Rachel

 

Joe, another SMA lay missionary and friend of mine who took over some of my work with kids with disabilities on the Liberian camp when I left in 2011, was also able to return to Ghana with me over a year ago. He had been on the camp for 8 or 9 years, but during COVID he needed to return to the US. At that time, the new leadership of the US province of SMA decided to cancel the lay program, so that’s how I ended up with the French SMA and Joe ended up being in the US for a while, working with an SMA missionary from the UK on a Zuni Indian reservation in New Mexico.

Now we are both with the French province and back in Ghana and he is continuing with his work with kids with disabilities on the former Liberian refugee camp. He has a wonderful team of 6 people working with him on physiotherapy, basic academic lessons, providing lunch to the children with disabilities, etc. The majority of his team also has some personal connection with a child with a disability. 

some of Joe's team

 

Rachel is one of those people. I first met her back in 2004, when the physical therapist (a French SMA lay missionary) on the Liberian camp referred her to me. Princess, her daughter, was a 1-year-old with cerebral palsy. Around the same time, a few other parents of kids with cerebral palsy had also found their way to me, so we formed a small group to learn basic physical therapy and provide each other with support, advice, etc. Rachel was amazing in her dedication to Princess and following-up on the therapy when at home. 

It was a couple of years later - - in Nov., 2006 - - that I first wrote about Rachel and Princess: http://steveupdate.blogspot.com/2006/11/

 

Princess, 2006

The blog post from then has a few pictures of her as a cute 3- or 4-year-old heading to school with a backpack bigger than she is. It was a beautiful day – she was walking on her own to begin attending school. She, her mom and I were all so proud of her.

 

Princess in her school uniform today

with a donated tablet

Now, Rachel is part of the team working with Joe, and Princess is doing incredibly well in high school. She has trouble with speech and drools a bit, often keeping a washcloth with her to take care of that, but otherwise is a happy, lively and intelligent young woman. 

 

Rachel (center), with the other member's of Joe's outreach team - L-R: Pauline and Sarah

Joe recently wrote about Rachel and her family today, so I’m sharing that here:

 

Rachel with her "adopted" kids

     I would like to introduce to you an amazing woman. Her name is Rachel Bestman, a Liberian refugee I met back in March of 2011 when I first came to Buduburam refugee settlement. 

     Rachel has not only been raising her 4 children, (one with cerebral palsy) and 1 grandchild but also 4 children with disabilities who have been abandoned by their birth mothers.

     A disability in Africa is not a good thing. Many believe the child has been cursed or the mother was cursed during her pregnancy and some see the child as a snake in human form. As a result, the child may be killed, neglected, or abandoned by the mother.

    Rachel on the other hand has this amazing faith in God. She has no steady income except for the little I am able to help her with by God's grace but yet she takes care of all these precious little ones on faith alone.

     I believe if the world had more Rachel's it would be a better world. 

 

Geoffrey and his girls

 

One part of life here is administrative work. It is far from my favorite part – it keeps me at home, keeps me in front of a computer screen, can occasionally add worries and stress, etc. But, it is still a necessary part of the project – and I feel more organized after a day of focusing on these things. Time gets spent in a combination of several ways: updating the blog, meeting with Fanny and George, planning whom we can best help with what we have, working out the schedule for expanding the mushrooms, etc….and looking for resources so HFL can achieve its goals. Over the past years, some of our main donors have drifted away – some supporting organizations have left the country, some are no longer in a position to provide assistance and some individual donors have died (my mom had been a huge support and whenever I updated the blog, if it was about someone in need of something, she was one of the first to respond, asking how she could help).

So, we still try with international organizations, but due to the decreasing assistance out there, we started the mushroom project. 

half of our first batch of substrate....waaaaay back in June

And thanks to some very helpful and timely donations, we were able to get it off the ground and gradually expand it. Our initial order of substrate (the growing compound) was for 1000 sacs. What turns out to be fortunate for us is that only 500 were actually ready on the day we were told to come for them. Although initially disappointed, it worked out perfectly, as we could start small, learn the process of caring for and harvesting the mushrooms, figure out the market, determine how to expand and improve production, etc. In retrospect, I appreciate the delay because of how it helped us work things out. Gradually, we are adding more substrate. Gradually we are getting better at caring for and harvesting them. Gradually, we are growing our client list. And we are thinking that early next year, we will gradually increase the price. 

Inside the grow house today....it's not a mirror image...Geoffrey is to the right

 

 

 

 

Christy, our first farm manager, has been one of the key parts. 

Visiting Christy almost a year ago, before we were even considering the mushroom project

She will be leaving at the end of this week to build up her bakery with what she has earned while here. For the past month, she has also been renovating part of where she lives with her family to be her own mushroom grow house. We’ll be providing some start-up and partnering with her, as needed, for marketing her supply of mushrooms, thereby expanding our clientele list and how much we can offer. This is one of the goals – to train HFL members and help them get started up in their own business. 

 

Back at the ending of July

Her replacement (Godson) has been training under her for about a week and a half. 

Godson during a visit with one of the other Hope for Life branch members a few months ago

 

Geoffrey, the marketer and deliverer has been the other key part. While Christy was intended to be a short-term worker so that she could earn the capital she needed for her baking business and so that others could then have the same opportunity, Geoffrey is intended to be more long-term. I’ve known him for almost 20 years – we work well together. And as part of my administrative day today, I am trying to figure out how to provide Geoffrey with additional support for the next year, until the mushrooms are even more firmly established, all the basics are acquired, clients are in-place, and so on, and we can give him a good increment to his salary. I am attempting a new method for raising funds. For the first time ever, I have set up a GoFundMe account. As with many things here (doing a mushroom cultivation project, for example), I have no idea what I’m doing in the beginning, but gradually move forward step-by-step and somehow make progress and figure it out. 

Christy, Geoffrey and George opening the first batch of substrate back in June

Geoffrey, his wife Mary, a nephew they took in and their two daughters a couple of years ago

His story, and the GoFundMe account, can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-geoffreys-daughters-education

Hadasha-Kriss (L) and Dannica

 

Basically, until we can raise his salary enough (hopefully in a year, at most), he needs some help with his girls’ school fees. They are intelligent, lively girls – I look forward to getting to know them better as time goes on. They were born during my years away from Ghana, so we are just barely getting acquainted. If any readers here want to check out a little more of his story and consider helping, please check out my effort with GoFundMe…and if you have other suggestions, please let me know. And, whether you can help with funds or not, I would be grateful if you could help to share the link with others.