A Door That Would Not Open
Every calling has a cost. Ours had a name: Joel.
When Olivia joined me on the mission field, her oldest son was thirteen. He stayed behind in Ghana. For nine years, we could not afford to bring him to Europe, and we could not afford to travel back as a family.
Then, at the end of 2024, a generous friend offered to pay for Joel's flight to Malta. For the first time in nine years, our whole family would sit around one Christmas table.
Our son Joshua counted the days until he could meet his big brother. The girls were just as excited. Joel would stay with us for two months.
We did everything right. A friend from our village, who serves at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and knows the ambassador in Accra personally, wrote a letter of recommendation.
The visa was refused.
The money was gone. Joel had left his job to make the trip, and now he had lost that too. The Christmas we had dreamed of became one of the most painful seasons our family has known.
We did not yet understand that God was not closing a door. He was redirecting a family.
“Invest in Me”
In February 2025, Joel told us he would not appeal the decision. Europe was not his calling. Ghana was.
Then he asked a question that changed everything: “Instead of spending all that money on flights and visas, would you consider investing in me?”
Joel trained in graphic design and IT, so we assumed he needed a laptop. We could not have been more wrong.
He wanted to farm. He wanted to work the land and start building something, so that when our family finally came to Ghana, there would be a place prepared for us.
Olivia and I looked at each other in silence. Then she went and found a small booklet she had kept hidden for years.
Inside was a drawing of a vision God had shown her long before: a piece of farmland, a retreat house like our Farmer's Inn in Gozo, and a church.
Two or three years earlier, she had shared it with me. I dismissed it on the spot. “I'm not a farmer. I'm a missionary. I plant churches. We have enough to do.”
This time she smiled and said, “Maybe now you're ready to listen.”
I was.
Ground of Our Own
Joel's plan was to rent a field. Something in my spirit would not rest. If rented land began to prosper, who could stop someone from taking it away?
So we made a decision of faith before we had the means: we would not rent. We would own.
Weeks later, a plot came onto the market. It was not near Kumasi, where we had first looked. It was near Nsawam, about 45 minutes from Accra's international airport.
That changed everything. A place our family could reach. A place future visitors, teams and partners could reach.
But how do you negotiate for land with empty hands?
In the spring of 2025, an unexpected gift arrived to help us through a different challenge. It was so generous that it also covered the first down payment on the land.
The moment we paid it, God showed me the whole vision at once. That day the project received its name:
Seeds of Faith: Farming for Kingdom and Community.
