#24

My birthday started rather early this year. It kicked off with a surprise party at Araba & Thelma's home on May 25th. Thelma (the new human resource manager) had been making natural juices for the OC students to sample throughout their stay. She told them all to come over that night, and I assumed that it was just to try another juice. And it was, but it also doubled as an early celebration for my birthday/ goodbye to OC since they were leaving on the 26th. Araba, Leticia & Thelma had brought plaintain chips, roasted groundnuts (peanuts), fresly made pineapple juice, as well as pineapple/watermelon juice. Yum! I was very honored by the toast and the thoughtfulness of the whole event! And to Cole, thank you for dedicating 'African Queen.'

My actual birthday I awoke to a text from Thelma starting at 4:50 am (thanks for the lovely early wake up) and was bombarded with emails, letters, facebook messages, texts and phonecalls throughout the day. I was sang to by my students at every one of my classes. I am not quite sure how everyone found out it was my birthday, but all the kids seemed to know.

I spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach for a couple of hours before coming back for Thursday night girls devotion. We spent some time just singing praises together. Then the girls told me to close my eyes. They surprised me by spelling out "happy birthday" with individual letter cards held by each girl along with several posters they had all signed. They had me close my eyes, and when I opened and saw their sweet sentiments and beaming faces I felt my heart would burst. It was so precious. We had a little dance party afterwards. They love to dance! The rain started to fall, which made for the perfect ending to the day. (I LOVE Ghana rain!) I ran home in the pouring rain to end the day by watching some Friends episodes, eat the lovely turtle chocolate dessert mom had sent me, and to talk to my dear sister! Thank you all for the many birthday wishes from back home!