100 Jetliners crashing each day

Before I left for Africa I picked up a great book titled 'The Hole in Our Gospel' written by the President of World Vision, Richard Stearns. I have been able to read in small intervals so I'm only a couple chapters into the book, but this morning I read a statistic that floored me. Everyday 26,500 children around the world die from preventable causes related to poverty. TWENTY SIX THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED, EVERY DAY. That staggering amount is equivalent to 100 fully loaded Jetliners crashing and killing all on board............every day. 100 Jetliners today, 100 more tomorrow, and so on and so on. If just one Jetliner crashes it is front page news and on every T.V. station yet the equivalent of 100 Jetliners crashing every day is not.
As I ponder these facts here in Africa I watch small children pass by our hotel. Thin children, poor children, their families have no access to medical care, no escape from Malaria carrying mosquitoes, not enough food, no access to clean water, and I think about my children who God called my family to embrace. It's a very real possibility that they all would have become part of the 26,500 but we know for sure that Comfort would have. Sobering realization. My children have been told over and over by many Ghanaians that they are lucky ones. Actually I feel like the lucky one. The world problems are too huge for me to tackle, but as Mark and I decided early on in this adventure we are going to do what we can do and what God calls us to, and for us this is it. How lucky we are to be part of the bigger picture, part of the plan that God had to save these children from being a statistic.
Now I suppose after that uplifting paragraph I should give an update. I really did not expect to be here this long. Like I said before, the American Embassy has been wonderful, but we are still waiting on Brian's passport. The Ghanaian passport office lost his whole file so today we start over filing for a new one. And for a fee we can have it in 1 or 2 days. Okay, I've heard this before, and we've paid a fee before (these are not small fees we're talking hundreds of dollars) and still no passport. We got a call this morning that they are going to process it, but they want a copy of his report card. WHY????????? Nothing makes sense here. They didn't need one before when they processed it and then lost it. They didn't need one for Josephine or Comfort. What's the deal???? Why not just push it through so we stop bothering them??
We did get Comfort and Josephine's medicals finished and have an appointment tomorrow with the Embassy to file for their Visas. So they will be all finished in 2 days yet we still need Brian's passport. Brian is very worried that we are going to take the girls to America and leave him behind. Every night he prays (I'm talking heartfelt, diligent, cry out to God prayers) that his passport will arrive the next day, and every night I pray that God will hear this little boys prayers and answer them.
Thanks again to all my great friends and family who are praying. I know people are concerned, but I also know that I'm stuck. I can't leave without Brian's passport and I can't get it until they feel like giving it. So I'm here until then, living on bread and groundnuts (peanut butter) and the hotel's free breakfast (oatmeal or toast and eggs, which I don't suggest eating the eggs because they buy them across the street where they are just sitting out in the hot sun all day) and for dinner we split some fried rice. Yep, every day. However, today is buy one pizza for 14 Ghana Cedis -about $10- get one free so Laurel and I are going to splurge and get pizza.
Hope to see everyone soon!
Lanae