But, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I was a stay-at-home mom with a toddler and an infant, and I was CRAFTY! I know, you can’t believe it can you? I was a scrapbooker and even before that, I was a quilter!

Fabric is a great medium and when I chose to make one of my very first quilts I went with a motto that seems to come up often in my life as I embark on brand new adventures- “Go Big or Go Home.” (sort of like when I decided to run a marathon as my first race)

My first quilt was a king-sized, tumbling block design and I didn’t know enough about sewing or quilting to actually work smarter, not harder– meaning I sewed EACH piece together (those of you who sew, know to sew in strips when you can and you are cringing on my behalf, aren’t you) Here is my very first quilt, made in 1996 when I was expecting Leah.

Don’t get too impressed. It’s still NOT finished. It’s only the top, and I am just about ready to hire someone to create a back and finish the thing for me because it is 15+ years-old now. (Any takers?)

Perhaps I bit off more than I could chew? Perhaps??? Realizing that, I moved on to smaller things… Baby quilts! I completed a whopping three baby quilts before I took my own advice and I let the Quilters quilt.

In 2008 I had an idea. When I went to Ghana, Africa the second time I purchased fabric while I was there and when I came home I made three baby quilts. These three quilts are actually finished (gasp) and are NOW available for your bidding pleasure on ebay. All funds will go to The Signing Time Foundation for our upcoming trip to Ghana, so go bid wildly. Just click on the quilt you want and you’ll go to straight the eBay auction! These auctions end on January 12th and we leave for Ghana on January 13th.

Yes, these really are handcrafted by me, Rachel Coleman. Talk about limited edition, I’ve now made six baby quilts and one giant unfinished quilt in my entire illustrious quilting career. What a career! Happy bidding~

There are only 11 days left before we take off to Africa, if quilts aren’t your thing you can still “join our party” by making a tax-deductible donation to The Signing Time Foundation. You can also chip-in here: (If you don’t see the chip-in widget, just hit refresh)

Or if you are weary of on-line donations you can always pop a check in the mail:
The Signing Time Foundation
c/o Ghana 2012
870 East 7145 South
Midvale, Utah 84047

I know that going third world is not for everyone, so how about we let the travelers travel and the givers can give.
~Rachel Coleman

First of all a HUGE thank you to those of you who have donated to The Signing Time Foundation (501c3)! I know you didn’t know it, but if you donated $50 or more, you will be getting a handwritten “Thank You” “receipt” from me, with a photo of us in Ghana. (Obviously that will be coming to you after the trip) and that offer still stands, just click the donate button… Warning: It feels good!

Secondly… we have yet another way for you to contribute!!! Check out our limited edition, Signing Time Foundation Ghana 2012 pewter pins! We are making a limited number of these (because that’s what “limited edition” means) so when they are gone… they are GONE! The best part is that this is a very affordable way to make a difference, each pin is $10 and that includes shipping to your U.S. address – and that means that just about $5 of each purchase goes straight to the Ghana 2012 trip. YeeHaw!

The Hopkins Pin and The Rachel Pin

There are two designs to choose from, Hopkins the Frog and THE Rachel “ILY”. Plus we’re using Paypal to make it really easy to order. Your order will ship in 4-6 weeks. To buy single pins visit www.signingtimefoundation.org (but really… why buy 1 when you can buy 2?)
Warning: Buying things for a good cause makes you a good person… be prepared! (results not guaranteed)

Quantity

One of each pin $20.00 USD Two of each pin $40.00 USD Three of each pin $60.00 USD Four of each pin $80.00 USD FIve of each pin $100.00 USD Six of each pin $120.00 USD

(Ok grownups, these are clearly not meant for young children, so… use your good judgement and good sense about things with small removable parts and sharp points <--- that was my Public Service Announcement and was probably better than saying things like: "don't be a ding-dong")

And as always you can Chip-in for Africa below, and yes, I know the chip-in doesn't count the "donate" or "buy now" buttons, but we are also aiming to raise $20,000 not just $5,000. If the chip-in widget doesn't show up, just hit refresh, and it should! Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving~ and that you enjoyed Black Friday and Cyber Monday! MWAH ~Rachel

We will be leaving the second week in January, yes time for all of those fun immunization shots again Right now there is a team of nine that are going. You will see all kinds of fun and crazy fundraising opportunities coming your way, I am sure something will speak to you. In our fundraising efforts we will be paying the tuition for 9 deaf Ghanaian children to attend the deaf institution. We will also be providing these students with their school supplies for the year.

Plus, what great timing!! It’s almost the end of the year and I am sure there are folks who could use a tax deductible write-off (Yes, The Signing Time Foundation is a 501C3) so empty the coins out of your couches, and ask the organizations that you work for if they would be willing to chip-in. It’s a good thing for some of the most forgotten children.

When we went to Ghana three years ago, I was surprised how many people thanked us for our willingness to actually get on the plane and go, and they said it was something they would never do, but they were happy to make a donation and stay safely at home:) Don’t you just love the honesty?

Going to Ghana in 2008 altered me deeply. I recognized what a “consumer” I was. These deaf children had two outfits and one pair of shoes and that was it. When I returned home, I sat down on the floor of my walk-in closet and wept. In Ghana if you are chubby or fat it is a sign of wealth. You are only lean if you are poor. You are lean because you are hungry and you are doing manual labor and running from one place to another. You are lean because there is no excess. I tried to imagine the Ghanaian children’s response to seeing me running on a treadmill to lose weight, how absurd it might occur to them. Going to Ghana in 2008 gave me the first glimpse of the possibility of transforming my own life and my own body. I promised myself that when I returned I would not be seen as “rich, lazy, and comfortable.”

Leah was also altered when she returned from Ghana in 2008. As soon as we landed in Salt Lake City she declared, “I love my family! I love my school! And I love my country!” She was able to see how blessed she really is just to be born a deaf female in the United States.

Whether you give a lot or a little, it will make a difference. So many of the children were just happy to have a hug and someone to sign with, happy to have others who understand them.

You can make a difference right now by donating through paypal right here: (If you can’t see the chip-in widget, just refresh the page. If you still don’t see it, you can click the paypal donate button) Even small actions can cause huge reactions. Please spread the word and join us in our commitment to put communication in the hands of all children of all abilities.
~Rachel Coleman

Yes, just a few years ago- Alex, Leah, Aaron, Derek and I (plus a few more) were in Ghana, Africa working and playing with deaf children there.

Did you know I have another blog? Yep, I kept a journal of both of my 2008 trips to Ghana. So, in your spare time hop on over there and have a looksy and take a box of tissue with you.

Those trips to Africa still impact my life. There was a part of Ghana that inspired me to stop being such a consumer. I became painfully aware of the bags of garbage versus the bags of materials to be recycled that we took to the curb each week. We began recycling more and started buying less packaged food and more real food.

In Ghana, all of the students were so lean and strong. (hungry?) They do chores early in the morning. They walk to school. They study and play soccer. They carry buckets of water on their head’s without using their hands. If you are “soft” it is because you are wealthy. Your soft because you can afford to be fat, where most cannot. Let’s just say I was tired of looking wealthy and knew that if that wasn’t enough to motivate me, I have a daily reminder that someone else was depending on me being physically strong… Lucy. I changed my eating habits, my physical exercise habits and health habits. I began my personal “1 pound per week challenge” which is how I ultimately lost over 30 pounds that year. Sometimes when I am on my treadmill, I try to imagine what the Ghanaians would think of it. I imagine they would be baffled at the idea of people running on treadmills or lifting weights in a gym. For some reason, that makes me smile. On the days I don’t want to run, I just think of my cutie in her wheelchair and I tell myself not to take anything for granted… On those days I say to myself, “Rachel, run because you CAN!”

Before I went to Ghana I often found myself looking around and feeling that there wasn’t enough _______. (fill in the blank) Or we didn’t have enough __________. Coming home, I was no longer complaining about what we didn’t have, quite the opposite! I was suddenly embarrassed by how MUCH we had, even though nothing had changed except my perspective. We cleared out excess clothes, shoes, coats and toys from our closets and we donated them.

I still receive emails from our friend Marco and I’m proud to say that last year The Signing Time Foundation helped pay for part of his college tuition in Ghana.

Going to Ghana also pushed my adventure limits. Nothing like eating unrecognizable food,

having nowhere to wash your hands and “showering” with gray well-water.

There were giant spiders that came out at night.

A chorus of goats and chickens and taxis honking throughout the night. There were tearful braids and men with machetes.

And of course… of course there were crocodiles and a broken paddleboat.

My performance schedule for 2011 is too full to go to Ghana this year, I really do not have a ten day window available. I am working with Signs of Hope International to confirm a date for 2012. Signs of Hope is always putting together groups of volunteers to work in the schools in Ghana, you can also help from home, by donating to help pay for a deaf child’s schooling.

Overall they are a cool group doing a good thing.

I will be back late Thursday night.

Rachel

After my blog that showed Alfred and the first elephant carving, my friend Natalie called and said, “I love my elephant! When can I come get it?” I started laughing and said, we actually got you something else. Natalie thought I was kidding. She said, “I read your blog and it says you got it for me.” I started laughing and I told her to wait a few more days and she would read in my blog about what we special ordered for her instead of that elephant. She still thought I was teasing.

A few days later one of Lucy’s workers came over for a yearly interview. We were talking and she looked up at a shelf in my living room and said “That’s Alfred’s elephant!!!!” I was sort of shocked that she too had been reading my blog. I guess there are a lot of lurkers out there. Don’t worry, I love lurkers.

I asked Aaron to take some photos of the different pieces we brought home. Here they are with descriptions!

Here, of course, is Alfred’s Elephant

Here is our special order for Natalie. Elephants, Mother and Child.

These are the tortoises we special ordered for Lucy. Keep in mind, special order means he carved them at our request. Remember we had asked for a baby turtle and like a true businessman he carved a larger one as well.

When we went into Accra I told Aaron and Leah that if I saw any figures that looked like me (at any point in my life) I would buy them. This one has no resemblance at all, but I bought it anyway:)

Later in Aburi I found this figure and it cracked me up. Leah said, “That doesn’t look like you at all!” (I’ve trained her well!) Then she asked, “Will you please stop buying naked ladies?” LOL I guess she prefers wooden animals.

The night that we did not find a family of four carving, but Alfred promised to carve us one, I bought this wooden bowl. It was perfect to keep our cocoa beans and money in.

Alfred’s older brother, William, carved this family of four for us. He taped a piece of paper with his address and email address to the bottom of it. It is about 10 inches tall.

We picked up a small piece called “Lovers” for our neighbors who had fed our fish while we were gone.

The final piece is the large “Unity” carving that we had picked out and when we returned Robi was looking at it. He later special ordered a smaller one.

In Aburi there was one shop with countless necklaces. We picked out this one for Aaron’s mom. She loves jewelry and asked us to bring her something back. I should have bought two. Can you see the necklace on the lower right hand side? I wore the necklace to her birthday party and she noticed it, “Did you get that in Africa? It’s beautiful.” I smiled and said, “It’s for you!” She was surprised and happy.

Luckily, giving away all of our clothes and supplies left plenty of room in our suitcases to carefully pack all of the carvings. We were happy to find that all of the pieces arrived without any breaks or cracks.

Today I got some more good news for the Signing Time Foundation. You can now use Good Search.com as your search engine and raise money for The Signing Time Foundation! When you search the internet and use Good Search with Signing Time Foundation as your non-profit of choice, each search generates 2 cents for us. This may not seem like a lot, but think of how often you search the internet and think of how many of us there are! It uses the Yahoo search engine. One way to remember to search for us is to set www.goodsearch.com as your homepage. It’s just a little thing, but it can make a big difference! So, spread the word, the more the merrier. Do a great thing and start using GoodSearch today!

Then I saw this…
Croc Turns Tables On Fisherman
And the picture in the following link looks a little too familiar – “Oh Look A Crocodile!”

Images like that remind me you only die once too! I am not sure if I feel braver or stupider now. Either way, I will probably have nightmares and rightly so!

Here’s a little reminder!

I am relieved to have the entire journal transcribed and posted and it was a real challenge for me to “go back” especially over the final two journal days. When all is said and done and read, I realized I was only successful in giving you a flavor of the experience. Honestly, I have concerns about what I posted and that eventually there will come the request for me to remove it. My bigger concerns are about the things I didn’t post. Going to Ghana reminded me that looking only a generation or two into our country’s past you find stories of families sending their children with special needs into full care homes. It was not so long ago that you would send your deaf child to a boarding school and only see them on weekends or holidays. It was not so long ago that most deaf children’s families could not communicate with them.

When we discovered Leah’s deafness, we were asked if we would send her to a deaf institute for schooling. We were warned against signing with her for fear she “may never talk.” This was only 10 years ago. Disability laws are relatively new in our country, in the grand scheme of things. I think it is important to remember that, as we look at the progress and vision that will come to these third world countries.

A week after our return home, Curry called and said that some of the teachers had requested that rather than being paid cash for attendance and participation in their sign language classes, they would like to be “paid” in Signing Time DVD’s. This is a huge honor! The teachers said they would like to be able to view the DVD’s at home and review the signs so they can remember them better. This is a beautiful breakthrough in what is possible for the teachers and their students. It’s beautiful to have the teachers looking for a way to have the information reinforced at home, on their own time And we all know that if they have any small children in the home, they too will be signing soon enough! Curry offered to have SOHI pay for the DVD’s, but knowing that each $250 is equal to a year of life for a deaf child, I cannot charge him. We will be donating over $2000 in Signing Time product to Signs of Hope International so that they can use it to pay the teachers.

Before we went to Ghana I shared that we could not give the children anything that could be taken away from them, thus our focus was giving them love and language. We had heard of other groups who had raised large amounts of money to provide items for each child, things like hearing aids or glasses. We also heard that after these items were distributed and the groups returned to their country, the items were collected from the children and never seen again. We can only presume they were sold. It is my understanding that similar events have occurred with donations of clothing, toys and books. When word got back to the groups, they never returned to offer assistance again. Would you?

When we first began planning for this experience Emilie and I said we would love to leave a set of Signing Time Books with each child, we were discouraged from doing this, because we heard that the children would not end up with the books once we left. I know it is hard to imagine, and I urge you to steer clear of the immediate judgments from our comfortable lives where all we can call it is “stealing.” If your life focus was survival, then you might see those “extra” items for “disabled” children (or children with no rights or future) as unnecessary and even an extravagant waste of resources. Now, just to be clear, I am not saying that it is my opinion, by any means. I am just trying to help you imagine a world and view that is very different than our own but it is THE view have. It is what most people there believe. I just know that it is hard for us to see it as anything other than evil and selfish. Fortunately, our children have rights, whether they have disabilities or not. Sadly that is not the case in many countries. It is a different mindset.

A few days ago I was informed that the full set of DVD’s that we left for use in the schools, the teacher’s sign language classes and the church sign language class had been collected immediately after we left and have not been seen since. Of course I was furious. I am sure it was no help that I had a 106-degree fever, but I sat at my computer and wept. Then, I went through all of the things you can yell out loud so you feel better, things like, “It’s Not Fair!” “What’s The Use?” and many others. Leah, who has been home sick all week, saw my tantrum and said, “What’s wrong mom?” When I told her, she took a deep breath and held it until she turned red. “I want to pummel them!” She said, and then gave me a hug.

The stupid thing is, I knew better. I knew that anyTHING I left could be taken away. I guess I just didn’t think it would happen to us especially since the THING we left would support education and communication. It is frustrating, but I am not going to be one of the people who quit, because it’s not about the things, it’s about the kids.

I know I mentioned that the taxis have vinyl lettering on the back windows. 99% of the sayings or words are spiritual in nature. Maybe we can be inspired by these images. What would you put on your car?

After posting that page, I went back into the first three journal pages and added pictures where I could. Be sure to take a quick look through the previous pages. You will see JoJo Boy the monkey. See us crossing the street with goats. Look for our first hugs from the deaf students in Mampong. See termite mounds that are taller than I am… I know that’s not saying much! You can even see the Machete Men! See Alex helping the students with numbers and counting. See more pictures of our Signing Time performance at the Deaf School.

Subscribe to my blog or watch for new journal pages daily, in the upper right hand corner of my blog. Start reading soon, or you may never catch up:) Besides, we are almost to the spiders and crocodiles! And don’t you want to know what this is?

Tomorrow’s post promises to inspire you with business names you’ve NEVER thought of.. I guarantee it. And you will find out who covered their face with their shirt to block the smell of raw sewage only to “lose their lunch” inside their shirt! If you thought the spicy hot dogs looked bad, just wait and see what “treat” comes tomorrow. The adventures continue daily!

Ghana Journal 2008 Day 1
Ghana Journal 2008 Day 2
Ghana Journal 2008 Day 3
Ghana Journal 2008 Day 4