Team Sullivan: Project In Amanful

Amanful. A community tucked back in the heart of Cape Coast, Ghana. The entrance to the community greets visitors with a shrine display to its idol-god – a whale.

Ever since the Lord led us to Amanful to take one of its orphans into our mission center we have been drawn back to this community. One of the patterns we see in the life of Jesus is that oftentimes He first met a person’s physical need, and then that opened up the doorway to meet the person’s spiritual need. This has been our prayer for Amanful…that the Lord would grant us an access point into the community to birth our relationship and ultimately introduce the community to the One, True God – Jesus Christ.

Our vision at first was to dig a water well in Amanful to provide access to clean drinking water. However, we could not find a good drilling spot that gave this access due to the area being so close to the ocean. In the midst of searching out a water well site the chief of Amanful came to us and said that what the community really needed was an operable public restroom and showering facility. This sort of facility is a basic need in communities in Ghana because not every dwelling unit has a private bathroom attached like we are used to in the United States. You can of course imagine that not having readily available restrooms and bathing areas contributes to the public waste problem, spreading of disease and sickness, and very unsanitary conditions. Once this need was presented to us we assessed the existing facility which was in bad condition - not to mention its connection to running water was not working. We decided to take it on.

Our initial investment into the public restroom facility has been $6,500. This has enabled us to fix the connection to the existing water well that wasn’t working (which in turn provides running water to the facility), create shower stalls and doors, plumb in shower heads, paint the outside of the facility, and purchase a poly tank. During the rainy season there is plenty of water supplied by the existing well, but by the end of October the well will be dried up as the dry season comes through. The poly tank allows us to have a place to store up water during the rainy season so that there will still be water access through the dry season.

Current funds will provide the completion of the showering portion of the facility, but we are relying on more donations to come through to finish out the toileting area and related plumbing.

We are excited to begin this relationship with the community, and look forward to seeing how God draws lives to Himself through this open door into Amanful.

Site of what was the existing restroom facility - the cement wall structure on the left...