Abigail’s HEFY trip to Ghana Kasoa, Africa {June 23 - July 12}

Again, I can’t really document about Abigail’s trip to Africa except from my own perspective. I already mentioned that she LOVED it. Worth every cent she needed to save to make it happen.  Abigail started making plans to attend a HEFY (Humanitarian Experience For Youth) well over a year ago.  We told her we would cover half of the cost.  There are several HEFY locations.  Abigail, of course, chose the most expensive expedition - $3595 plus airfare to Boston, visas, and other incidentals.  Abigail decided she would put away 20% of everything she earned toward her share of the cost.  As we got researching it we learned that T-Mobile would match any donations made to HEFY since it was a charitable organization.  So HUGE bonus was that Justin’s and my share of the cost would be covered by T-Mobile – we took care of her airfare and visa but that was quite minimal.  

Registration dates are based on the age of the participant (builder) the older you are the earlier you can register and the better your chances are of getting into the location we want.  Another way to get early registration is to have one of your parents go with you as a parent builder (chaperone).  We thought about one of us joining Abigail, especially when we learned that T-Mobile would pay for half of the cost.  However, Abigail decided she wanted to go on her own and even chose a different Africa location that her best friend, Kalli.

While she was gone I checked Instagram several times during the day in the hopes that the trip Mom would have a new post about what they have been up to.  I was pretty much addicted to Instagram for those few weeks since that was our only way of knowing what she was up to.  Here are some of the screenshots I took.

Abigail did send us a letter on the second Sunday there, likely out of obligation and because everyone else was doing it.  It was pretty typical Abigail…

She seriously was tired of chicken.  We went to Chick-fil-A after she got home and she ordered a salad! Ha!  LOVE (and a wee bit jealous) that she had this experience!