College Of The Ozarks Students Visit Ecuador For Summer Mission Work
Seniors Madison Bagg, psychology major from Kimberling City, and Mikaila Livingston, agriculture education major of Harrisonville, pick guayusa leaves.
August 15, 2019
Two College of the Ozarks mission teams served in Ecuador this summer as part of an ongoing relationship with communities there. The first team of students worked in the jungle town of Misahualí l to help Antioch Christian Academy develop a sustainable business selling guayusa tea leaves (a tea native to South America), June 5-16. The second mission team consisted of six nursing students who volunteered their time at Hospital Vozandes in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, June 17-28.
Business and agriculture team together
The business and agriculture students worked with Jungle Kids for Christ (JKC), a ministry that aims to break cycles of poverty and abuse in the jungle region of Ecuador, for their trip June 5-16. Specifically, C of O students partnered with Antioch Christian Academy, an extension of JKC, to develop a business selling guayusa tea leaves.
Lindon Newberry, assistant professor of business administration, designed one of his classes around creating and implementing the business plan for Antioch Christian Academy. This plan is what students carried out on their trip to Ecuador.
“When I was at the school in Ecuador, Roberto Davalos, director of JKC, explained that they were hoping to develop a market for guayusa to help provide a stream of revenue for the school,” said Newberry. “This gave me the idea to develop a class to help support the school and its desire to have a sustainable income stream. The end goal is to introduce the tea as a product in the United States.”
The business that Newberry and his students created is called Anteaoch and they plan to go public this fall with a Kickstarter project.
“The platform that we created through Kickstarter will fund the purchase of a dryer for JKC, to dry the tea and to purchase the first order of tea,” said Newberry. “All profit that is made by the company’s sales of the tea will return to JKC to help fund the needs of the school.”
While in Ecuador for the mission trip, students worked on local farms, captured footage for the Kickstarter and spoke to older students at Antioch Christian Academy about how they can apply to College of the Ozarks. When the students weren’t working, they explored Quito, trekked through the Cavernas de Jumandy, the second largest cave system in Ecuador and attended church in Misahuallí.
Two College of the Ozarks mission teams served in Ecuador this summer as part of an ongoing relationship with communities there. The first team of students worked in the jungle town of Misahualí l to help Antioch Christian Academy develop a sustainable business selling guayusa tea leaves (a tea native to South America), June 5-16. The second mission team consisted of six nursing students who volunteered their time at Hospital Vozandes in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, June 17-28.
Business and agriculture team together
The business and agriculture students worked with Jungle Kids for Christ (JKC), a ministry that aims to break cycles of poverty and abuse in the jungle region of Ecuador, for their trip June 5-16. Specifically, C of O students partnered with Antioch Christian Academy, an extension of JKC, to develop a business selling guayusa tea leaves.
Lindon Newberry, assistant professor of business administration, designed one of his classes around creating and implementing the business plan for Antioch Christian Academy. This plan is what students carried out on their trip to Ecuador.
“When I was at the school in Ecuador, Roberto Davalos, director of JKC, explained that they were hoping to develop a market for guayusa to help provide a stream of revenue for the school,” said Newberry. “This gave me the idea to develop a class to help support the school and its desire to have a sustainable income stream. The end goal is to introduce the tea as a product in the United States.”
The business that Newberry and his students created is called Anteaoch and they plan to go public this fall with a Kickstarter project.
“The platform that we created through Kickstarter will fund the purchase of a dryer for JKC, to dry the tea and to purchase the first order of tea,” said Newberry. “All profit that is made by the company’s sales of the tea will return to JKC to help fund the needs of the school.”
While in Ecuador for the mission trip, students worked on local farms, captured footage for the Kickstarter and spoke to older students at Antioch Christian Academy about how they can apply to College of the Ozarks. When the students weren’t working, they explored Quito, trekked through the Cavernas de Jumandy, the second largest cave system in Ecuador and attended church in Misahuallí.