Ricks Welcomes Two U.S. Teachers

VIRGINIA, Montserrado County -- Ricks Institute in Virginia, Liberia, has welcomed two American teachers to serve at the school for one academic year.

Holly Wegman and Ann Elizabeth McInvale are from Tampa, Florida, and Birmingham, Alabama (USA) respectively.

Wegman and McInvale come to Ricks through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF)’s Student Go Program. The program provides opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to serve extremely needy areas around the world.

Wegman holds a B.A. in Psychology and Religion from Furman University (in Greenville, South Carolina) and an M.A. in Psychology from Wake Forest University (in Winston Salem, North Carolina). She served for two years as graduate teaching assistant in the Psychology Department at Wake Forest. She also served for three consecutive summers as Bible Study leader, Assistant Director and most recently Director of Passport Camps, a Christian Summer Camp that is in active partnership with Ricks Institute.

Also knowledgeable in statistics and research methods, Wegman will teach 7th and 8th grade Math at Ricks as well as Bible. She is a member of Logos Dei Community Church in Tampa, Florida.

“There are so many reasons to be excited about serving at Ricks,” Wegman says. “First, I am excited to get to know the people at Ricks – the students, my fellow teachers, the administrators, the staff – everyone who is a part of the community of the Ricks Institute. I love meeting new people and hearing their stories and learning about our lives, together exploring both the things we have in common and the things that are very different. Ricks seems to be a beacon of hope and a place of opportunity, and to be a part of that in any way is exciting.”

McInvale is a graduate of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. With a B.A. in Early Childhood, Elementary and Special Education, she served as a classroom teacher in Birmingham prior to coming to Ricks Institute. She also served also on the staff of Passport Camps for five consecutive years.

As a certified teacher, she is highly qualified to teach all subject areas from nursery through 6th grade and will serve as 2nd grade teacher at Ricks.

McInvale is a member of the Vestavia Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

“I am a teacher, and I feel called to work with children,” she says. “I have become very passionate about cross-cultural education and am so excited about all that I will learn in the next year at Ricks. As I have become aware of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, my heart has been drawn to the need of universal free primary education. When I heard that Ricks Institute was leading the way in free primary education in Liberia, I couldn’t help but want to be a part of that. I feel like this is a place where I can use the gifts that God has given me to invest in the lives of my students and build relationships with the people I will be working with. I am excited about what I will learn in the next year, as God uses me in Liberia.”

Dr. Olu Q. Menjay, Principal and Chief Administrative Officer of Ricks, said he is extremely excited about the addition of “these fine examples of servants” to the staff at Ricks.

“We are exceptionally grateful that these two young ladies could avail themselves to serve at Ricks for an academic year. This is an authentic testimony of serving humanity without reservation,” he said.

He also thanked the CBF’s Student Go program, coordinated by Amy Derrick, for sending the teachers to serve in Liberia.

Today, September 1, is their first day of school.

About Ricks: Ricks Institute, established in 1887, is a dynamic and comprehensive learning center (K-12) that attracts students from all over Liberia and beyond. Since 2006, the institution remains the only private school in Liberia offering free primary education to its students. As a community and nationally recognized school in Liberia, Ricks has 600 students, 50 percent of whom are residential students. Additionally, the school operates a free Accelerated Learning Program in the afternoons for 125 (over aged) students. The school is located in Virginia, Liberia, on some 1200 acres of land. For more information, visit www.ricksonline.org.