
We closed the day with a trip to one of the finest and best run boys school in Ghana...its name...you guessed it St. Nicholas. It was begun as a school to raise up African priests. Its first buildings were built in the afternoons by the students after class and can still be seen today. They have all faiths at the school but have Anglican worship for all the main school events and on Sundays (with other worship provided). Here are pictures of the school bell tower that rings the kids to awake and to class, the hand bell at the head's desk in the cafeteria, and a sign from the cafeteria that reads, "manners make the man."
We were able to go to the hotel for a little while. My friend the horse greeted me. We did a quick turnaround and were at a nice reception at the bishop's home to visit with the diocesan leaders.
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