SOWUTUOM SCHOOL PROJECT

History of This Project

As a member of the Board of Managers of COMINAD (Cooperative Missions Network of the African Dispersion), our three-man team traveled to West Africa in October, 2015 to interface with several national missionaries. On several occasions, Pastor Seth Dogbatse joined us. Our trip took us to Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Having accomplished what we set out to do, we prepared to leave but because of the difference in our flight itineraries, while the two other men left early Sunday morning, I had to wait until night to fly out. Knowing this, I was invited to preach that Sunday morning at Seth’s church.

My wife Debbie and I served in Nigeria for eleven years and our two oldest sons, Timothy and David, were born there. Not knowing if our entire family would ever go back to Africa together, along with our third son Marc, we always wanted to have a stake in the soil of that great continent. When I went to Seth’s church that Sunday morning, the opportunity was there before my eyes – an unfinished, two-classroom building.

Compelling Challenge of the Church

As I looked around prior to the beginning of the Worship Service, I noticed about 60 children having Children Church under a tree. After the service, I asked about the children and Pastor Seth said that the unfinished classroom building was for the children; they had been working on it for two years. The church is small and there was no way all these children belonged to the church members. Seth shared that most of these children belonged to drug addicted parents and single mothers and it was common that such children would be marginalized and not in school.

When I returned home, I just couldn’t dismiss what I had seen and experienced. And it was not that I hadn’t seen similar situations in my many years as a missionary in Africa and the many visits to Africa I had after leaving the mission field. My conclusion: God had without doubt laid this situation on my heart.

The Path Forward

My immediate impulse was to discuss this challenge with my sons, Timothy, David & Marc, and challenging them to partner with me to help this situation as best we could. Since this for me was legacy driven, my mind then went to my seven brothers (Richard, Jackie, Samuel, Albert, Stephen, Roderick, and Clifford) to challenge them to be a part of this project. In my excitement of sharing this with a few men in our church, they asked if I would share this challenge with the Men of Faith Fellowship, the men’s group at Faith Community Church.  In addition, I presented the project in our recent church Membership Meeting and this project became an official Missions Project of our church.