March 28, 2010

Dear friends,

Greetings from Ghana and St. Louis, Missouri!

Yes, Kirt and I are back from the mission in Ghana and are living in St. Louis. We sold our house in Copley, Ohio last December and bought a house in St. Louis in order to be close to our daughter and her family. We wanted to spend more time with our grandchildren in their formative years. Please send any correspondence to the new address shown above.

I returned with Kirt last Thursday, March 25th after six months in Ghana. We thank God for His faithfulness and for the many prayers made on behalf of the library project. We were able to set up four new community libraries this year, including Ayomso and Asarekrom in rural Brong Ahafo Region, Enchi, in the Western Region, and finally Akotekrom in the Eastern Region. The towns in which the libraries were set up were small, rural communities, but the impact of the libraries was great for such areas have very limited resources. Many of the schools in these rural areas lack textbooks, and the presence of the library greatly increases their educational resources. This brings the number of libraries set up in Ghana by the Library Project as 48. The total number of libraries is still so small and yet the need is so great. There are several thousand towns which have no libraries and poorly supported schools. We are grateful to God for the mission He has given us. The recipients are so grateful. The Library Project is a small thing but it has the potential to make a big difference in the lives of the children in the rural areas.

This current mission trip began last October when I flew alone to Ghana. Kirt remained behind until January to work on rehabilitating our new house and preparing the old house in Ohio for sale. When I arrived in Ghana, I immediately encountered several serious challenges. As many of you know, the clearance of the books from the port has always been difficult. After my first visit to the government offices I saw that this time was no different. It seems that each year the rules change. Previously, we had been able to expedite the clearance by eliminating the pre-clearance inspection because the Library Project is a recognized non-profit agency. This year we were told that the government would no longer give any such waivers to non-profits. The whole process took an extra two weeks for which we had to pay additional demurrage while the container sat in the port waiting for us to clear it. But thanks be to God, we were able to finally clear it and bring it safely to Kukurantumi.

The other challenge waiting for me was a problem with our niece who lives in the same family compound with us. An argument with our niece's son led to his making threats and trying to harm us. It became apparent to me that I would have to build a wall separating our house, the library and warehouse from the family house where our niece and her family live. I went ahead and built the wall knowing that it would provoke further hostility between us, but that it would provide some protection for us and peace for the library. Unfortunately, our niece and her family spread rumors in town about me which resulted in open hostility from some of the townspeople. It was a difficult time for me being there alone without Kirt and facing the opposition of some of my family members and neighbors. I turned to God often and He gave me the hope and courage to see it through. This hostility continued throughout my time in Ghana even after Kirt joined me.

In the midst of this personal trial last fall I brought the container of books to Kukurantumi and began the intricate task of labeling each book with the appropriate Dewey Decimal number or reading level for children. We had 32,000 books to catalog. I had finished about half of them when Kirt joined me in early January. He had completed about half of the rehabilitation of our St. Louis house, but left to join me in the mission work in Ghana. In another two weeks we had finished cataloging all 32,000 books.

Our shipment of books this year was almost entirely collected by Jonny Brown of Phoenix, Arizona. Kirt and I had some fifty boxes of books which we had loaded in the back of our pickup truck and drove to Phoenix for the shipment in September. What a joy it was then that Jonny could join us in Ghana for three weeks. We picked her up January 30th which was in time to help with our annual in-service a week later. We hosted librarians and board of trustee members from 23 towns. Our program consisted in a review of best practices for librarians, a presentation on the disease of alcoholism by members of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the capital and finally a discussion of our new goal to establish reading clubs in all the libraries. The latter went very well. We had multiple copies of enough books that each library present could begin a reading club with the books we gave them. We have applied to the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation of Hong Kong for funds for next year to purchase multiple copies of African books for the reading clubs. This will be the fourth year that we have applied for funds from the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation. Their previous year's grants allowed us to share over 4,000 Junior African Writers' Series books among 23 libraries in 2009 and over 2,000 of the same series among seven libraries this year. The purpose of the grants was to encourage reading in children with the availability of African books.

After a successful in-service Jonny, Kirt and I left for the Region of Brong Ahafo, some 8 hours drive away, to set up libraries in two rural towns. The townspeople were very excited about the libraries. As we worked with a small group of local people setting the books on the shelves, the citizens would stop by to look with wonder at their new resource. When the library set up was complete, the townspeople instituted a board of trustees for the library and held a grand opening with many school children invited. At the grand opening in Ayomso we met a local farmer who had gone back to middle school at the age of 39 to complete his education. He was dumbfounded to discover books on agriculture and dictionaries which he could now access any school day. Citizens such as this man will walk from three miles or more to read in the library.

Books For Africa Library Project was also able to do the following good works:

• Distribute eyeglasses free to the public every Sunday in Kukurantumi;
• Donate medical supplies to the orthopedic hospital in Effiduase, and the local clinic in Kukurantumi;
• Donate over 1,500 rosaries to six churches;
• Donate over six boxes of books on environmental science to the Ghana Wildlife Society, and 8 boxes of books to St. Mary Teacher Training College.
• Distributed bottles of vitamins to an HIV/AIDS support group run by a Catholic priest

Jonny completed her time with us soon after we set up the first two libraries. Kirt and I then proceeded to the Akotekrom and Enchi which were also in very rural, farming areas. Typically students in these areas score in the lowest percentiles in the national exam for entrance to secondary school. Since there are not enough secondary schools for all the children from middle school to attend, placement is made by a national competitive exam. Just as students in urban ghettos in the USA need an educational boost to do well on national exams, so do these children in rural areas in Ghana. The libraries we set up in rural areas help with this effort and also stem the flow of the rural poor to the cities. With the establishment of the Enchi library our work in Ghana was finished for the year.

As we were nearing the end of our stay in Ghana, we were surprised at how God works. It happened that the son of my niece got in trouble with the law of our town. A family came to complain to the chief and the town council that our niece's son had put a curse on a member of their family and that he had been boasting around town about it. At a public hearing the facts of the case came to light and the chief fined our niece's son heavily and threatened to banish him from town if he continued with such practices. Kirt and I felt a change in the attitude of many of the townspeople as the facts behind the construction of the wall by the library became known. God had fought our fight for us. We had been praying all along for the young man who was using occult means to try to harm us and now his behavior was made public. God had turned my mourning into dancing. I was deeply hurt but I had forgiven my niece and her family. Now we are praying for a change in their hearts.

So what does this experience mean to us? The mission to set up libraries in Ghana continues by the Grace of God and with your help. Jonny Brown has generously offered to continue to collect books in Phoenix, Arizona and we have accepted her offer. Phoenix will be our collection point until our next shipment to Ghana which will be in September of 2011. There are over 15,000 books still in the warehouse in Kukurantumi. We purposely separated this year's shipment into eight groups so that we could set up four libraries this year and four early 2011. We won't be able to accept books in the Copley area since we now live in St. Louis, but we will return to the Akron area to hold our annual fundraiser in May. We hope you all can come.

The Largely Literary Theater Company will perform again at our fundraiser on Saturday, May 15, 2010. The evening will begin with dinner at 5:30, the a short video of our work in Ghana this year, the collection of donations for next year's work and then the performance by The Largely Literary Theater Company. Admission is free but donations will be requested. If you are unable to attend the fundraiser, could you give a donation of $10, $25, $50, $100, or $200 or more? The funds collected will be used in funding our annual in-service for libraries and in setting up four new libraries next year.

A copy of our new business card appears below and a reminder about the concert.

God bless you and your family

With love, Kirt and Hilda

 
The Largely Literary Theater Company's
'Folk Tale Fun from Around the World' at Books for Africa Benefit,
Saturday May 15th at 5:30 at St. Bernard Church Social Hall, Akron

How would you like a magic pot that doubles anything you put into it? Have you ever feasted with a grizzly bear? Or watched a monkey and a rabbit engage in a contest that explains their natural habitats? Or met a man only as tall as your knee? And what will happen when a clever Irish daughter tries to inherit her father's fortunes?

These are some of the humorous fables, legends and stories that Largely Literary co-founder and managing director Sara Showman will perform at the Books for Africa Library Project benefit. Titled Folk Tale Fun from Around the World, the program features folks tales from different cultures, continents and centuries. This is the third consecutive year the Largely Literary Theater Company has appeared at the annual Books for Africa Library Project dinner at the landmark downtown Akron church.

"It's always an honor to be part of this special evening," said Mark Dawidziak, the artistic director of the Largely Literary Theater Company. "The mission of our theater is to promote literacy and literature, so we're literally on the same page with the Books for Africa Library Project. The work they do is nothing short of inspiring."

Dawidziak will introduce Showman's program of folk tales, briefly discussing the need and power of storytelling. Specializing in faithful adaptations of great literary works, the Largely Literary Theater Company was founded in 2001 to promote literacy, literature and live theater. The troupe is best known for: Twain By Three, a two-act adaptation of humorous sketches by Mark Twain; The Tell-Tale Play, a two-act collection of poems and stories by Edgar Allan Poe; and its three-person version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, which was toured for seven years to Akron, Cleveland, Columbus, Kent, Medina, Solon and many other Ohio cities.

The company recently performed Twain By Three as part of Wayne County's Big Read devoted to Mark Twain. Last year, the troupe premiered its latest play, The Mystery of Dashiell Hammett, written for Hiram College's Big Read program celebrating Hammett and The Maltese Falcon.

Showman performs "Eve's Diary" and portrays other characters in Twain By Three. She plays 15 roles in A Christmas Carol, and performs "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Bells" and "Alone" in The Tell-Tale Play. She also performs various storytelling programs for grades K-2 and 3-5. She recently added a program for senior citizens titled Stories for the Ages, ideal for Red Hatters, senior church groups, clubs and civic organizations.

For bookings, contact Dawidziak and Showman at the Largely Literary Theater Company: 330-923-8350 or at hlgrouch@sbcglobal.net