New Hope School

L to R; Gideon, Trevor, Albert, Joseph, Emmanuel, Emmanuel, Kenny

I have been thinking for awhile that I need to do a post on the shop. After all that is the reason we are here! Kenny is thoroughly enjoying school. And his students are as well. They still leave rather reluctantly most days. Trevor Oberholtzer has been helping teach since June.  

Around the table starting with Trevor, Joseph, Gideon, Emmanuel, and Emmanuel.

They start their morning out with a Bible Study. One of the students in particular had very little interest in the Bible Study when school started. But we have seen growth in them all. That student is now attending a church. We saw him all dressed up and headed for church the other Sunday morning and barely recognized him. One attends our church faithfully.  One is a very dedicated Catholic and the other would consider himself Seventh Day Adventist. They have definitely grown spiritually in the past half year and it is exciting to see them changing in small ways. Our prayer is they all become true men of God! 

After Bible Study they do their work books. They started by learning the names of tools and how to use them. Just the other week they rebuilt a transmission. (With help from Albert, a retired local man that used to teach mechanics.) Now they are just finishing overhauling a motor. They have come a long way. None of them are ready to go out and start their own business, but they will be valuable employees to someone. 

Albert is a big help with these major projects. He also does everything the Ghana way. Keeps things interesting! He has a wealth of knowledge and would be happy to be here every day in exchange for a meal. Kenny hopes to have him around next year as well. With ten students he will need at least two helpers!

The rest of their day is spent working in the shop. On anything from school buses to lawn mowers to motos. This is a common sight. All or almost all of them trying to get their heads under the same hood and see what Kenny is doing or trying to show them. Sometimes they are each on their own project. Some times two work together on a project. 

This is a vehicle Salt uses, so they do all the maintenance. This one gives them lots of good practice as it is frequently in the shop.

Motos are one of the easiest things to work on and all of them have become efficient at servicing and repairing them. They service all of Salt staff's bikes. Here Emmanuel is putting the chain back on one of the facilitators bikes.

Trevor and Kenny got new motos a while ago. Kenny purposely got them in crates so his guys could assemble them. They loved it, although it took them quite a while. 

The plan is to have graduation December 10. We haven't made real definite plans but we are thinking a ceremony of some sort giving them each a certificate and some tools. We will probably serve a meal as well. Then the next class will start approximately February 4th. There are eleven young men that have given Kenny their phone number and say they want to come next year. Kenny wants to talk with each of them in the near future to see how serious they are. Then he will do interviews in December. He is figuring on 10 for next term.

 These four have been such a good class for Kenny to learn the ropes of running the school with. There were days Kenny wondered if he would survive. He started with six and then one dropped out because he couldn't read and write well enough. One ran away from home when they were getting close to pin pointing the thefts of two of the students phones on him. There was a time we wondered if any of these students would last this long. There was a time Kenny didn't know if he would be able to handle it long term. But having Trevor here to help and getting into a rhythm has helped. He is still busier then his family would like him to be, but aren't most men? He has a lot of hope for these four men. That they will all finish well. And be a benefit to their communities for many years. We know very well that anything can happen but when you see God working in their lives it makes all the hours worthwhile.