Category: Hidden Treasure

We need to keep the momentum going so that we get the money necessary in the short time we have – Charlene Barr – October 2009

Charlene, like so many who visit Africa, was deeply moved by the experience of viewing first hand the hardship of many children and young people in their everyday lives. However upon coming home she took the baton she felt she had been passed, and ran with it.

It was when Charlene herself had to withdraw from school that she really sensed exactly what God was putting on her heart. That was to enable others to have the education that she couldn’t. It all started over a meal in Nando’s – the whole Barr family sat round the table, Charlene sharing with them the small seed of an idea, which then really took shape and blossomed over the coming months.

Charlene’s Project was born. The Barr’s then went back out in 2009, however unfortunately Charlene had to remain behind due to ill health – which makes this story all the more remarkable. The school which is now sitting in Maya, educating 250+ young people; and the well which now services a whole village – and has transformed a community is there because of Charlene – yet she has never been there, nor even met any of the people it is currently benefiting!

The concept of Grace – that of receiving something remarkable and life changing through no efforts of your own, while doing nothing to earn it – is well and truly alive. The Grace which Charlene experienced in her own life through her relationship with God, was now manifesting itself in the vision of Charlene’s Project.

Upon choosing the location – the fundraising got well underway – first £70,000 was raised, then £100,000 and just before Charlene died in October 2010, nearly £120,000 had been raised. Read more here.

There are plenty of photos of the school during construction, please view them all in this section – and when you are looking at the finished building, please don’t just see the wonderful impact it is having on the lives of the young people who attend – remember the remarkable story of Charlene Barr which enabled it all to get to this point.