Imagine growing up in a place where clean water is just a dream; a place where food is scarce. A place where the majority of people who fall ill, die because there is no medicine, and there are no real doctors.
Disease is rampant, especially AIDS, and the oldest person in your village is 57, but she will die soon...she has lived longer than most.
Electricity and fuel are virtually unobtainable, yet some days you see large medicines on wheels traveling rapidly across the rugged terrain in the distance. You wonder where they have come from... where they are going.
You live in fear. Not only of what tomorrow may or may not bring, but the demonic spiritual climate around you is ever-present; the chanting, the rituals, the curses. The witch-doctor is not a figment of your imagination; he lives less than a half-mile from your family's hut.
Welcome to the village life in West Africa. This is not a scene from history, but from the twenty-first century. Hundreds of thousands of Africans live in such conditions; not because they want to, but because they have no choice. Living in the city requires a good job. A good job requires education; something that is in the formal sense the word, is non-existent in the villages.
This past month we sent support funds out of our Ghana Educational Fund (GEF).
We are currently sponsoring the education of 217 West-African village children. Without our support, these children would not receive an education, and they would be confined to living in their village with very little hope of ever going to high school, college, or getting a job.
