Greetings to everyone on this Valentine’s Day in Africa. I have decided the reason Valentine’s Day is not celebrated in Ghana is that the chocolate would melt within five minutes. Hello, from warm, West Africa! The harmattan season has left us, and we are doing well. I have been thinking I would like to spend some time telling you about the ultimate goal and vision for the Village of Hope. But, first, I need to tell you some stories about a few of my favorite people in the world.

Stella Obeng (pictured above) is in the seventh grade here. She and her brother, Bismark, have been living at the Village for several years. Their father died when they were very young. Their mother became mentally ill and eventually was unable to care for her children. They came to live with us in 2005.

Adisa Abea is a sophomore at Wesley Grammar Secondary School, one of the best high schools in Accra. She graduated last May from Hope Christian Academy and made a perfect score on her Natio

nal Basic Education Exam.

Adisa (left) and her sister, Salamatu, (right) came to the Village of Hope several years ago. When they were babies, their father abandoned them. Then their mother left also when the girls were six and four years old. No one has seen nor heard from either parent since that time.

Richard Akrong is a ninth grader at Hope Christian Academy and will take the National Basic Exam in about two months. Richard and his brother, Emanuel, came to us in 1999. Their father had died in Nigeria where he had gone to try to improve the economic status of his family. Their mother became severely mentally ill after the father’s death. Mental illness is common i

n Ghana. It is mostly left untreated medically because it is attributed to superstition and, therefore, left to be treated by fettish (or traditional) Priests. A year ago, while Richard was working in the ninth grade, his teachers decided that he was simply not ready to take his National Exam. He had missed some of the school work and was behind in his studies. He needed another year to have a better chance. I had to tell Richard that he was going to have to return to the eighth grade. I will never forget how disappointed and sad Richard was. He felt like a failure. I told him that he could turn this around by doing his very best. I rejoiced when I saw his “house father”, Daniel, find him that day at school and encourage him to not give up. Richard is now close to finishing the ninth grade, and I think he is going to make a perfect score on the exam!

I tell you about these young people because of the vision of this ministry. We are trying to raise these young people in an environment in which they can see, with their very own eyes, that anything is possible with God.

Some people ask, “Why are we growing so quickly?”

The quick answer is, “God.” But, it is God working through us in the midst of such great need.

There so are many children in this same predicament. As I type this newsletter, on my desk is the name of a man who came to me with his brother’s children. Both his brother and his brother’s wife died; this man had taken them in. The man has about $200 a year income and has four children of his own. He is pleading for help. All I can do right now is pray for them, just as I pray every day. We do not have room, and I cannot give what I do not have. I lay my head on my pillow every night and sleep knowing I have done my best that day, but the needs remain enormous. Through much struggle I have finally come to peace with the understanding that I am not called to save the whole world. I am called to do the best I can.

I tell you all of this to say, the first reason we grow is because the needs are there.

The second reason is that the children with whom we work need to see love being acted out in their lives - sacrificial love. They experience love themselves, and they watch as we battle with all that is in us for others as well. They see what happens when prayer is the central part of their lives. They take part with us in reaching out to raise resources. They have homes, clothing, school books, pencils, paper, health care because we ask God for it; and then God uses people as His instruments to provide it. As they go out from this place, they are being charged to live their lives with vision. They are told, “You see everything around you that was not here a few years ago - Anything is possible in your life with God.” We are teaching them, in the words of Jesus, that they are more blessed in giving than receiving. And they are learning to share what they have, and to give of themselves in ways that are only in the imagination of God.

We accomplish this through education. Education provided through house parents, through school, through a church community, and through building and nurturing relationships. These young people are, at this time, receiving an excellent elementary and junior high education (even though I am not satisfied yet, and am working to make it even better). Our future plans include building a Christian High School in the next two and one half years with a vibrant campus ministry. By 2020, the goal is to open a University on our campus which has as it’s goal to become not only one of the finest academic institutions in Africa, but a place where disciples of Jesus Christ and Christian Leaders are given their mission to change their world in whatever field they should choose.

All of these goals are the reason I am going to study Christian Education and Spiritual Formation in my doctoral program. I have decided that investing in the lives of Stella and Bismark; Adisa and Salmatu; and Richard and Emanuel is a pretty good way to spend my life. It is a pretty good way to understand and live the words of Jesus to “deny self, and serve others.”

I visualize the day when Stella Obeng is the chancellor of Hope Christian University. A day in which the children of Adisa and Salamatu Abea are studying in a Christian University, and have been told by their mothers about how abandonment is not the end of their story, but that God rescued them and has plans for their future in His Kingdom. I can see the day when the son of Richard Akrong is discouraged and feels like life is hopeless, but Richard, a great father and leader in the church, sits down with his son and tells him of the day he felt like giving up, and his adoptive dad told him to keep going while his school teachers helped him overcome his own late start.

All of the children I have mentioned are leaders, and I rarely see them when they don’t have a great big smile on their faces. These kids would not have been alive, most likely, if intervention had not come to them - and yet, here they are - smiling. Their journey continues............