America’s New Life Christian School visits BASCO orphanage
Students of American-based institution, New Life Christian School (NLCS) paid a visit to the Baptist School Complex and Orphanage (BASCO) located on the outskirts of Suhum in the Eastern region of Ghana, in West Africa. The purpose of the visitation was to bring joy and show love to their “friends across the ocean who live at BASCO children’s home.”
14 NLCS students, their Principal, Dr. Sarah Hutter, and a teacher, Mr. Aaron Childs, made the trip for the 3-week stay in Ghana. The group decided to spend their Easter holiday in a different way from their usual North-America-style spring break. NLCS’ trip to Ghana included helping BASCO’s staff where necessary, tutoring BASCO’s children, and giving its own students a cross cultural learning.
In a statement from NLCS, their visitation to BASCO was expected to reflect the vision behind the school’s establishment on September 4th, 1979, at Trinity United Methodist Church at Olean in New York, United States. NLCS confirmed that it remains passionate in the “training up” of their students academically, spiritually, socially, and emotionally in a Christian way of life.
After their arrival, the children at BASCO taught NLCS’ students their favourite Ghanaian games in formed circles, as part of their cross cultural bonding. Some of the older students on both sides also made friends and had lengthy conversations about their dreams, life experiences, and aspirations.
“There were many beautiful faces with bright eyes and smiles. Some were familiar to our Principal and to one of our teachers who had been there before. These became the faces of the ones we came to dearly love, our BASCO friends, our family!” said a student of NLCS to TheAfricanDream.net in a post-trip statement.
“The strong bonds we had with them are held dearly in our hearts and are cherished memories we will never lose,” added the student.
NLCS students’ trip to BASCO was not solely motivated by cross cultural friendship and bonding, they had a separate motivation to help the Ghanaian children’s home with their foreign learning experiences.
The group was concerned with the inequalities in education that they had seen, caused by circumstances rather than choice. Many of NLCS teachers and students were motivated by it and decided to give every BASCO’s school day their all. They provided the children with enduring academic tutorials.
“We were so excited to see the students soaking up science! They loved learning and we loved teaching, they loved math and we loved teaching! We had a blast and they did too! We were thankful for the teachers to allow us in the classroom and for the administration to allow us the opportunity to tutor and make learning fun and different for a few weeks,” said Mr. Childs to TheAfricanDream.net in a conversation.
“Many of us on the team had never seen or been remotely close to a life such as this. From pumping water for bucket showers, long and intense sessions for worship and prayer, excited dancing, new food, harsh weather, bug bites and other frightening creatures, washing clothes by hand, to listening to languages we don’t understand, many valuable lessons were absorbed from these experiences,” added Mr. Childs.
The visitation also made NLCS students understand how their individual actions can affect the community they find themselves in enormous ways. The students expressed satisfaction with the 3-week stay and are optimistic of a future visit.
“One big life lesson to be taken from this experience is that joy is not about what you have it is about your state of mind. Jesus says we should have joy and have it abundantly and those in BASCO have that joy although they do not have things. Do not chase the things chase the One who has and created all things. Keep it simple-He is the Joy! We look forward to returning to BASCO in 2025, God willing. May God help us as we seek to raise the funds,” said a student of NLCS.
Source: TheAfricanDream.net
Abeeb Lekan Sodiq is a Managing Editor & Writer at theafricandream.net. He is as well a Graphics Designer and also known as Arakunrin Lekan.
