Team Currently in Ghana

Two days ago on Friday, Jake and a team of 20 University of Drake education majors, as well as the chair of the Drake education department, set off for their 10-day trip to Ghana. The team arrived safely and with all bags accounted for yesterday evening. Today, Sunday, they have traveled by bus to Asikuma where they are getting settled in and preparing for the coming week’s activities.

The theme of this trip is to give these students a crash course in how education is done in Ghana. They will also have the unique opportunity of getting to teach in the various rural schools in Ghana. They will receive course credit for this newly implemented J-term (January term – read about it HERE) and each student is required to create an I-movie of their experience as part of the coursework.

The team will spend part of their trip in our beloved community of Asikuma, and then they will move onto Cape Coast for the remainder of the trip.

These items are among the itinerary:

-Assess sponsorship program in Asikuma

-School visits will involve the student teachers speaking to the children on the importance of education, cleanliness, and discipline.

-In Cape Coast the student teachers will be involved in a literacy program in the Amanful community. An open air library will be established for the day so that the children in the community can interact with the teachers.

-The student teachers will lead the children in creative drawing, reading, and a spelling bee.

-The student teachers will get involved in teaching malaria awareness and health care education.

-There will be a door to door affair where the student teachers will distribute and hang insecticide treated bed nets to young mothers in the community.

-During the visit to Cape Coast Jake will be leading a basketball camp hosted by Hoops Care International (http://hoopscare.org/), and they will have a mini-tournament that evening.

Please be praying that God would move amongst the team in supernatural ways.  Pray that many of the student-teachers would feel God’s appeal and invitation into faith. Pray for Jake as the leader of this group – that God would give him strength, direction, guidance and wisdom. He really has a lot of pressure on him this trip! Lastly, pray that God would lead the team to the children and families who are in the most need and can be helped by our ministry.

Asikuma school kids greeting Jake on our March 2011 trip


Typical classroom setting in rural villages in Ghana