The Land

So, yesterday I mentioned a guy named Mark, and spoke a tad about how he and Jake have developed a business relationship over the past few months. Mark has lived in Ghana his entire life, and has his own basketball program that he runs there http://www.eteamz.com/fadamavikings/. Mark has become Jake’s main contact in Ghana, and for the past few weeks Mark has been searching out the land options for the facility to be built on. He's been getting input from the government as well as tribal chiefs, and taking inventory of other non-government organizations (termed NGO’s in Ghana) already set up in different regions. The more NGO’s already set up in a region, the less success rate Jake’s facility would have. He would be better off to ‘set up shop’ in an area where there are no other organizations like his already running. Ghana is broken up into 10 regions….each region is about the size of one state in the U.S.
So the main task has been trying to figure out what region to build the facility in. It was originally thought that the facility would be built alongside the Right to Dream facility in Accra (the capital), but through Mark’s meetings with District coordinators (which I believe would be similar to mayor’s here in the U.S.) and other government officers, this has become a realistic ‘no’ since Accra has the most NGO’s and things already up and running. After deciding that, the government requested that Jake look into building the facility in the West region or the North region. With this in mind, Jake and Mark strongly considered the city of Cape Coast as the site (west region), but Mark wanted to personally travel to both regions to make sure that they had done their research. So, that is what he did...he was in the North region for a few days and then traveled to the West region. More meetings with chiefs, phone conferences with Jake, and lots and lots of travel for Mark.

Well, with all this going on the week before last, the fundraiser kick-off a few days away, and the continuing on of our adoption journey I felt quite bombarded last Sunday night, so I emailed two friends for some prayer. I just felt like we really needed it for some reason. So, the week began and then Monday afternoon we heard from Mark. The consensus was that without a doubt the facility would best be put in the west region, specifically the Shama District, and for three main reasons: #1 – The North region dominates in NGO’s as does Accra, and this would make it hard for Jake’s facility and program to come into the lime light. #2 – The Shama District is newly created so the acquiring of land is quite reasonable. A plot of land (100ft x 100ft) is approx $2000 U.S. dollars. Document processing is an additional $500 U.S. Dollars. Jake would need about 5 to 6 plots of land to complete the project…..so we are talking under $15,000 for the entire purchase of the land….which is unbelievably AWESOME. #3– The west region is quite poverty stricken. There is a great need in the West region for an organization like Jake’s to come in, because they have nothing like this already set up there. So, Jake had been forwarding me Mark's text messages all day with this information, and towards the end of the day Mark’s final words were to put the facility in the city of Takoradi in the west region (also referred to as Sekondi-Takoradi). After seeing the name of that city it crossed my mind to check an old email from our case worker to see where Bernice’s family (the family seeking out an orphan for us) lives. I couldn't remember what region they were in, let alone the name of the city near them. Well, I looked back at the email and found that they live in the west region.........in the city of Takoradi. It still gives me chills. And, I know it didn’t ‘just happen’. Out of the 10 regions that we could have built in, and 3 other strong and pending sites in the running, God certainly had a plan for us to ‘land’ in Takoradi. How cool is it that we will be able to build the project in the exact city in which an orphan is being identified for us?!!! I can feel His hand working!

Takoradi is down here on the coast.

More tomorrow on details of what the facility will be.