Digging out--Please pass the shovel! DAY 3

With huge apologies for the long delay in posting many more details and pictures from our incredible trip let me just say that the last two weeks or so since we returned feel like two years!  I have been trying to dig out from my day job, family time on Spring Break, and frankly just letting the whole experience sink in to my head and heart has been MUCH more taxing than I anticipated.  I truly am sorry for the delay and am excited to post the entire experience starting now.  No more excuses or apologies.  Here goes...

Thankfully the team and I took several thousand pictures on the trip and I will use them to start telling the story of the rescue itself and share with you (don't worry not ALL the pictures!), what I learned and what's next.

The last detailed update I gave was the day before we left for the rescue when we visited the village of the boy, Never, who was rescued in the Oprah show featuring the child trafficking story in Ghana that started all of this--see Day 2 below.

Let me now tell you about Day 3.

Day 3: March 19, 2012

The team with Eric, Tetee and Mabel with a pre-mission photo outside our hotel.

After a late evening getting back from an amazing day in Never's village we all rose fairly early to check out of the hotel, load the vans and embark on the mission to Lake Volta.  Our new, dear friend Nancy (in white shirt) had to return home to help her young son through a serious soccer injury and we sadly said goodbye.  The film crew showed up to document our departure as we left our hotel--which turned out to be Hakuna Matata time of 1.5 hours later than planned--and a whole lot of comfort and amenities we didn't realize we had in this hotel but were about to sorely miss as we headed north to our next "hotel" 9 hours away. 

Drove for a grand total of 11 hours after bathroom breaks, food, gas, etc.  We spent the car time mostly bonding with our team and Eric's two helpers, Tetee and Mabel. They both were rescued from trafficking as kids but now work with Eric to help rescue other kids.  Talk about giving back and paying it forward!

Mabel, Tetee, and Tyler

Tetee watched a documentary video Eric showed us in the van to get us ready for the mission and got really angry.  He went on a somewhat indiscernible rant against his master and the other men who traffic children.  He showed us his ankle where he had marks from being beaten and burned—it was a quick glance but no doubt 7 year-old scars.  Jenik was sweet and calmed him down and told him that he needed to try and let go of the rage and anger to help himself move on.  It is certainly hard for him to even return to his village and to visit his master.  I asked him why he was going to see his master and even take him a gift and he said "To say thank you for setting him free."  What a great example of trying to move on from something so awful while working hard to give other kids the same chance to experience a new life of freedom.

Our driver, Patrick, picking up the pieces.  We left him there and never saw him again on the trip.

Near the end of our trip today we were driving along the highway somewhere between "Timbuktu" and "Podunk" as we had been for hours prior with the two Land-Cruisers carrying the film crew behind us when our van driver swerved suddenly, briefly went off the road to the right and then sharply to the left to correct and then came to a quick stop.  Scared us all very much and we were very fortunate there was no car in the opposite lane.  I should mention we were riding Ghana style with no seatbelts on!  Could have been a real disaster in the middle of nowhere.

I thought it was a blow-out but actually the bearings blew out and the van became inoperable.  So, we consolidated all of our stuff onto the tops of the Land-Cruisers and squeezed 9 of us in one and 8 in the other.  I somehow got lucky as the tallest in the group and got to ride shotgun which enabled me to get a badly-needed 45 minutes of sleep.

We had to unload everything and abandon ship, er I mean van.

The film crew delicately put their equipment on top of the Land-Cruisers to make room for their new best friends.

Despite our potential disaster, the locals seemed to enjoy meeting some new friends, and it helped lighten our mood a bit.

We finally got into the town of Yeji around 7PM.  Most modern city we saw all afternoon.  Partial electricity and lots of open air shops.  We stayed at a “hotel” there.  I think we all were more than a little surprised at the set-up.  Felt like 90-degree heat inside the hotel and pretty sketchy amenities--no towels, no soap, etc.  Some of the rooms had AC units that worked a little—luckily we did.  But the hotel is open air and fully susceptible to bats, mosquitoes, and cockroaches.  Sweet dreams!

My daughter, Mikaelyn, and I brought our own sheets and slept on top of all of the linens provided by the "hotel" in order to avoid bedbugs.  Some of our team didn't do that and were bitten.  Good news is that it was so stifling that we didn't need, or want, a blanket!

Upon arrival the hotel owner was kind enough to fumigate our room for us and I got to watch two little friends die a painful death on the bottom of our shower.

As we all tried to relax in the dark, muggy, dirty hotel as we drank cold Cokes from a little shop down the street to wash down our melty protein bars I recalled my time as a missionary in Japan in 1987 riding a too-small bike down the highway in an absolute downpour wearing my suit and tie under a Richard Simmons-style sweat/rain suit that actually made me hotter and wetter than wearing no rain gear.  I was absolutely miserable with my physical condition but then realized clearly and emphatically that this was an amazing chance to see what I was made of and just started laughing.  I felt the same way this night and was reminded that attitude is huge in the results we get in life.

I am grateful for this day of travel and experience and went to bed anxious to see what the next day would bring.