After seeing the medical center completed in Abenase, an assembly person from the Eastern Region invited our representative to visit an isolated village in his region. He accepted the invitation. After going to the village, he shared photographs of meeting children with very sad yet hopeful eyes. An invitation was extended to me to visit the village upon my next journey home. Always interested in learning more about life, I accepted.
The ride to the village held so many twists and turns that I felt I was entering another world. I met with the chief and elders, then I was invited to look at the school. My eyes asked in disbelief, “Is this really a school?” The facilities were bare-boned in keeping with the resources available to the village, yet the children were very dedicated in their learning. The older children were studying under a tree because there was not adequate space for them in the school itself. Everywhere I turned, I saw great commitment to learning. The school master was superb in his ability to keep the children engaged despite the limitations of their school grounds. From my vantage point, there was so much to be done, I was filled with many emotions. A little angry that some children of the world have abundance and other—equally deserving—children have so little. The children did not speak to me They are not permitted to speak to adults unless they are spoken to, and their eyes were indeed sad, but hopeful. Those poignant eyes spoke volumes and persuasively. “Please help us. Please don’t turn away.” We found their young faces undeniable. We had to help the children because of their speaking eyes, so we decided to embark on this vast project of rebuilding their school facilities.
We came back to the States and contacted a special donor who along with the Temple of Nyame Dua have managed to begin this project with the understanding that the village will be actively involved in all manual labor. We began in January 2016 with the community digging the foundation and laying out the plans for the school. It is a three-block school. We wanted to use materials from the old school, but we found that to be impossible. In the years we have been working, we have begun to bring smiles to the children’s faces and to the hearts of the parents who have worked diligently to build a school everyone can be proud of.
Surely, there are have been many challenges in 2020, yet we anticipate completion of the school by the end of Spring 2021. Please keep the project in your prayers and consider a donation to our work. No donation is too small.
