Shirts for Brakwa

Earlier this year our parish was richly blessed in having a wonderful visiting priest in the person of Fr. Paul Ennin of the SMA Fathers (Society of African Missions). Fr. Paul is from a small cocoa-farming rainforest town in Ghana called Brakwa, which is about 120 km from the capital city of Accra.

Twice a year, our town soccer league distributes colorful, high quality team T-shirts to the kids who play. After hearing from Fr. Paul how soccer-crazy the kids are in Ghana, Anne had an idea... Instead of just letting those shirts sit unused in our kid's drawers for years, or letting them be used to wash and wax cars, Anne decided to launch a drive to collect as many of the used shirts from our town's kids and parents as she could, and to send them to the children in Brakwa.

It was sort of a complicated process getting them there, but after they arrived, Fr. Paul wrote the following from Rome (not knowing a thing about our politics, btw, one way or another):

Greetings from a warm Rome. I am fine and back from home. I believe you are all looking forward to the Democratic convention. You can imagine the popularity of Obama in Ghana. In fact, some politicians are now nicknamed Obama and new babies are being given his name too.

Well, this is to say a big thank you for the T-shirts. My brother brought them and oh my, the children are so grateful / I am sending you some of the pictures we took of them. My parents too send their love to you and especially to the kids. It has been very thoughtful of them. Tell them they are always in my prayers.

Thanks for everything and I shall continue to keep you and your family and all the kids who are doing this wonderful job in my daily eucharist celebrations. May you be blessed always!

It was a little thing to do, but at least it will make some of these beautiful kids happy. Here are some of the photos...