{"id":1745,"date":"2013-11-26T10:23:36","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T18:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2013-11-26T10:23:36","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T18:23:36","slug":"seeing-ghana-first-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/touchalifekids.org\/seeing-ghana-first-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Ghana First-Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px\">Dana Gage recently visited the <a title=\"Touch A Life Care Center\" href=\"https:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/our-programs\/ghana\/touch-a-life-care-center\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Touch A Life Care Center<\/a> in Ghana, and when she returned, she wrote down a beautiful list of the experiences that impacted her life. She agreed to share the inspiration with all of our readers \u2013 thank you, Dana!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How to summarize a trip to Ghana? It&#8217;s a place where I&#8217;ve now seen first-hand:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>how people live on less than $2 a day,<\/li>\n<li>how ground corn and fish heads make a meal,<\/li>\n<li>how having a mattress is considered a luxury,<\/li>\n<li>how water can&#8217;t be trusted from a faucet,<\/li>\n<li>how trash-infested rivers and a littered terrain are normal,<\/li>\n<li>how women balance towering baskets atop heads, walking roadside just inches from maniacally-driven cars,<\/li>\n<li>how men scratch to get a sale, any sale, of this or that,<\/li>\n<li>how a boy, no more than 10, begs at a car window, with a blind, white-eyed father at his side,<\/li>\n<li>how desperation for survival drives hungry parents to choose which of their children get sold into slavery, for an average of $20.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Ghana&#8230;a place where I&#8217;ve now seen first-hand:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>how entitled I&#8217;ve become in my beautiful home,<\/li>\n<li>how selfish I am with my stocked pantry,<\/li>\n<li>how blind I&#8217;ve been to the benefits of clean water,<\/li>\n<li>how shallow my concept of selfless giving is,<\/li>\n<li>how more stuff is not the answer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Ghana&#8230;a place where I&#8217;ve now seen first-hand:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the incredible spirit of a boy rescued from the hopelessness of slavery,<\/li>\n<li>the wide smile of a girl who has the opportunity to get an education,<\/li>\n<li>the rampant enthusiasm for a God who delivers,<\/li>\n<li>the love for lost sons manifested,<\/li>\n<li>the unbridled adoration for a woman who gives hope,<\/li>\n<li>the universal language of love.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Dana Gage founded <a href=\"https:\/\/thelvproject.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The LV Project<\/a> in honor of her son, Connor, who died in a drowning accident in 2012. After connecting with <a title=\"Our Story\" href=\"https:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/our-story\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pam and Randy Cope<\/a>, the Gage family has offered to raise funds for a brand new soccer field at the <a title=\"Touch A Life Care Center\" href=\"https:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/our-programs\/ghana\/touch-a-life-care-center\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Touch A Life Care Center<\/a>! Gage Field will be completed by spring of 2014 and our kids can&#8217;t wait!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1746\" alt=\"gagefield\" src=\"https:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/gagefield-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dana Gage recently visited the Touch A Life Care Center in Ghana, and when she returned, she wrote down a beautiful list of the experiences that impacted her life. She agreed to share the inspiration with all of our readers \u2013 thank you, Dana! How to summarize a trip to Ghana? It&#8217;s a place where [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Seeing Ghana First-Hand - Touch A Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/touchalifekids.org\/seeing-ghana-first-hand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seeing Ghana First-Hand - Touch A Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dana Gage recently visited the Touch A Life Care Center in Ghana, and when she returned, she wrote down a beautiful list of the experiences that impacted her life. 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