Trip to Cape Coast

First, thank you to everyone that sent us notes of concern. We are okay! We apologize for not updating the blog for the past seven days. We have been in Cape Coast without Internet access. Here is an update on our recent activities.

On Friday we traveled to Cape Coast with Femi, Dave and Isaac. Femi was very kind to take us on the 3-hours journey! Isaac, Training Secretary for the Ghana Fellowship of Evangelical Students (GHAFES), graduated from the University of Ghana, Cape Coast (UCC) and was a wonderful guide for the weekend! Isaac has been very involved in GHAFES for the past six years, so we were able to learn a lot more about the organization which will inform our projects.

On our way to Cape Coast the five of us stopped at Kakum National Park, where we hiked the canopy walk and saw some monkeys. Despite his acrophobia, Sam was able to handle the 40 meter high rope bridges without incident! Once we arrived in Cape Coast we met with a group of GHAFES alumni at the home of a retired UCC professor and long-time time friend of Dave. These alumni have one of the few active groups in Ghana, so this was a terrific opportunity to pick their brains about what they feel are some secrets to success and best practices that could be replicated across other campus groups. Not to mention that Auntie Agnes prepared a delicious dinner!

(Monkey in Kakum National Park)

(Sam on canopy walk)

On Friday evening we bid adieu to our mission advisor, Dave Ivaska. He had to return to the US on Saturday to attend an InterVarsity conference. We are so grateful to Dave for all his work in helping lay the foundation for this trip and for accompanying us for the first week! We appreciate Dave making introductions for us and preparing our daily devotional, which we continue to follow each morning. And, as anyone who knows Dave will tell you, he’s quite a joker! We’ll miss his [sometimes corny] jokes. And yes, Dave, we’re compiling a quote board!

Saturday was amazing! Isaac took us to see the Elmina and Cape Coast slave castles. (President Obama visited the Cape Coast castle during his visit.) The Elmina castle is the oldest European building in Africa (built in 1482) and the largest of the slave castles in Ghana. Visiting the castles was difficult, but an important cultural experience. We were appalled to learn that slavery was practiced for more than 400 years and that an estimated 25 million Africans were captured into slavery. Of those 25 million, half died between marching from their village to the slave castles to then getting on the slave boats en route to the US, Brazil, the Caribbean or Europe. Walking through the “Door of No Return” was very powerful.

(At the Cape Coast Castle)

("Door of No Return" at the Elmina Castle)

Another thing that shocked us was that the Europeans built churches on top of slave dungeons in both castles. In fact, the Cape Coast castle has a trap door outside the church to view the slave dungeons. How can someone feel justified in worshiping God and then turn around and commit such crimes against humanity? It was really a difficult pill to swallow.

Saturday was also Sam’s BIG 3-0 birthday!! We concluded the day with a nice, quiet dinner overlooking the Atlantic coast. (It’s strange to view the Atlantic and know you’re facing South, not East or West!)

On Sunday we attended worship services at the University Interdenominational Church with Isaac on the UCC campus. What an experience! The service lasted from 8:00 am to noon, during which time we had worship and communion, saw the presentation of a couple that got married the day before, transitioned student leadership of the campus ministry program, and did fundraising for a new Christian magazine. Wow! It was definitely a powerful, joyful experience and a real blessing. One thing that we realized is that their weekly church service is more like a congregational meeting. It includes the traditional worship aspects, but also includes a lot of church business. After the service we met with the pastor, who was interested in learning more about why we’re here. (Interestingly, our Ghanaian friends are just as intrigued by our calling to come to Africa as our American friends!)

(Wedding Party)

Yesterday we traveled back to Accra by bus with Isaac. We were a little nervous about traveling by bus because the schedule was not fixed and traffic can be really crazy, but thankfully it went very smoothly. Once we returned to Accra, we met with Reverend Emmanuel Alijiah in his office to share our experiences over the weekend and discuss our progress on our projects for GHAFES. He had some good feedback and builds on our project, which we’re excited to unveil this week!

Last night Isaac took us to meet with a fellowship of pre-med students at the University of Ghana. They are in the midst of final exams and were holding a prayer meeting. It was definitely a new experience, with about 30 students praying out loud at once in several different languages. Hearing so many simultaneous prayers really drives home God’s omnipresence. The student leaders asked us to give brief testimonials about why we’re here. Seeing their reactions reminds us that just the fact that we came all this way to be with them is powerful to them. I hope our presence and appreciation for their culture encourages them. They’ve encouraged us!

We spent today working on our projects and will take tomorrow to put the finishing touches on our lesson plan for Thursday and Friday. This Thursday and Friday we are facilitating five 90-minute interactive sessions with 12 GHAFES staff members. Within the over-arching goal of “Building Sustainable Support,” GHAFES’ General Secretary asked us to help them develop a communications plan and methods to better track alumni. So we are building five sessions: three sessions around segmentation (targeting and positioning GHAFES for students, recent alumni and older alumni), a session on principles of effective communication, a session on fundraising principles, and a session on tracking alumni. Through these exercises, we hope to align GHAFES staff around an annual communications plan with specific tactics to follow-up on.

This is a pilot project. If it is successful, there is a possibility that we could create a more extensive training guide for IFES to conduct with other national movements. (And perhaps we could even be involved on an annual basis.) Femi and the GHAFES staff seemed to be really excited about this so far, so we pray that the sessions are a hit!