by Lacy Pack | Jun 16, 2011 | News Slider
Sometimes it is the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. For Camille Santos and Rainey Lankford, choosing to spend two weeks in Ghana, West Africa has done just that. Camille Santos, a senior nursing major from Memphis, Tenn. says that Lipscomb’s summer mission trip to Ghana has opened her eyes in many ways. “This might sound sad, but I’ve been on mission trips before and I feel like I never actually got anything from it,” Santos said. “But even on the first day there I felt completely compelled… you do change as a person. I feel 100 percent myself when I’m there. No makeup. No shower. It doesn’t matter because the kids are the focus.” Santos is one of the students that returned from Ghana last week. Lipscomb works with an orphanage called the Village of Hope, which is home to around 200 children. The children are brought to the orphanage from off the streets, abusive or dangerous living conditions and even rescued from child slavery. Santos explained that the children live in homes overseen by couples who devote their lives to raising these children as their own. The orphanage consists of a medical clinic, dental clinic, Hope Christian Academy (a school of 600-700 students), the Village of Hope Church of Christ, staff houses and guest houses. Santos reminisced with a smile about the confusion she caused at the beginning of the trip. Santos is biracial and has several piercings. In Ghanaian culture, people are either white or black and facial piercings are not common. She gained the nickname,“The Black American,” but Santos wasn’t the only one...
by Jonathan Corley | Apr 20, 2011 | News Slider
A small group of seven Lipscomb military veterans will travel this summer to Ghana to provide aid and relief to citizens in the West African state. The team will be working with Mobile Medical Disaster Relief (MMDR) and the Touch a Life foundation to help a local Lake Volta orphanage — which houses children saved from child slavery — to provide inoculations. They also will be identifying local villagers in desperate need of life-saving surgery to repair hernias. The students will be working in the area to help prevent children from being sold into dangerous labor in the future. Susannah Leonard, Air Force veteran and Lipscomb senior in the Yellow Ribbbon program is excited to be going on the trip. “I am just happy to be taking a part in a mission that could potentially change the lives of so many children,” Leonard said. “In the military you are always working to change the world for the better, but I think this trip will make it a more personal and spiritual experience. “The conditions many of these children have been forced to work in are just terrible. Many of them never survive the life-threatening work on the lake, and while we are there we want to do what we can to prevent this tragedy.” It will be the first Lipscomb University mission for the Campus Veterans Organization (CVO) which is comprised of veterans who have a history of serving and sacrificing for those in need of help. Each veteran’s experience is unique, some having traveled to the inhospitable terrain of the Middle East, others to the urban areas of Asia...
by Heather Stewart | Aug 3, 2010 | News Slider
Every morning at the Village of Hope begins with God and ends with God. While the sun is creeping in through the netting and thin curtains on the windows, from across the yard you can hear the children singing. Each day they wake up at 5 am praising God, then doing chores before school. While the kids are at school the Lipscomb team goes wherever they feel called to help around the orphanage that day. Some of the team would go help teach in the schools, some would go assist in the clinic and other various projects such as painting the houses of some of the staff would occur throughout the two weeks. We also went to three different villages and had VBS activities in the second week. After school we got to spend time with the children playing soccer, basketball, talking on benches under the trees or helping fetch water. At 5 o clock the children go get their water from the well and carry it to take a bath, then we all have dinner and another devotional at each house at 6 o clock. The prayers of these children are so heartfelt and precious. Different children pray for different aspects of our lives such as those who are sick, those who are travelling, those who are lost, our parents, our families, and our every day struggles. When you take the time to recognize how blessed you really are it’s amazing to discover that you wont forget to pray for all the needs of others. The children at the Village of Hope have gone through so much heartache...
