African Mission Evangelism - Ghana

NOVEMBER 10, 2005 VOLUME 12 -- ISSUE 4

Hebrews 6:19 say's: "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having becomes a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." I need words like hope, anchor, and forever to help me through times in a world that seems hopeless and so full of burden. Hope is a beautiful gift from God.

For the last several months I've been helping a Christian friend Anne, who works with the UNHCR and specifically with the Liberian refugees living in Buduburam, 45km from Accra. She came to me asking for prayer concerning a very difficult case with a young girl that had been gang raped in the refugee camp. Two months after the rape we found out she was pregnant. Pain on top of pain! Anne was able to find funding to place the girl in a home very close to us. Over the following months of nurturing at the home she became peaceful. With much prayer support Anne fought a huge battle to keep the baby alive. Two countries gave money for the girl to receive an abortion, which by the way is illegal here in Ghana. However they would not help in any way to pay for the girl's housing and medical care to keep

HEATHER'S HAPPENINGS

Contents Title:

Heather's Happenings...1-2

Mission Participation..........1

School of Community

Development .................3

Upcoming Furlough

Schedule .......................4

Heather’s Happenings 5

the pregnancy. Her family is very poor and unable to help their daughter much less another baby. They wanted to do their best for both the baby and the girl, so the girl's mother signed papers releasing the baby for adoption.

Ursula and David Akurugu have been trying to adopt for eight years since the last time we were able to assist them in adopting a baby. They had just completed the official paper work for adoption in this area of Ghana but were told not to be too hopeful as adoption to other Ghanaian parents is a rare thing. The very same week they completed their paperwork and on the day of their final interview I

received a call from Annie saying a healthy but very small baby boy had been born. The Ghana social worker said the baby had to be placed in the government orphanage. If this were to happen the chances of Ursula and David actually getting this baby would be next to null. Once a baby is in the government system they always have a way of "disappearing" to another "more suitable family". But far worse than selling a baby for money is the child trafficking that goes on in Ghana and this camp is fertile soil for this despicable trade.

I began telling everyone I knew about this situation and asked them for

African Mission Evangelism - Ghana P.O. Box DD142 Dodowa patrickcline@ameghana.org Website: www.ameghana.org AME - Lexington 7343 Ridge Rd. Lexington, NC 27295 Ph. 336-764-1900 PayPal: ameghana@triad.rr.com

Patrick, Heather, Kayla, Hunter & Jaden

Little Baby Emmanuel, just 36 hours old and safe from the evils of Buduburam Refugee Camp. If you desire to help this infant start his life out well please make donations to "baby Emmanuel" by check to the mission or via PayPal at ameghana@triad.rr.com.

African Mission Evangelism - Ghana

MISSION PARTICIPATION

immediate prayers. Within half an hour I received a call that the government children's home was full and the baby could be placed directly to the adoptive parents. The next day I spent some time with the baby's birthmother encouraging her that she did the right thing by allowing this baby to live. Ursula did not come in with me as this was to be a closed adoption so the social worker handed the child to me and I went out to the truck and gave him to his new mother. He was only 24 hours old and weighed about 5lbs. when I placed him in Ursula's arms.

The most startling thing about

this is that when we arrived to pick the child up we were told, without much concern, the baby had not been feed since birth! Emmanuel has gained 1.2 lbs in his first week and is doing what all babies do; eat, sleep and fill his diapers. Ursula and David just had their first home visit from the Social Worker where all went well. Please be in prayer that all will continue to go well with Social Services and in three months they can file the adoption papers and receive a court date. Pray we can come up with the funds to cover the cost of formula, medical bills, and court costs. If you would like to help little Emmanuel to start out his life with his new

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HEATHER’S HAPPENINGS CONT'D family please donate through the AME Pay Pal account below.

The young girl will stay at the home until the New Year. Her mother is receiving training and micro-financing so she will be able to support her daughter and herself better. The girl is also receiving on-going Christian counselling. Hebrews 4:16 says: "Let us therefore for draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to hep in time of need." Thank you for your constant prayers. We need them, feel them and could not do this work without them!

We are coming to the end of our fiscal year and things have not improved with our bottom line at all. We still have a lingering debt from furlough that just seems to be reshuffled because of things that needed attention here when we arrived. Then, over the course of the year more and more little things needed taken care of, like helping out our Ghanaian co-workers with their 2 year rent deposits, and keeping the college equipment repaired. Things in the US just piled up to the point where we are now behind in our health insurance payments and have not managed to save any money to cover the very things that are causing us to fall behind. Our health insurance costs $750/mth.

If all the little things that go

vehicle is in great shape (no bailing wire and duct tape on this one), the AC is finally working all the time and it performed well in the last trip to Via as a mobile medical center. There is no way we can ask for help to purchase another vehicle when this one is fine except for the engine, and that can be replaced. Please consider helping us with a donation designated for "truck engine" so that we can continue the medical-evangelism trips to Via and beyond early next year. From our previous newsletter you can tell that this manner of God's blessing to the people is greatly needed and serves to reveal the true nature of God's true worshipers.

wrong weren't enough the engine in our truck is now failing. We replaced it 3 years ago with a "foreign home-used" engine but it was evidently not what the salesman described. The difference between a foreign home-used engine and a local home-used engine is that supposedly it was better taken care of by the foreigner. The compression has become so bad that it cannot even go up a hill of 5% grade with our family in it. Needless to say Heather had to cancel her return trip up North to the village called Via.

I have received a couple of quotes from some car dealers here and they can ship a brand new engine from South Africa for around $6000. The body of the

African Mission Evangelism - Ghana

In an earlier newsletter I asked that you pray that we could acquire books for our new School of Community Development. The National Accreditation Board indicated this was a weakness in our program, even though we have a far better book/student ratio than the government schools. God hates hypocrisy and especially when it is directed at one of His schools as He answered the prayers of many good saints.

African Hope (www.africanhope.org), a Christian Church mission dedicated to the empowering and encouraging of God's work in Ghana has gathered

SCHOOL OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT UPDATE over 2500 books for our school. These books range in topics covering basic business, development, finance, management, and of course Christianity. Charlie Budd, Managing Director of African Hope, arranged for us to get nearly 5000 books 2 years ago and has been hard at work in the US gathering more literature resources for the college. He has basically funded the books for our students in 3 courses; finance, accounting, and economics. If anyone has bought a book on these subjects of late you will see that they generally cost around $100 each. With over 90 books in these areas Charlie's efforts have injected nearly $9000 worth

of education material into our curriculum.

As is the case with most missions right now money is VERY tight so we need to help Charlie with shipping for these books. He plans on sending the books in a container that leaves the US in early January. I would like our faithful supporters to come forward with at least a minimum of $1000 to help pay for shipping/clearing. (The clearing of a container from Tema Port can cost upwards of $1500.) This is a small amount for so many books. We never could have bought 2500 books for $1000 no matter how deep a discount from Amazon.com!

If you want to know more about the new degree program please go to the new college website (www.ghanacu.org) where you will be able to read all about our philosophy behind this degree.

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PRAYER / PRAISE.

Prayer: The Lifeline of a Missionary1. Obviously we need to keep Baby

Emmanuel and the Akurugus in our prayers. Pray that the baby will continue to grow in health and the adoption finalization process will go smoothly.

2. Pray for Ivory Coast (the country next to us) as they continue to battle with rogue groups trying to divide the country.

3. First Semester Finals are in 5 weeks, pray the students can come up with the balance of their school fees and do well on the exams.

4. Pray that our finances will straighten themselves out and that we have no more financial drains on our mission as there is more important work to be done than repairing things.

5. Pray that God will provide the resources to pay for shipping the books to Ghana.

6. Pray for God to provide the funds necessary to replace the engine in the Galloper.

God continues to bless this mission with wonderful people all working together for the One, Jesus Christ. We are so thankful that people from the US, UK, and Ghana are responding God's Word by giving sacrificially of themselves in money, time and prayers. Just look above and below at what God's people working together through a small group of missionaries over the years has done and continues to do! There is some serious love for Jesus on this campus of late with all the work being done by volunteers.

A small band of volunteer workers visited our campus recently to help put the finishing touches on the Woman's Dorm. Most in the Group were from Christ's Church in Jacksonville, FL.

Praise: To God Be ALL The Glory

African Mission Evangelism - Ghana

These past two years have been particularly difficult for fundraising on the campus building project and other mission related items. In the past two years the US has been hit with many hurricanes and each is indeed been worthy of gifts and aid. We also understand that with each passing year incomes buy less and less. We have been hit with an inflation rate here (in real terms against our US dollar) that is nearing %100 from a year ago. A box of Fruit Loops is now $9.46 and petrol is $3.45/gal. The dollar doesn't buy in Ghana what it used to as the exchange rate here has stayed around 9000 cedis (ce-deez) per dollar. Sounds like a lot but as the Ghanaians say here; "De money, it flow like wata, right trew da hands but dey ain't even wet!"

MISSION PARTICIPATION CONT'D

You know fundraising is becoming more and more difficult when we do things like fly in an Ultra-Light aircraft, in Africa, just to take photos of the campus!

After the last aerial photo taken in 2000 I have been asked thousands of times about when another photo would become available. Well… we finally were able to get a flight thanks to our good friend, Jonathan Porter of West African Aviation Solutions and Provider of Services (www.waasps.com). He provided the plane and we provided the co-pilot and fuel. More photos are currently being uploaded to our server in the US at www.ameghana.org/photogallery/real.htm. I will be adding more as time goes on so stop by frequently. It will be a great place for Mission Emphasis photos!

If you ever come to visit us, you must try this out! The prices are reasonable and the view is spectacular.