GIVERS
LINS BARWICK
The directors of the orphanage soon realized they did not have the resources to serve the physical and mental challenges of Angel Komenda’s cerebral palsy. Without any family or resources of her own, Angel was returned to the only place that would take her, the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital. It was here that she met a Lins Barwick, a young premedical student from Raleigh. Barwick would soon become much more than a medical minder for Angel. He would become a friend and advocate. A student at Wake Forest University, Barwick moved to Ghana in January 2016 to spend the second semester of his sophomore year studying medicine. Just as importantly, he wanted to expand his worldview and to experience a culture different from the comfortable and safe community he knew and loved in Raleigh. He spent months researching internships before eventually settling on World Unite, an international organization that matches students’ travel and volunteer interests with opportunities abroad. When Barwick arrived at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, he did not know a soul or even anyone who had gone before him, but he hit the ground running. He juggled early morning rounds,
Finding strength when he needs it most in the act of giving
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by SETTLE MONROE
In 2015, on a rural farm just outside the African fishing port of Cape Coast, Ghana, a farmer heard a loud ruckus coming from a pack of his pigs. When he arrived at the scene of the commotion, he found the unthinkable – the head of a little girl poking out of the dirt. She had been buried alive and was hanging on for every inch of her life. The girl, who doctors estimated was between two and three years old, was immediately taken to a hospital before being discharged to a nearby orphanage. There she was given her name: Angel.
photograph by JILLIAN CLARK
OCTOBER 2016 | 111
