Hope for the Educationally Disadvantaged

I am so excited about the expansion of our school in Ghana for the educationally disadvantaged! It's called Haven of Hope Academy, and it works alongside our children's home, Haven of Hope. Besides taking in kids in all kinds of crises, Haven of Hope provides a safe shelter in a loving, home-like atmosphere. 57 kids live there right now, from preschoolers to teens. Then at the school we also provide education for over 120 additional kids from the surrounding community. I am excited, but I am also frustrated. We really needed additional classrooms, as we have been growing the school year by year along with the kids. We have 8 acres at Haven of Hope, but we already have seven large buildings and several smaller ones on the property. We wanted to preserve adequate land for gardening in order to enable the home to be as self-sufficient as possible, and to enable it to have a chance to survive in case a crisis or emergency made supplies and food difficult to come by. So, when we needed to add the jr. high, we decided to build UP instead of OUT. We thought we had planned carefully and raised the needed costs, but our experience so far has been with building one story buildings. Ghana had a minor earthquake in recent years, and unknown to us, she had changed her building codes, requiring MUCH more foundation, reinforcement and pillar support for the upper story. That's all good, because it will result in the safest possible building for the children. The problem is that it more than tripled our expected costs. With the funds we initially raised, we were able to complete the foundation and the shell of the first story. It is not finished--just rough cement, no electricity yet, and only open spaces in place of doors and windows. We were also able to press on to build the stairwells and the support pillars for the second story.

At this time, we are entirely out of money. The home director contacted us the other day and asked if we had anything to keep construction going. I felt sad, ashamed and embarrassed to tell him that we had nothing at all. !

We have had to lay off the workers who were on the project. The kids at Haven of Hope were so anxious to get their new school that the older boys volunteered to do some cement work. They really worked hard! But now we are out of supplies to continue, even in that way. We know that we serve a big God and that His arm is not too short to help us. Would you join us in prayer that God will show us how to obtain the remaining funds? If you are able, would you send a special gift for this project in whatever amount you are able? We estimate we still need $200,000 to completely finish the project, but even $10 can put one more brick in place. The next big step is putting on the roof, which will cost us about $25,000, but a gift $25 could pay for one square yard, including supplies and labor. EVERY GIFT will be deeply appreciated. Thank you so much!

Seeing God Provide Our Daily Needs

Did you ever think much about that phrase in the Lord's prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread?" For myself, I've been so blessed that I've never had to pray for my next meal. I can remember a few times in Africa when funds were very sparse and I had to plan very carefully to get through. I've never had to pray this way for my own needs, though.

The needs of my Big African family are another thing altogether. It seems we've had to continuously pray that God would provide enough to go around for those needs. Recently we became aware that the budget we could supply for Haven of Hope for one month met their food needs for only about one week. Of course we discussed with them every conservation method we could think of to stretch the food & the budget. We increased their budget the little bit that we could. We instructed our leaders there to make the need known to local churches in Ghana. And we began to pray and ask others to do the same.

We've received some very generous responses from American friends. We've learned of children planning to give their Vacation Bible School offerings this year toward food. We've had several Ghanaians also make generous donations. Today I learned that a local chicken farmer there donated significant quantities of eggs and promised to continue doing so on a regular basis. We are so very thankful to everyone, and especially to our great God who lays it on the hearts of His people to give. Thank you all.

Maybe God lets us experience need so that we will look to Him and depend on Him more fully. If so, it's working! So, Lord, give our Haven of Hope family their daily bread. And don't forget our faithful staff and volunteers and all the other children we are helping in every country. You know their daily needs. Please show Yourself faithful so that we may praise You together. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Blessed time in Ghana

I just returned from a blessed time in Ghana. A good share of my time was spent at Haven of Hope, the children's home sponsored by Every Child Ministries. It was wonderful to see our precious children again. They were 49, but while I was there, the twins Victory and Victoria went home permanently. Their mother is now able to care for them. Halleluya!

We also were able to take eight of the older children to a beautiful Christian wedding. Our treasured staff member Abigail Quarcoo became Mrs. Elijah Mensah. It was a beautiful wedding, and we were hoping to plant a seed in their minds that marriage is desirable and that they might be happily married someday with a family of their own. Not one of them comes from a stable, loving home, and none to my knowledge come from a situation of marriage. Would you pray with us that they will be the beginning of something new--that they will be the first in a long chain of strong, loving Christian marriages and families.

Our children are wounded healers

Today we received an email that a child came to our project with her mouth badly burned. When checking on what happened, the mother laughed and admitted she did it because the child was sucking her bottom lip!

I was glad that before that report, I got another one a few days ago. One of our missionaries, Ruth Ann Gowin, was badly burned and scared in an accident when she was young. The children at ECM's Haven of Hope home have been asking her if it was her mother who burned her, or someone else. They refuse to believe her pleas that the scar resulted from an accident. One of the boys came over and patted her arm tenderly, tears flowing down his cheeks in sympathy for her perceived hurt.

If the children can learn to utlilize that empathy that they learned from being so hurt themselves, there is great hope for them. They are deeply wounded, yes. But already they are wounded healers. Thank you, Lord, for letting me be a part of that.