Cam, Anne, and Caylor Gongwer have spent the past 11 years serving in the remote village of Ankaase in Ghana, West Africa. Their primary ministries of medical work and literacy training have affected thousands, as God continues to bring people to Himself.

I first met Cam and Anne when I was 23 years old. Just a year out of college and working in my first “real” job, I was upholding my end of a bargain I had made with God. I thought it would be a good compromise to work in my secular job, then, one week a year, go on a short-term mission trip. I would have the best of both worlds. I had always had a love of missions and an interest in serving, and I liked my comfortable apartment, hot showers, and “normal” American food.

So once I had worked long enough to earn a week’s vacation, I signed up for the first mission trip available at my church. It was a medical mission trip to the Ankaase Methodist Faith Healing Hospital in Ankaase, Ghana. As a children’s fashion designer, I wasn’t quite sure why the Lord had asked me to sign up for this trip, which included almost all doctors and nurses. I felt a little lost.

I soon discovered that those 10 days in Ankaase would forever change the course of my life.

Cam and Anne were just two years into their service in Ghana when our team arrived. Anne was coordinating a literacy program, and Cam was serving as the only physician at the local hospital. The seven of us from Montgomery, Alabama crowded into their living room, trying to gather as much cool air as we could from the lone oscillating fan that swept by us every 30 seconds or so. We spent the week seeing patients, organizing inventory, painting offices, and swatting away malaria-infested mosquitoes.

The trip went well. We bonded as a group, got on one another’s nerves, encountered a different culture that altered our worldview, and watched God at work in the lives of the Ghanaians and in our own lives.

That was nine years ago. The Gongwers and I have kept up through the years. It has been amazing to see what has taken place in all of our lives in that amount of time. It is especially stunning to see what God has done in the lives of the people of Ankaase through the Gongwers’ service. People have come to a saving relationship with Christ, experienced physical healing, and discovered hope from conquering the debilitating effects of illiteracy.

Through their obedience to God, not only have Ghanaians been changed, but many of the short-term volunteers who have collapsed onto the Gongwers’ sofa from the oppressive heat, trying to get the attention of the oscillating fan, have found their calling as well.

Hometown dream
In 1988, J.K. Manu, a Ghanaian from Ankaase, decided to give back to his hometown by providing a clinic for the residents who were in dire need of medical care. Earlier, in 1986, the Methodist Church Ghana had invited The Mission Society to assist in ministries of evangelism and pastoral training through providing personnel. The Mission Society did send people to work with the Methodist Church Ghana in church planting, leadership development training, and evangelism. They also began to send missionaries with skills in medical care and other areas to meet the felt needs of Ghanaians.

The Ankaase Methodist Faith Healing Hospital was dedicated in September 1988 and officially opened as a clinic in March 1991. The hospital recently celebrated its 20th year of service to the community.

During the past 20 years, thousands of lives have been saved through God’s grace and the hard work of the hospital staff.

Cam and Anne Gongwer relocated to Ghana in 1998 when their daughter, Caylor, was eight months old. They both felt called to cross-cultural service long before they met. Their shared passion for mission work, and Africa in particular, was one of the things that brought them together.

Cam graduated from Wabash College with a bachelor of arts in biology and earned a master’s of science in biochemistry, as well as his medical degree, from Indiana University School of Medicine. He had a private practice in South Bend, Indiana for five years before training in Europe at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in preparation for his work in Ghana.

Cam became the first full-time physician of the Ankaase Methodist Faith Healing Hospital. He also served as the medical superintendent for many years. This Indiana physician has also been involved with medical outreaches to rural areas of Ghana, as well as working with the Methodist Church there in evangelism and medical care to the poor. He trains other doctors in family medicine and works with the Ghanaian management team, who now runs the hospital.

The hospital staff sees an average of 200 patients each day. The most common illnesses present in the patients are malaria, typhoid fever, malnutrition, cholera, and respiratory illnesses. Malaria is the leading cause of death in children under the age of five in Ghana. Many diseases, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, hypertension, and diabetes, often go untreated and then lead to other lifethreatening illnesses in patients.

‘God is here’
From humble beginnings, the hospital has now grown to a staff of more than 130 and has 65 beds available in the maternity, surgical, medical, and children’s wards. In addition to Dr. Cam Gongwer, there are four Ghanaian doctors and three Ghanaian physician’s assistants.

The hospital also has one full-time and two part-time chaplains. The Rev. Samuel Amponsah was appointed by the Methodist Church Ghana to serve as the hospital’s chaplain. He and the other part-time chaplains visit each patient every day and pray for them. The chaplains also lead devotions each morning for the patients and staff.

The hospital has won several awards for its outstanding service to the community. It received the “Best Practices” award in 2006 for the Kwabre district, as well as the “Most Expanded Hospital” award in the district in 2008. It also won the “Baby Friendly” hospital award in 2004 for promoting exclusive breastfeeding in infants less than six months old.

The hospital has had a tremendous impact on the community of Ankaase. Having adequate medical care has improved the stature of the Ankaase community and attracted people from other communities. It has provided many people with jobs and educated people regarding nutritional information and preventative medical treatments. The hospital has also assisted in dealing with the community water sanitation issues. Hospital staff members have reached out to Ghanaians living with HIV/AIDS and provided medical care, support, and counseling. In the future, the staff hopes to provide antiretroviral treatment to AIDS victims. Not only do the residents have adequate access to health care and therefore an improved quality of life, but also many have come to know Jesus because of the witness of the hospital staff.

When asked what impact the hospital has had on the community, Cam recounts the story of one young boy as an example. “A Ghanaian woman brought her three-yearold boy to the hospital in Ankaase for treatment because of recurring sickness. She had taken him to several health centers and clinics around Kumasi, a nearby city, over the past few months, but he did not seem to improve. So she decided to make the long trip out to rural Ankaase because she heard about the hospital there. The child was very sick with malaria and typhoid fever and had to be admitted to the children’s ward. During rounds one day, I asked her why she chose to come all the way out to Ankaase. In the Twi language she said, ‘God is here and God will bring his healing.’ Many Ghanaians have faith that they will be healed at Ankaase Hospital.”

Hope is here
In addition to the hospital, the love of Jesus is also being proclaimed through other ministries in Ankaase. One such ministry initiative is headed by Anne Gongwer.

Anne graduated from Indiana State University with a degree in elementary education. She taught for several years in Indiana, as well as served as a teacher for missionary kids in Cameroon for two years.

Anne started a literacy program after moving to Ankaase. She worked with Ghanaian volunteers who taught adult literacy classes in the community. More than 80 Ghanaians learned to read well enough to read the Bible in their own mother-tongue language.

As an expansion of her passion for literacy and education, Anne recently coordinated the construction of the first library in the community, the Reading Town Library. The goal is to liberate the potential in the Ghanaian children to learn to read and seek higher education. Literacy levels in Ghana are low. It is estimated that only 57.9% of Ghanaians over the age of 15 can read and write.

With the library strategically situated in Ankaase near the villages of Mpobi, Ejuratia, Nantan, Hemang, and Aboaso, hundreds of children have access to the library’s resources. Dozens of children, youth, and adults flood the library daily. Elementary and middle school children visit the library with their teachers each day. Senior high students visit the library on weekends, when they are home from boarding school. Anne was even able to obtain nursing curriculum for the hospital staff to use, many of whom are students serving as interns at the hospital. Everything from preschoolers’ board books to encyclopedias, dictionaries, and study guides for high school exams are available on the wooden shelves.

When asked what one word Anne uses to describe the library, her answer is, “hope.” “A library is a place you can discover. And discovery, especially when it comes to yourself, is a very hopeful thing. You can not only gain knowledge, but enhance your creativity and grow to succeed in some of the things you want to do in life,” she says.

The library is a ministry of the Methodist Church Ghana. Librarian Julie Anderson and other Ghanaians staff the library and assist the patrons in finding appropriate books, as well as helping some learn to read.

Anne notes that her hope for the library is that, “…not only educational programming would be offered, but also opportunities to learn and know oneself as a child of God through Jesus Christ.” The library and its staff are designed to help children grow, learn, and become the person God created them to be.

Next steps
After 11 years in Ankaase, the Gongwers are relocating to Ghana’s capital city of Accra. Cam will continue to provide support to the hospital in Ankaase, as well as work with the Methodist Church Ghana to develop new medical outreaches. Anne will travel to Ankaase monthly to assist with the library. Caylor, whom Anne has been homeschooling until this point, will attend a private school in Accra as she begins middle school.

When thinking about her time in Ghana, Anne says, “God can take something that seems impossible or beyond our dreams, and make it a reality, due to His love, power, and infinite grace. He is always molding and shaping and putting details of a bigger picture in place. We cannot see it in front of us, but we can be sure that as we go on adventures with Him, He will amaze us.”

Reed Haigler Hoppe is The Mission Society’s associate director of communications and an ordained deacon in the Alabama-West Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church.