I know the plans I have for you….

It is Thursday evening, 8:08pm in Accra. Tomorrow at this time the last poem will have been read, the words echoing on the evening breeze. The last song sung, notes will fade away into the villages. Treasured new books will have been carried home by children who may have no other books at all. The dedicated and faithful teachers will be home resting and catching up with normal life. Our Reading Camps, 2025 edition, will have come to an end. And in its wake, there is silence… or is there?

There are whispers of change among the teachers, new ways to think of things, new ideas about teaching to explore, new hope, new fervor, new perspectives. Among the children the songs still echo, the poems still resonate, the stories still resound. Words reverberate in minds, older and younger… innovate… inspire… create… uplift… own… plan, caterpillar, chrysalis, flutter, butterfly. The giggles echo through the roads and down village paths. Learning has happened, minds have been engaged, lives touched and changed. The whispers of change shout promise… future… hope.

And I am changed as well… from thinking I am getting older and need to retire from going to Ghana to seeing that as long as I, as we, have breath, we are not too old to be fully engaged in God’s calling, God’s plans, God’s future, God’s hope. And I pray that includes more trips across the Atlantic, more suitcases full of books and art, of hopes and dreams.

This is what GMH brings to children, to teachers, to Ghana, the reality that God does indeed have plans, a future, and a hope for each child, each teacher, each person, each nation. What a privilege to be a part of this amazing work, to see the promises of God take form and come to life in the lives of children from 5 villages, 5 out of the way places, 5 places that God sees and knows, and most of all, loves.

Two hundred thirty children have tasted learning of a different sort. Friday as our Reading Camps close please join with me in praying for the seeds planted this week to continue to sprout and grow, and then to produce a harvest 100-fold.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfareand not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11, ESV

The Reverend Becki Neumann

Anglican Priest, Christ the Savior Anglican Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland, USA