Rings on the Tree (our 2023 letter)
Dear Friends,
This was a big year for Eight Oaks for many reasons: chief among them the fact that we celebrated the ten-year anniversary of meeting the girls this November! Some of you have been with us since the beginning, and others are new members of our family. Regardless of when you arrived, we are grateful for your partnership.
Ted was finally able to visit Ghana again in October. It was a jam-packed trip, and more details (plus pictures!) are available on this very blog (see the previous post, titled “October 2023”). The highlights are as follows:
Seeing the older girls in high school, in new uniforms (goodbye to the beloved brown-and-yellow dresses!).
Their overall maturity and how they have blossomed into self-assured young women. Their confidence in schoolwork, in speaking English, and their faith was evident.
Visiting Mercy’s second-grade classroom where she is teaching full-time this year.
A wonderful meeting with our Ghanaian Board, led by Bernard.
Getting to know Akpene (pronounced “auk-ben-ay”), our new caretaker, and Jennifer, our social welfare officer, and observing their relationships with the girls.
The first ten years of Eight Oaks was about laying a foundation, and our hope for the next ten is to launch the girls into adulthood with every advantage possible. It will never “end” for us, not really, but we do anticipate that after a big push in the next few years to cover the expenses of college, our fundraising needs will dwindle.
I once lamented to a friend about my inability to be all things to all people, that my love felt wasted when it was given to someone only “passing through,” because surely it didn’t make a difference in the long term. His response so resonated with me that I wrote it down: “The love that you give is a reservoir that validates someone’s experience, and it remains with that person forever. The genuineness of a single connection becomes one of the rings on his tree.”
On display at the Wichita Nature Center is the stump of a burr oak that has been marked and cataloged: here you see the year of a great drought, a fire, prosperity and lack, damage and healing, a whole century worth of life experiences. I love a tree metaphor, clearly, and if Eight Oaks were sliced open, you would see hundreds of rings: your name here, another person’s over there, the prayers of high schooler students at the beginning, and the donations of so many individuals and groups circling throughout.
Five dollars, what difference can that make? It’s the mysterious economy of God’s kingdom, that it makes all the difference in the world. It makes a decade of difference in the lives of eight girls who now tell us dreams of college, who walk into a room with their heads erect and their smiles bright. They are the rings on our trees. And so are you.
Wishing you a New Year full of love and light,
Ted & Ellie Kriwiel
Founders
L-R: Dina, Gloria, Richlove, Regina, Lucky, Sarah Sr., God’s Way, Sarah Jr.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
Isaiah 61:3-4