Living in Answered Prayer

Since returning to Ghana in February, it has been one of my aims to move out of my role as principal here at Faith Roots and move into a support position in the classrooms, focusing on better instruction and discipleship for students and teachers. 

This has been a step of faith for all of us here.  It means handing over a bit of our vision and trusting that someone else will hold it well.  It means trusting someone.  And I, we, have experienced our fair share of hurt when we have trusted in the past. 

But, God continues to remind us of his faithfulness.  Sometimes we hand over the vision and it is trampled.  But, sometimes, we hand over the vision and it is treasured and multiplied.

That is what I see happening.

When we decided to seek out options to change my position here (and ultimately create the school into a sustainable, living, breathing thing), we walked it out as if the prayer for a God-honoring, trustworthy principal was already answered.  We didn't have the money, but we had to trust that it would come.  We didn't have the person, but we had to trust the he or she would come.

In June, we met this wonderful couple who have spent the past year working with Campus Crusade for Christ in Kumasi and Accra.  Brittany majored in education and has a pure and lovely heart for children.  Stanley's passion is discipleship and outreach.  They came and spent a weekend with us, but their time with us placed a calling in their life for equipping.  They plan on getting married in about a year and moving to North to be missionaries in Ghana's own 10-40 window.  But, they feel called here to be equipped with what they need to GO.

So, while Stanley could have gotten a job paying quadruple what we could afford here, he understood and heard and listened to God's call and is coming here to work in our school office for a year or two.  I have needed an office manager and our CORM admin stepped in this year to help me, but her desire is really to work with Stacy to manage and oversee what is done here.  So, Stanley literally CAME (no seeking out...no putting word out again and again only to be disappointed with what we have found...).  He is starting in September, working in our office, discipling our boys and teachers, and being equipped for his future.

And then came the interviews for principal.  I had 5 choices, and only 3 made it even to the interview point.  And when it came down to it, only one would have understood this position as ministry. 

And so we sat down with Sussie, after two interviews and several phone calls, and we "negotiated" what was possible to bring her here.  We talked about housing and salary.  What we could afford was already 200 GHC less than her current job (and certainly far less than what the job was really worth and what her qualifications really would require).  And then, she told us of another school seeking her out to teach, offering her double what we had the ability to pay.  It felt impossible.

But, we told her to pray about it and ask what God would have her to do.  We only wanted her here if God wanted her here.

And so we waited.  In that gentle tension, trusting that God would provide if this was His plan for this place.

And she called back, with a YES!

And so it begins.

This transition.  This new beginning for this school.  Trusting that God has called these people in.  And trusting them with this vision that God has birthed in us here.  And living as if these prayers we have been praying are already answered.