Background and Preparation

In four days we will be leaving for Sierra Leone on a joint educational/medical mission. We have a unique, super qualified group of people traveling together with the education team. There are three Boys' Latin teachers. Julia Williams, a middle school science teacher, Greg Schnitzlein, a third grade teacher, and myself, a fourth grade teacher, are exciting to meet the kids and teachers at The Abigail Butscher Primary School in Calabatown. We will be staying in Freetown and traveling to Calabatown during the day. We hope to help the teachers come up with ways to utilize the resources they do have to engage students in more interactive ways to teach. We are also taking over 300 lbs. of school supplies with us. Kevin and Kristen Rowe are also traveling with us. Kevin is a financial advisor and Kristen is an engineer. Their hopes are to head up some projects improving the facilities at the school. Madieu Williams, Minnesota Vikings Free Safety, is our leader on this side of the mission and is passionate about helping improve the education in Freetown. This mission is just the start of yearly missions to help improve the schools in Sierra Leone. We are starting our work at the school in Calabatown and hope over the coming years to help in more places.

My twelve year old daughter, Emma, is also traveling with us. She has raised about 500 dollars and collected a lot of school supplies from Hereford Middle School. I am anxious for her to see how lucky she is to have the resources and infrastructure we have here. I am also excited for her to have the chance to interact with the children in Calabatown.

Marco, my husband, will be with a team of doctors at the hospital in Freetown. The medical team hopes to perform some free surgeries and start planning ways to help improve the healthcare in Sierra Leone.

We have our visas, malaria pills, and yellow fever vaccines. All of our other vaccines (tetanus, Hep A, meningitis, polio etc...) are updated.

The two foundations that we are traveling with are The Healing Hands Foundation, and The Madieu Williams Foundation. If anyone wants more information on either go to www.thhfoundation.org or www.madieuwilliams.org.

The profile photo shows Julia, Greg, Madieu, and I when Madieu came to The Boys' Latin School to talk to the boys about Sierra Leone and the upcoming mission.

I hope to update the blog daily with the happenings of our trip. I will be missing my son, Nico, while we are gone. This blog will be a great way for him to experience everything that we do!