Community Health Evangelism Internship

Greetings from Ghana! It’s been a busy month around here, as my departure date in March is fast approaching. In February, I have been attending an internship in Dahwenya, Ghana for Community Health Evangelism. (CHE) People from all over the world were in attendance; from Africa, the US, Canada, and Cape Verde. It was such a treat to be surrounded by so many different cultures, and to discuss the challenges that each of their communities are facing.

As I have said before, CHE is an amazing educational program used to develop a community, instead of always providing relief efforts. Nonprofit organizations may come into an impoverished area, but may end up doing more harm than good if they are not careful. Teaching a community to be dependent on foreigners and constantly providing relief is not necessarily the best answer to a problem. There are times when a region may need relief. Hopefully, it can be a temporary situation. The idea is to move away from relief as soon as possible and begin to empower a community with education. There are thousands of topics from Microenterprise, Women’s Cycle of Life, Health, and Children’s CHE. It teaches sustainability so that programs can continue to run long after the foreigners leave. As someone who has traveled a fair amount around Africa, I can tell you that this is the best model I have seen to empower communities and to provide holistic treatment, spiritually and physically. This model also provides prevention education to combat illnesses and diseases in we see commonly in third world countries.  

I have been wanting to take the CHE classes for quite some time now. Needless to say, I was thrilled that the internship was provided in Ghana while I was here. It’s only offered in two places around the world, once a year. It’s offered once in the Phillipines, and once in Ghana. It was such a blessing that God placed me in Ghana during the internship and I was only 35 minutes away! I feel like I am now able to focus on preventative and curative medical treatment in the places I work abroad. As you know, I had a bit of a crash course in CHE before I did the training. I have been facilitating education to women from different villages surrounding Aveyime, Ghana. We have taught various lessons from the Women’s Cycle of Life module, and it has been an amazing experience. It’s wonderful to finally receive the full training behind the education I’ve been providing.

We were also able to travel to Northern Ghana for our training. Ghana is about the size of Colorado, but it took us about 14 hours by bus to get to the north due to traffic and road conditions. We traveled to Tamale to look at several successful CHE programs that were running in rural villages. We visited a school, a shea butter production company, a dental clinic, and local mechanics. Northern Ghana is quite a bit different from Southern Ghana. The north is a lot drier and dustier than the south, and it also gets a lot hotter. Southern Ghana is already very hot for me, so I was especially hot in the north! I had to wake up several times throughout the night to dump water on my head so I could cool off enough to sleep. Northern Ghana also has a very large Muslim population. There are mosques in Southern Ghana, but the majority of religious buildings I see in my area are predominantly Christian churches. It’s the opposite in the North. Ghana is very blessed to have these two religious groups coexist in peace. I wish I could say the same for other places in Africa.

We were even able to make the three hour drive over to Mole National Park! Most of the wildlife in Ghana has been killed off, but Mole still has some. Elephants are the main attraction, but they claim to have lions, leopards, and hyenas that are rare to see. It is also advertised as one of Africa’s cheapest safaris. We spent about a total of 2.5 hours in the park and went on one game drive, which totaled a little less than $20! It was a huge blessing to be able to travel north and experience more of beautiful Ghana.

As my time is wrapping up here, I have been reflecting a lot on the challenges I have faced along the way. It’s been a particularly challenging trip, but God has pulled me through. Trips never look how you expect them to look. It’s best to role with the punches, be flexible, and adapt to any role that you may need to step into. I’ve been trying to absorb as much time with the kids as I can, and soak up all of ,their laughs and hugs. On my previous trips, I have been in several locations; whereas this trip I have only been working in Ghana. It makes leaving a little more painful when you get to know everyone better. I am so excited to see my fiance and my family, but I will greatly miss Africa. Please keep the clinic lifted up in your prayers, as we have encountered some challenges that have prevented us from continuing to build. Love you all and thank you for your encouragement and prayers.