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!