Cowbell, banannas, white rice, and Joy.....

It takes time to really get to know someone but over these few days with Joy (4 nights and 4 days so far) we have come to learn many things about Joy and have, as a result, experienced much joy.

She is shy at first, slow to warm to new people and experiences, but behind the closed door of our hotel room she is full of songs, and dances, and spunk.

Her slender frame belies her large (seemingly endless) appetite.   We aren't sure if she's making up for lost time but as our good friend LeeAnn said when we told her how skinny she is, "Nothing a little Flappdoodles (ice cream) can't fix!"  Her favorite foods so far are banannas, white rice, chicken, and "cow bell" - this is the powdered milk creamer packets that we had in our room at the other hotel - seems that many children like to eat it as a dry powder and Joy is no exception.  She also likes to drink Milo which is a chocolate powder that you mix up like Nestlé Qwik or Ovaltine -- she calls it "tea" and likes it warm (especially first thing in the morning).  I hope Walmart sells this stuff!

Each day seems to be getting better.   There were very few references about going to her "Mommy" today and bedtime was a breeze.   Okay, I admit it, we resorted to a little Netflix therapy pre-bedtime (hey, she's over 3 so less than two hours of recreational screen time are okay according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and she is way below that!).  We have a good wifi connection here (a huge praise because this allows for FaceTime chats with our kids back at home) and I discovered that I can make our Netflix account work if I trick it by running it through my Mayo VPN account (so it thinks my iPad is in the U.S. rather than Africa).

After an approximately 3 hour ride (which got off to a bit of a rocky start when our driver almost got  "arrested" for not properly abiding by a traffic light but thankfully the police officer let us proceed on) we are now in Cape Coast (or more technically our hotel is in Elmina which is a little further up the coast) -- Google maps will show you if you are interested.  You can actually zoom in close and see the Elmina castle which has a very sad history from the slave trade.  It is a place that one must visit but the experience will leave you forever changed.   I want Becky to see it but we will have to decide if its a good idea to take Joy there or not.  We are now right by the ocean and I can hear waves breaking as I write this.  For having lived so close to the ocean Joy must not have had any significant exposure because she was frightedened of it but was willing to let Becky carry her along the sand a safe distance back from the waves and even got down briefly to pick up a few sea shells.

As the day of court draws closer we both continually praying that everything comes together as needed for a successful ruling.   We are so very thankful that you have been covering us in prayer - we can definitely feel it and it makes all the diffence.  Praise God for friends and family like you.

Back home we cherish the time after all the kids are in bed and its no different here except that once Joy is asleep we are pretty much ready to call it a night as well (even if if is before 9 pm). I am blaming the fact that we are much closer to the equator and thus it gets dark earlier than summer in Minnesota.  Becky attributes this to entertaining a 3 year old all day -- I suspect she's right.

With love,
-Jay, Becky, and Joy