Day 28 ❦ A simple gift can influence world peace

Day 28

The Gift: Three Deecha Dolls

Deecha Doll (Dee-cha)
A child's imagination takes shape...
...outside the lines.

Deecha Dolls were first introduced to me in the fall of 2002. Created by a woman in Wisconsin, they are soft cuddly creatures that resemble children’s depictions and drawings of themselves and their favorite animals. My Rotary Group Study Exchange team used them to make connections between Minnesota/Wisconsin and Ghana school children. Just before we left in the spring of 2003, several of us took the Deecha Dolls into third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms around the state and asked school children to tell the Deecha Dolls stories of their lives and to write those stories for the Deechas to pass along to children in Ghana. I have some spectacular pictures of third graders holding the Deechas in their laps while they read the stories of their lives to the stuffed creatures.

We took the hundreds of stories with the Deechas to Ghana and shared the stories and Deechas. The Ghanian school children then wrote their own stories for us to bring back and share with the students here. All of the stories are moving and this exercise really opened my eyes to the ease of solving world tensions. I have several Deecha Dolls left from the experience that I use when I do public speaking engagements about my experience.

This afternoon, my daughter Shannon invited Julia (the girl from yesterday’s story) to come over and play. After a while there were several little girls running all over the yard, laughing, screaming, running and playing. Watching Julia and the other kids was very emotional. I decided that I wanted them to remember this closeness and bonding and when they came back inside - I gave all of the girls playing in my yard a Deecha and asked them to share the story of this day with the Deecha as a witness to happiness and an oracle for peace.

❦ A simple gift can influence world peace

Day 27 ❦ An ordinary item can be a lasting gift

Day 27

The Gift: A disposable camera

I know I have mentioned my trips to Africa more that once in this journal, and I will make no apologies for that. Africa was a life changing influence and each trip I took changed me in ways that I am still discovering. On my first trip, one of my goals was to meet up with a little girl named Julia and her older sister, Adjoa. Julia had lived in an orphanage where two people from my town were working (Emma and Jacob) and they fell in love with her as their own daughter. She went to live with them in their home in Ghana and they raised her and cared for her. After five years, when their second  mission service was complete, they needed to come back to the United States and were forced to leave little Julia (then six years old) behind. They took great care to set Julia up with her sister, renting them a place to live, paying for their schooling, food, books and living expenses - but they were still thousands of miles away. It was very hard on Mama Emma especially.

When Emma found out that I was going to Ghana, she contacted me and asked me to try to connect with Julia and make sure that she was okay. Additionally, she gave me gifts to give to Julia and Adjoa. I was pretty excited about this - but little did I realize that our meeting in Ghana would be so life changing for so many.

One of my team members and myself arranged to meet Julia and Adjoa at the convention center in the capital city of Accra where we were having meetings - and I cried when I first met Julia in person - she was so small, innocent, and vulnerable. Fortuitously that day was her seventh birthday. We talked and laughed and cried and took pictures and I gave her all the gifts that Emma had given me to give plus many that my team had put together for both of the girls. It was really emotional. It was very very hard to say goodbye to Julia that day and my heart wrenches now just thinking about it. That pain was nothing compared to the meeting I had with Emma upon my return. It was so hard to see the grief on her face, missing Julia, knowing how far away she felt from her, unable to protect her and care for her. Little did I know that a plan was hatching.

When I found out that I had received a grant to return to West Africa I called Emma right away and was given some incredible news. She had set in motion the visa proceedings for Julia to come to visit over the summer break. In Ghana it takes about six months to get a visa hearing to visit the United States and it turns out that Julia’s visa hearing at the United States Embassy is on a day that I will be in Ghana! This coincidence does not escape me. I am going to represent Emma and Jacob at Julia’s visa hearing.

The incidences surrounding the day of the visa hearing warrant an entire book by themselves, and I will save them for another time and simply tell you that after six hours on the day of the visa hearing Julia was one of the few Ghanians out of the hundreds that day to successfully get a visa to come to the United States. Julia is coming to America!  Julia is coming to Minnesota! Julia is coming to visit Mama Emma and Uncle Jacob! That one experience made both of my trips to West Africa worthwhile. Just thinking back to that day is a gift for me to think about.

So, how does this long story of the re-unification of Julia and Mama Emma fit into this journal? Today, I am going over to Emma and Jacob's home to welcome Julia to Minnesota. She is actually here in Minnesota. It is almost impossible for me to believe and I can’t wait to see her with my own eyes. Shannon (who is the same age as Julia) and I go over to meet her and give to her as a gift a camera to take pictures so that she can share her memories with her sister Adjoa when she returns to Ghana at the end of the summer. The first picture she takes is of me.

❦ An ordinary item can be a lasting gift

* The names of all of the people involved have been changed in this story but all events occurred as shared