News October 26, 2008
Shepherdstown Chronicle
By Daniel Friend
Shepherdstown residents have put their mark on the nearly completed building in Ghana
SHEPHERDSTOWN - An international aid project initiated with the help of Eastern Panhandle volunteers and donors in the late 1990s is expected to achieve a key objective in May 2009.
Under the direction of former Asbury United Methodist Church Pastor Ernest Lyles, El Shaddai International Inc. (ESI) plans to dedicate a new school in Ghana, Africa.
Under construction for some five years, the Greta D. Shepherd Primary School should be completed this coming spring.
This is cause for celebration in Shepherdstown, Lyles said, because so many local residents have contributed money, supplies and work. He praised and thanked all the people who have contributed.
"Its important that they know that this project they invested in is now being realized," Lyles said. "The seeds they planted are now blooming."
El Shaddai International Inc. is a nonprofit global community development corporation organized to alleviate poverty through education and economic empowerment programs, projects and initiatives.
Lyles left Asbury in 2004 to become pastor at Shaw United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. He still lives just outside Shepherdstown. Many local residents traveled with Lyles and ESI on west African cultural awareness tours to Ghana, Senegal and Gambia in the late 1990s. Among them was George Rutherford, president of the Jefferson County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and an ESI board member.
In addition to taking part in an educational travel adventure, ESI transported boxes of school supplies, clothes and toiletries to the region. Much of that material was collected in Shepherdstown.
"As a matter of fact, people (on the tour) left their own clothes," Rutherford recalled. "They needed it more so over there. ... So they just left it with them."
Rutherford said he didnt expect to see the poverty and such rustic conditions in which people live in much of west Africa, and poverty in the United States is not as bad as in Africa.
"We have a safety net in this country. Thats the difference," he said.
He hopes ESI continues its successes at the Greta D. Shepherd school and beyond.
"I would like to see people support it," Rutherford said, noting the opening of the school marks the beginning of what will need to be a sustained effort. "We need more than just lip service."
Lyles began his African cultural tours and founded El Shaddai International during the time he worked as founding director of Shepherd Universitys Multicultural Student Services.
Lyles and Rutherford said they dont believe the economic downturn here in the United States will mean an end to support for their west African education goals.
"The American people have so much compassion for others that even when they are struggling financially, they realize there are other people worse off than they are," Lyles said. "Thats one of the reasons we are proud to be Americans."
"There are lots of trips to Africa. And thats just what they are," Rutherford said. But the relief efforts undertaken by ESI and Lyles to make a difference should be commended, he added.
"He mixed with the heads of the community. He faced it head-on and decided to do something ... to face that side of life."
Lyles hopes the Greta D. Shepherd Primary School, which was named for the principal of the junior high school he attended in Washington, D.C., will help students improve their own quality of life.
"We strongly believe that education is the spade that digs people out of poverty," Lyles said. "So what we try to do is give people more of a hand up rather than a handout."
More information about attending the May 2009 dedication of the Greta D. Shepherd School in Ghana or information about El Shaddai International is available by calling (304) 728-3051, ext. 106, or visiting esi2020.org.
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