Archive for July, 2011

Hey Everyone! We have been back at the Village of Hope for about a week and a half now, and I simply cannot believe we only have 11 days left! I just wanted to give a quick update on what we as a team have been doing since coming back from Nkwatia. 

First, it was Ashton’s birthday on the 5th! We didn’t have much celebrate with, but we did manage to whip up a very successful pineapple upside down cake.  It was so good! We have also gone on a day trip to visit a national park and the oldest slave castle in Africa, called El Mina.   On the way back we also drove past a parade in which all the local chieftains were being celebrated.  It was really neat to be able to experience even more of Ghana as a country and culture.  After the trip, a group from the United States came and set up a health fair so all of the children could receive medical and dental checkups.  We helped out by organizing and assisting at the different health stations.  Since the group has left, life has settled down a little bit and has become more routine.  I have been helping out in the nursery, the library, and with afterschool reading programs.  It has also been awesome to grow and focus in on some of the closer relationships I have built with the kids.  Because there are so many kids, it can sometimes be a little overwhelming, but I am trusting that God is working in the midst of it all. 

We are now on the home stretch before we return back to the United States.  It has gone by so fast, and I am sure these next days will go by even faster.  Please pray for endurance as we press in for the final week and a half.  Grace and peace to you all!

This past week has been an ordinary week here at the orphanage. When I left off last Wednesday, Caroline hadn’t left yet, but later that afternoon, her mother came, packed her up, and took her home. It was so sad for all of us to see her leave but I know that God has a plan for her outside of Sam’s Place. That very same day a 7 year old girl was admitted to Sam’s Place. Both of her parents had died when she was very young and she understands/knows absolutely no sign. She has never been given a name so Simeone gave us the task of naming her and together we decided that Daisy was a great name for this young, sweet girl. We gave her a sign name and instantly the other children picked it up. At first she was very disobedient, refusing to go to classes and hitting the other children. Now, however, she seems to enjoy Sam’s Place and has made friends with many of the other children. One of the newly hired teacher’s had attended the other deaf academy in Rongo, Kuju School of the Deaf, when he was younger. He also happened to be on their dance team and has agreed to teach the children traditional African dances. It has been so fascinating watching him teach the children to feel the rhythm of the drum, rather than to hear it. They are all naturally so talented and we have been so surprised, yet pleased, at how quickly they’ve learned and retained the dances.

The neighbors of Sam’s Place, a family that has started an orphanage known as the Gift Academy, are very fond of Savannah, Bonnie, and I. They continuously visit us at Sam’s Place and invite us to differing activities they host, however, we are very busy with our responsibilities at Sam’s Place and it is difficult for us to find the free time to join them. Well, Saturday’s are set aside as our personal days so we agreed to join them for a bible study. However, we were unaware that this study was in, oh I don’t know, another country! Apparently, the Gift Academy has a sister school on the border on Tanzania, about 2.5 hours away from Rongo. So we traveled to Tanzania and were allowed entrance for the day, surprisingly without our passports.

On Sunday, we had church with the children and then traveled to Kisii to attend Simeone’s sisters’ church. The first time we attended an African church, Simeone’s home congregation, we immediately noticed that everyone trills in upbeat and uplifting songs. So for the past couple of weeks, Savannah, Bonnie, and I have been practicing our trills in the hopes of utilizing it one day in church. Well, as it so happens, I mastered the trill from the very beginning but have hesitated in utilizing it. So as we stood in church on this fine day, singing and praising God, I heard a trill come from the crowd and immediately knew that the time had come. So I trilled and trilled, just like the best of them, and it was as if every single person had whipped around simultaneously to stare (in awe of course). Although this proved to be a joyous day for me, Savannah could not say the same. The church is deep in a valley and we had to climb up a winding, rocky path to get back to the car. Right when we had reached the top of the hill, I heard an awful scream and turned around just in time to see Savannah fall. At the time we thought it was very funny, until we realized she had actually sprained her ankle, and thus another injury was added to our list of sicknesses.

The week started off as it normally does, with the only deviation being that Stephen, the youngest boy here, had to be taken to the hospital. What had started as scratches on his ankles, had turned into huge sores and were spreading up his body. At the hospital, we discovered that Stephen had malaria (not a shock since all of the children here have it or have had it in the past) and had a massive infection. He’s being treated with daily shots and we know that with the Lord’s will, he will be healed! We have a little over 2 weeks left at Sam’s Place and I’m still in complete awe of how fast it has flown by. But, I don’t want to think about the end just yet, so until next time, Owimore!

Our team is now at the Village of Hope in Gomoa-Fettah! It is so good to be back and see the children. We arrived thursday, June 30th, in the evening! After we meet with Fred Asare that evening to let him know we made it safely, I could not wait to see the kids. When I walked into the Linary House I was welcomed with so many hugs and hellos! It is good to be back.

The kids were out of school the next day; friday, saturday, sunday, monday and tuesday for mid-terms! It was nice to be able to spend time with the kids those days. On tuesday, July 5,  we took our travel day, which also happened to be my birthday, to Kakum National Park and Elmina! 

We first went to Kakum National Park we went on the canopy walk! It was amazing, we went across many bridges that made a horseshoe shape. The bridges hung above the trees with boards as wide to walk only with one foot in front of the other!  The scenary was beauitful…

Fifteen minutes away we drove to Cape Coast and Elmina. At Elmina there is a slave castle, we took a historal tour. Our tour guide was animated and told us the history of the castle. What I enjoyed the most about this visit is that we had the opportunity to enter cells called, ‘the room of no return’, and we were able to walk out of the cells alive, when years ago no one would be able to leave alive or free. I felt like I was making histroy.  Our drive home was safe and I was able to spend the evening with the children on my birthday!

During my stay here at the Village of Hope, I try to process everything that is going on, to understand my enviroment the best I can. I have found it difficult to do so for two reasons.  One reason is because our enviroment in Ghana changes frequently, with different visitors and locations. Secondly, I also realized that I am still in the mix of everything and when I get to America I will be able to stand back and look at my time here. I have made several obeservations to keep me going in order to improve opportunities to minister. At times I m overwhelmed at the need here. I look at my self and feel that I have nothing to give because I am not a counselor, nurse or teacher and these are the things the kids need! How can I help? I know this may sound discouraging, but being here has increased my urgancy and excitement to complete my studies at ACU! The harvest is pentiful, but the labors are few, Luke 10:2 !!

I look forward to these next two weeks with expectancy in the Lord’s faithfulness, freedom and love!

Blessings

Hello Family and Friends,

First I want to apoligize for this late posting, but I would like to inform all of you what we have been up to these past four weeks.

Nkwatia, the location we were at in the mountains, was a wonderful experiance.  Saying goodbye a week ago was a challenge. During our stay there I taught Jr. High science and math. Most of my time was with second grade. I taught second grade all subjects, except Twi and French. These kids were a hand full and full of personality! So everyday was a new adventure.

One day during the week at school the headmaster (principal) put on a soccer match for us. The teams were the staff and interns verses the school team! Guess who won! The children won with a score of 2:1!! We also had the opportunity to travel to a competition the school was is in. Various schools gathered to test their knowledge of the Ghananian goverment. We took 5th place, the children preformed well. Lastly, we took a day long excursion to the Lake Volta region. This is where many of the kids at the Village of Hope were resuced from chid slavery.It was an incrediable experiance to travel in one of the fishing boats across the lake and imagine what life was like for the young children.

That concludes our stay in Nkwatia!

One nugget of wisdom I took away from this experiance is to recive the Lord’s daily bread, taking one day at a time, reading His word and watching him work.

One day at a time!    

Blessings

The first week in July was full of fun days since it was our last free week. One day we spent in Grats, Austria just walking around and shopping. We went to Ikea and H&M and took pictures of all the beautiful architecture. For lunch L’nae and I tried Kebaps and Felafels for the first time. On Our way  back to the car we saw a kid get hit by a motorcycle because he was J-walking. He looked like he was fine on the outside but he may have had some internal injuries. It was really scary. We spent another day that week at Plitvice which is a National Park between two mountains that has a series of lakes with hundreds of waterfalls and caves. It was probably the most beautiful place I have ever seen. When we got home we had Pizza and Movie night with the family and watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The next day Cameron and Addie left for MK Camp where they had a week full of rock climbing, canoeing and worship. Last monday was July 4th and we had an American cookout at another missionarys house with burgers and watermelon.

Since we’ve been in Croatia we’ve spent several full days handing out flyers and balloons to invite children to Champs camp which finally happened this past week. A group of teens from Round Rock, TX flew in to host this camp at a community park in Zagreb. We had a total of 75 kids divided up into 4 different tribes and the theme of the camp was Hometown Nazareth, Where Jesus Was a Kid. I was the group leader for the tribe of Simeon and we had 19 kids in our group ages 6-14. The tribes all rotated between 4 centers: bible, games, crafts, and snack. The kids in my group were absolutely adorable they only spoke a little english but they were all so attentive and loved the camp. On the last day they brought gifts for me and wanted their parents to take a million pictures. They kept asking me if I would be back next summer and said goodbye at least ten times each. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had and I’m excited for Champs Camp in Slovenia next week with a new set of kids.

Today has just been a chill out day which is why I had a chance to catch up on my blogs. L’nae and I have have just hung out around the apartment all day except for half an hour when we watched Roger and Cameron slaughter one of the bunnies for a rabbit stew. Look for pictures of it on facebook lol.

Ok it has been a month since I wrote my last blog which means this entry could easily be 5,000,000 words long. There has been a lot going on in the past four weeks, some things we do on a regular basis and then some others are just for fun or an every once in a while thing. This is definitely the best WWW internship ever because no matter what we are doing it doesn’t feel like work everything is a blast. Our mission work here is a lot different than what you would think. Most everything we do here is more about relationship building and strengthening. One of the most important things we have been doing is spending time with the Massey children and other missionary kids here in Croatia. Every week we have discipleship with the two older kids and just spend time helping them in their spiritual development and then a large portion of our time every day is spent just playing with them or helping them with homework. Missionary kids often feel very alienated from people because they don’t know any americans there age or have many christian friends in their schools. A lot of times they feel like they don’t fit with the culture they are in or with americans because they grew up in a foreign country. So we spend a lot of time just hanging out with them getting to know them and developing friendships. We also spend time every morning in prayer and discipleship with Erin which has been the biggest blessing to my growth and development as a christian. I feel that one of the biggest reasons God brought us here is to bring some much needed relief to the missionaries here. Each weekend we have one night where we split up and babysit the massey children and the albright girls so that the adults can have a date night together and usually about once a week we go over and help James and Laura Albright as they pack their house in preparation to move back to America. Sunday mornings L’nae teaches the elementary age kids in bible class and has been doing a series on worship with the kids teaching them why and how we worship so that they may be able to join their parents during the worship service. They made tambourines and learned many worship songs. I teach the middle school and high school kids and we have been working our way through the steps to freedom in christ. They each made a prayer journal and have been practicing different types of prayer. Whenever we have a nice sunny day, L’nae and I go out to the garden with Roger and work on weeding beds or harvesting. It is such a joy to grow your own food and be able to just walk outside and make a full meal out all these beautiful fruits and vegetables. Every other week we make a trip over to our friend Ruza’s house. She is from Bosnia and came to Croatia during the war when they invaded her village and took her home, she now lives in our village with her son Ilia. We usually just sit and have a drink and some of her son’s smoked bacon and salami but a few weeks ago she taught L’nae and I to make Pita (Bosnian) or Borak (Croatian) which is this awesome pastry type food that can stuffed with eggs, cheese, meat, or blitva (swiss chard). L’nae and I decided that we wanted to have a date night with each of the kids where we take them out to do something fun and spend one on one time with each of them. Cameron and Ian decided that they both wanted to see the new X-men movie for their date so we went on a double date L’nae with Ian and Me with Cameron. After the movie we got dinner in the mall food court and both of the boys decided they wanted mcdonalds while L’nae and I had some delicious Lasagna. Addie chose to go shopping for her date so we went shopping at Mercator in Samobor. We bought her a dress there and took her to have creme schnitte and cappuccino. We also had a girls night with Erin where we ate at an italian restaurant and went to see source code and several shopping days with just the two of us. Last month we went to Catez with all the kids in the home school co-op as an end of the year treat. Catez is a waterpark in Slovenia about 45 minutes away with several water slides, a lazy river, and a wave pool. Then about three weeks ago we went on a family camping trip with the Masseys and the Nelsons (another family from Minnesota). The campground was on a river so we spent most of the week laying out in the sun and floating down the river. We were there for 5 days and had tons of fun. Cameron found a snake in his shirt and lost a tooth, the kids made a skit for us, we had 2 attempted robberies by gypsies, played kickball football ultimate frisbee and I lost my only pair of glasses in the waterfalls. L’nae and I made a friend named Sylwa on one of our Zagreb outings a couple weeks ago. Sylwa is applying for grad school at ACU. We took her out for ice cream and invited her to our church. At the end of June Cameron was chosen to play his flute at an awards ceremony held by the mayor of Samobor. We met a lot of new people after the concert and found out that the mayor actually knows quite a bit of english. He told me I looked like I was 15 and didn’t understand why my parents let me get a real tattoo lol.

So much has happened since my last post I don’t even know where to start. Yesterday marked two weeks that I’ve been here in Croatia but it feels like so much longer. L’nae and I really feel like we have known the Masseys for years and that this apartment is our home. I can already tell it’s going to be a hard transition back to the states. Before we came we didn’t really know what our trip would look like, we had a basic calendar of major events but we weren’t sure how our daily lives would be. I had some ideas in my head of what might happen but it’s really turned out to be much different than I thought. A lot of times interns show up for the summer and are constantly working camps or working at an orphanage or building houses and that’s the only thing that I could really invision but our work here is much different. I really feel like we’re getting a taste of what it’s like to be a full-time missionary here, we haven’t converted hundreds of people or built houses but we have fully immersed ourselves in the culture and became part of a wonderful family who has dedicated their lives to serving the community. This summer is more laid back and focused on relationship building, we spend a large portion of our time just helping out around the house, babysitting, gardening, helping with homework, cooking and spending time with the kids. I really feel like this summer is more about my personal growth and building strong friendships while I provide some relief to the missionaries here. In these past week we’ve been to a waterpark with the homeschool coop, toured a castle with the family, watched several of Cameron’s amazing concerts, wandered around Zagreb and Samobor, formed a biking/running club in Mala Gorica, recruited for ACU, become addicted to Creme Schnitte and croatian ice cream, folded hundreds of flyers for the christian camps, handed out balloons at the park, taught bible classes at church, had a girls night out with Erin, gotten really dirty at a ceramics workshop, mastered the public transportation system, lost quite a few pounds, got lost walking around a lake, toured a vineyard, picked our weight in cherries and taught the Massey children how to do the cupid shuffle.

I think my favorite day so far was this past saturday. We got to sleep in for the first time since we’ve been here and rolled out of bed at 9:30 and had a quick breakfast before we all piled in the car to go watch Cameron’s last soccer game. It was beautiful outside so we just sat under a shade tree and watched as the boys killed the other team. They won this last championship game and took first place in the league with a score of 12-0. After the match the team was awarded with a trophy and pizza and we watched as they paraded around and celebrated their victory. We then headed over to Samobor to the Art school where Ian and Roger had been taking ceramics lessons all year. They had all the students work on display and we saw some really amazing pieces. Then they helped us make something of our own, I grab a giant chunk of clay and proceeded to make the biggest mess of my life. About three hours later when you could no longer tell what color my hands were I had created an amazing serving plate that I am super proud of. When we arrived back home I squeezed in some time for exercise and rode about 5 or 6 miles on my bike. Around 5 o’clock we piled back into the car and headed over to the next village to visit some of our friends. The Slamars had a beauftiful house and two humongous cherry trees. All seven of us climbed up in the trees and picked as many cherries as we could carry. When we had picked enough cherries to fill the trunk of our car we came down and had dinner and homemade wine. The night ended with us taking a grand tour of the gardens and vineyards which is where I took a lot of the pictures I have posted on facebook.

Today we are spending the day inside because of the  rain. We had discipleship and helped Addie with her essay for school and now we are going to clean up and cook for our guests and then tonight we will have a worship practice for church. I am really in love with this place and the people here and even though I miss home very much I am having the greatest summer of my life.

This past Friday was such a blessing; first, Bonnie was well enough to teach, and second, Sam’s Place hired 3 new teachers! Before, they had two that were responsible for teaching 5 different class levels. Once we came, we each had a class, but it’s a little difficult to teach when you aren’t trained to be a teacher and also don’t know enough sign to communicate efficiently with the deaf! The staff met all day Friday, assigning teachers to classes and reconstructing the school time schedule. Savannah, Bonnie, and I are still working with our same classes, but now we divide the subjects with a real teacher, so there’s less stress for everyone. Although Friday made us excited for the upcoming week, it also brought sadness. The youngest student here, a girl named Caroline, is the only child at Sam’s Place that has a living parent. She is 6 years old and was brought here by an incompetent mother who assured the Sam’s Place administration that her daughter was deaf. As the months have gone by, the director at Sam’s Place has recognized that Caroline is in fact not deaf. Although she has trouble focusing and will often not respond to sound, she has proven that she can repeat words and mimic sounds, showing signs of autism. It is very obvious that Caroline has a problem beyond Sam’s Place’s ability to help. On Friday, Simeone asked Caroline’s mother to visit Sam’s Place and he informed her that Sam’s Place was not the appropriate location for Caroline. Caroline has a special place in all of our hearts, and although we hate to see her leave, we know that Sam’s Place is looking for a situation that would put Caroline’s best interests first.

Savannah woke up sick on Saturday and thus had to stay back while Bonnie and I accompanied Simeone to Homa Bay (on Lake Victoria). Simeone and Naome are the absolute best hosts anyone could ever ask for. They are constantly encouraging us to experience the culture and visit new places. While at Home Bay, we watched men fish, while women cleaned and gutted what was caught. Simeone convinced a group of fishermen to take us out on the fishing boat, however, the boat’s are situated in the water so we all had to be carried…even Simeone! After our experience at Homa Bay, we went to Kisii to visit Nancy. She prepared us a feast (knowing how much we love her cooking) and then took a long walk until we were literally at the top of a hill that overlooked all of Kisii. As we walked, we would look over our shoulders and realize that children were following us. By the end of our walk, we had accumulated probably 25 neighbor kids who kept whispering “wazungus, wazungus,” which literally means “white people”.

An elder from Naome’s home church called Simeone earlier this week and asked him if he would bring the “visitors” to their church on Sunday. So after we had church with the children, we drove an hour and a half to Naome’s church. Simeone, Savannah, Bonnie, and I walked in first and were led to the front row of the left side of the church. Naomi and Nancy sat on the right side. It wasn’t until about half way through service that we realized that everyone on our side was male! Later, Naomi assured us that it really didn’t matter (even though husbands and wives weren’t even sitting together…) Simeone preached to the congregation about how often we forget to invite Jesus into every aspect of our lives. We remember when his presence is necessary but in the conversations and decisions we make daily, he’s often forgotten. It was such an encouraging and refreshing sermon and it made our mission team really recognize that we must always try to be as Christ-like as possible, in every situation. After church, one of the elders had us over for lunch and sodas (Bonnie and I are obsessed with the soda Krest Bitter Lemon). While we ate, they asked us so many questions about America. One thing I’ve come to realize is that Kenyans love hearing about the differences between Kenya and America. They asked about our buildings, our customs, our church services, any and everything there was to possibly ask! Speaking of which, a couple of days ago, one of the deaf groundsmen at Sam’s Place (most of the workers at Sam’s Place are deaf) asked me to tell (sign) stories about America to the children. After I explained the typical differences like food, landscape, priorities, etc., he began to ask me to tell specific stories…like the 2 towers incident and African slavery. Let’s just say that was an interesting signing experience. Fortunately, my sign has progressed so much the past month. Before I had to make due with gestures, but now I know enough sign to communicate and teach correctly and quickly.

Monday was the new teachers’ official first day and it was SO great! Shadrack (Jennas’ husband) is my fellow teacher and he’s not only fluent in sign, he’s the only teacher that isn’t deaf! I have learned so much more sign since working with him because he speaks while he signs. After class, we found a long rope and played a good 3 hours of intense jump rope. At times their were 7 kids jump roping! Elphas, Violet, and Irene (the 3 oldest children here) are amazing at jump rope, spinning and doing hand games all at once. It’s incredible! We also taught them arm wrestling, thumb wars, and limbo (one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed because they would bend their backs about 5 meters before they even reached the rope). Once it gets dark, we move into the family room, a large room with games and books. Kilion, probably the most intelligent child here, is amazing at checkers. We didn’t have a real set, so we’ve been playing with a set he made from cardboard. Earlier that day I was looking through the teachers cabinet for scissors and I came across a wooden checkers board! So that night we played checkers and read (mainly looked at pictures because most of the children can’t read) with the kids.

Tuesday was similar to Monday, expect that I decided to wash my clothes and literally right after I hung them out to dry, it started raining. So unfortunate. I put them back out this (Wednesday) morning at 7, and by 10 they were dry! It pays being so close to the equator. Well, that’s all for now but I’ll be sure to keep you all posted (and no mom we havn’t taken any more walks to Rongo)!!

International traveling always provides the opportunity to compare and contrast different cultures. This comparison is natural, and if analyzed outside of an ethnocentric lens, can be instructive and helpful. As part of a contract with the Honors College, I will be conducting a cultural comparison between Ghana and the United States in an attempt to broaden my worldview and take advantage of this wonderful blessing of cross cultural interaction. The Village of Hope is composed of a school, an orphanage, and a medical clinic. Thus, this project will focus on three topics for comparison: the educational system, the family unit, and medicine. The following post is installation one of my project and focuses on the topic of schooling. Enjoy!

Our team of interns landed in Accra, Ghana on June 1st and has been here for two and a half weeks. Since then, we have traveled to Village of Hope’s satellite school in the small town of Nkwatia. This school is understaffed and is in need of teachers, and thus, I have been teaching in the school and assisting the teachers. Needless to say, in this position it has been relatively easy to compare and contrast American and Ghanaian schooling. Three main factors which contribute to the differences between the two educational systems are the way in which the two cultures approach time, the amount of resources which are available, and where the responsibility for learning rests. A nation’s or culture’s approach to time can either be tempo-centric or event-centric. A tempo-centric culture is one in which time itself has value. Efficiency is considered incredibly valuable. In a country like the United States, the schedule itself is important and not just the events. However, in an event-centric culture like Ghana, more value is placed on the interaction. The schedule forms around the events and is subject to change depending on how the events turn out. The concept of time is held loosely in comparison with the task at hand. One way in which a culture can reveal its tempo-centricity or event-centricity is through its educational system. In the United States, the school systems are structured and scheduled literally down to the minute. Regulations about time spent on certain subjects and topics are stringent. However, in Ghana the school system is much more relaxed. Instructors teach on a subject until they are finished, at which point they move on. Start and end times are flexible and depend on the day and the teacher. Thus, while similar content is being taught in both systems, the way in which it is taught is vastly different due to the correlation of how time and events are valued in each culture.

The second main factor which dramatically affects both educational systems is the amount of resources available to the schools. Resources may include books, paper, school supplies, and technology. One main difference between Ghana and the United States is that America has vast amounts of resources, while Ghana is rather limited with resources. In America there is an increasing amount of not only learning and teaching tools, but also of technology in the classrooms, including computers, smartboards, and digital media centers. Additionally, Internet is available regularly for students who need to research for papers or projects. In contrast, Ghanaian classrooms typically consist of a chalkboard, wood desks, and a cement or dirt floor. Textbooks are not always readily available for all students, technology and computer learning is limited, and Internet cannot be accessed readily for research. Having spent time in Ghanaian schools has personally taught me how to rely solely on my teaching skills to give a lesson, rather than relying on any outside resources. However, even if the instructor’s teaching skills are adequate, outside resources bring dimension to the classroom and body to the lesson. If Ghana could improve in one area to bolster its educational system, I believe better access to resources would be the one which would have the greatest impact. That being said, the one area in which Ghanaian education tops American education in regards to resources is with languages. In America, typically English is taught in addition to one other language, usually French or Spanish. However, in Ghana the local language Twi or Fante is taught, as well as English and French. All students are at least bilingual. Thus, while Ghanaian schools lack material resources, the language learning skills taught are impressive.

The last main contrast between American and Ghanaian education deals with whose responsibility it is for learning. In America, the student is very much the recipient of learning and the burden rests on the teachers and administrators to convey the information in such a way that the student can best understand. Thus, learning tends to be catered to the student. However, in Ghana a student must be proactive in their education to continue on with schooling. Not all students are guaranteed entrance or have the opportunity to attend university or even high school. The responsibility for learning lies solely on the individual student to make it their priority. Obviously, these observations about proactivity are general and are not true for all Americans or all Ghanaian students, but it is still interesting to note the overarching comparison. While neither extreme of responsibility is most beneficial, a blend of the two would provide the ideal learning environment in which the faculty and student work together fairly towards a common goal.

To conclude, Ghanaian and American cultures differ from each other in several ways, which leads to differentiation in everyday life, including schooling and education. These differences include their views towards time, the resources and tools available in classrooms, and the amount of responsibility the student holds for his or her education. For the age of Ghana and its current constitution, the nation is doing relatively well for itself as a younger country. Though currently the United States may have more academic opportunities and resources, I believe Ghana has a realistic hope for its educational future. As the country continues to grow and progess, I look forward to seeing expansion in educational resources and opportunities for the youth of the country.

we have been back in fetteh at the voh for almost a week now which means we only have like 2 and ahalf weeks left before we leave to america. sad stuff.

i love how unscripted my days at the village are. every morning i wake up (usually around 4 due to all the noise of the kids and the birds and the light of the sunrise) and think to myself ‘what do i feel like doing today?’ most of the time the answer is ‘go to the beach!’ i usually lay in bed for  an hour and a half or two hours and go to tills beach resort to read the bible and have some hang out with jesus. its so beautiful. when i get back its time to eat breakfast at which point i get to decide if im going to help teach, work at the clinic, or help out at the nursery. also, they started a construction project at the church so i might help with that.

im so honored to be a part of the ministry that is taking place here. maybe day to day im not doing anything that groundbreaking or spectacular, but im sowing into what God is doing in ghana and that has eternal ramifications.

im also very blessed to be here with shelby ashton and michelle. shelby is a baller shot caller and everybody knows it. she she’s cool without trying. ashton has gods heart for kids and it shows all the time. all the kids love her because of the holy spirit inside of her. michelle is so gifted as a teacher and a goalkeeper. also she loves jesus so much its hard to describe and creates a culture of positive peer pressure.

i like it here.

peace out girl scouts.