This is a complete couple, so finely in tune with each other that one finishes the other’s sentence without offence. They’re deeply committed to each other, profoundly dedicated to their church, and intensely enthused by their topic of conversation.
They look like the quintessential retired minister and his wife, and in many respects they are. Even though he is 70, and despite 48 years in the pulpit, Mr. Porter still preaches at a local church.
But the Porters don’t always live such a normal life. They have watched children live in filth and die of starvation; they have seen women sit in silence in their husbands’ presence, not allowed to even sleep in a bed at night.
And they have done something about it.
The Porters have run a Christian humanitarian agency called the Ghana Rural Integrated Development agency, headquartered in the basement of their bungalow in Pleasantville, between Bridgewater and LaHave.
GRID raises money for and works with a sister agency in northern Ghana called the Northern Empowerment Association, and it has made a difference in a remote region of Africa untouched by outside aid until they came along.
Now, once-barren soil produces flourishing tomato crops, and fish hatcheries thrive where government bureaucrats said they’d never survive.
GRID is involved in three projects in Ghana. The first, in the northern area of Janga, doesn’t need outside money are more. "When we leave an area, the goal is to leave people entirely self-sustainable," said Mr. Porter. "The whole of northern Ghana has changed because of this project."
The agency picks areas that don’t receive any aid, then sets to work teaching people hygiene, how to cultivate crops such as peanuts and tomatoes, and how to take better care of their livestock so the animals will provide drinkable milk and edible meat.
With donations from churches, agencies and government, GRID also builds wells, schools, medical clinics, warehouses and churches. The Porters are Baptist, but their efforts are interdenominational, and the couple believe imparting their Christian beliefs is an important part of what they do.
"We believe people function better and will have better families if they are Christian. We don’t hide that, we are a Christian agency," Mr. Porter said. "But we function very quietly and without offence."
The regions where they work have a strong Muslim presence, but Mr. Porter said there is a good working relationship. Indeed, a Muslim chief gave them 405 hectares of fertile land to begin their work in Janga.
The agency was formed in 1984 when the Porters were at the Baptist church in Coldbrook. They befriended a divinity college student from Ghana named David Mensah who didn’t know if his parents back home had survived a four-year drought.
Mr. Mensah was one of 11 Ghanaians who founded the NEA sister agency. Each of them left Ghana to get educated in fields that would help their country — from health care to the environment. While one was away studying, the other 10 stayed behind and worked to fund that person’s education.
GRID began humbly, raising money locally to buy basic necessities such as rice and clothes. Today, the two agencies have built more than 100 wells, five medical clinics, schools and warehouses to store crops.
The Porters first went to Ghana in 1991. "The little children would run and cry. They were so scared because they had never seen white people," Mrs. Porter said.
Women had to ask permission of their husbands to speak, were not allowed to ride bikes or sleep in beds. Children died of sickness and starvation. Today, husbands ask wives what they think about business practices, women sleep beside their husbands in bed, and children are eager to learn.
GRID’s first business venture was a tomato farm. Agency workers taught men and women about work co-operatives, showed them how to cultivate crops and capture water during the rainy season. A men’s co-operative in Janga now ships 227,000 kilograms to southern Ghana each year.
They’ve also established a fish farm that grows tilapia and catfish for much-needed protein. Villagers learned how to dig ponds before the rainy season, capture the water, raise the donated fingerlings, expand the stock and take care of the hatchery. As well, a women’s co-op harvests peanuts to feed families and generate income. With the Janga project and the 120,000 people who live in the area completely self-sufficient, GRID moved to the Deg area of northern Ghana and started all over again in a community called Carpenter, where about 215,000 people live. It will be a carbon copy of what the aid agencies did in Janga. "We’re doing exactly the same thing because it works," Mr. Porter said.
After that, they’re moving to the Kintampo District, where villagers will replicate the success of the previous two projects and add other programs to meet the needs of that area.
Anything less is a Band-Aid that does nothing to change practices and living conditions over the long term, Mr. Porter said. "Christian agencies develop the whole person," he said, and he believes that’s why this approach works.
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