Ghana Part 3

     Ya'll are gonna hate me for blogging so much, but what else am I supposed to do in Adam Nana at 6:15 on a Sunday morning?
     This morning I wanted to share the story of how this orphanage started. Mr. Patrick, my host father, was a teacher and had a small chicken farm. He has a wife, Mama Pat, and three young sons named Arnold, Mathu, and Jaho. They are an incredible and loving family! One night Mama Pat had a dream that they took care of orphaned, sick, and crippled children. Mr. Patrick didn't believe her until he had one of his own a few months later. He had no money to start it, but received a random phone call from a friend in America a while later asking how he could help the orphaned and needy in Ghana. He donated enough money for them to rent a small living area for the kids and started the West African Children Foundation. In this one bedroom building, everyone ate and slept on the floor. It was also used as the school house, so during the day they would roll up the mats they slept on and put them away for school.
     Life was hard after Mr. Patricks donation money ran out and he and the kids went without food quite a lot. He was no longer teaching at the other school and his chicken farm was failing. He decided to lock himself in his room for 7 days to pray and fast. He knew it was God's plan for him to do this and not his own and the best way to figure out the next step was to ask God what it was, because He knew. When he finally emerged from his room, he walked to church. On his way, a woman stopped and said she felt like she needed to help him, was there anything he needed? Did he need volunteers? Patrick had never heard of volunteers before and learned more about them and was so excited when she made the phone call to IVHQ to ask for volunteers. After they came down and checked it out, they agreed to start placing volunteers here once they have beds for volunteers. Once he had enough space for volunteers, the work here progressed. May 15, 2012 was the day the first set of volunteers arrived. Since that happened, they have rented out a different, slightly bigger complex, been able to feed the kids daily, give them water, hire teachers and a few staff for the orphanage and school, and rent a bigger volunteer house so more of us could help these wonderful people.
     But it doesn't stop there. Patrick has dreams for the children. He wants to move to a bigger place so their schoolhouse isn't so crowded and the kids can actually learn. He wants to start a crop farm and small fish farm so the children have that skill and can be self-sufficient. He would keep what they need from that and sell whats left to make a profit for them. He wants to have a bigger volunteer house because his "angels" deserve better. Yes, thats right, I always knew I was an angel (I kid...)!