Cry Africa Team
Cry Africa – Team Leader
Dr. Emily Johns (South Africa)
Emily has served in South Africa for 21 years and is an HIV/AIDS education specialist. She currently serves as Team Leader for the Cry Africa Continental Task Force. In this role she works to facilitate a practitioner’s network and HIV/AIDS ministry and education in Assemblies of God Bible colleges, local churches and rural communities throughout the continent. Her doctorate (PhD Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University) involved the design and implementation of an HIV/AIDS curriculum for teaching South African pastors about HIV/AIDS. The course has been field tested several times with excellent results. In addition, she serves as adjunct education faculty for Global School of Theology/NW, Cape Theological Seminary and Global University (USA).
Cry Africa Central Africa Representative
Suzanne Hurst (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Suzanne has lived and worked in Africa for almost 20 years. She is a registered nurse and is presently working on her Master’s in Public Health (MPH) through Johns Hopkins University. Suzanne’s focus is on grassroots, local church initiatives. As part of her work, Suzanne is helping local churches evaluate how they can become involved in HIV/AIDS education and ministry. In addition, she works with local churches in training church members how to effectively respond to their community’s needs. She has been active in developing, and subsequently teaching, a course on transformational development, with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS response, for African Bible schools. She is fluent in English, French and Lingala.
Cry Africa East Africa Representative
Aaron Santmyire (Madagascar)
Aaron is a graduate of Southeastern University with a BA in missions and a graduate of Graceland University with a BSN and a MSN. He is a Family Nurse Practitioner (C-FNP) and is currently working on his doctorate of Nursing Practice through West Virginia University. Aaron lived in Burkina Faso for four years and worked in HIV/AIDS education. Presently, he is finishing four years of residence on the island of Madagascar. In Madagascar, his work has included the use of a mobile clinic as an evangelistic tool to share the love of Christ while bringing health care to those who need it. In addition, he teaches a general healthcare course at the local Assemblies of God Bible college. One trimester of this course is specifically focused on HIV/AIDS. He also travels for the Madagascar church teaching about HIV/AIDS through the presentation of a flip chart and encourages churches in their Christian response to those who are suffering with the disease.
U.S. Office Representative
Don Tucker (Springfield, MO – USA)
Don is a career missionary with the Assemblies of God. He served for 15 years as a resident missionary in Burkina Faso, West Africa and is now director of Africa AG Care (AAGC). AAGC is designed and commissioned to maximize compassionate relief and development activities in Africa through the various Assemblies of God entities, including Cry Africa. AAGC hosts the stateside office for Cry Africa.
Don is the creator and author of Edward Elephant says Help Stamp Out AIDS, a comic book format HIV/AIDS awareness tool for children and teens. Edward Elephant has found broad distribution across the African continent and in other countries as well. Several million copies have been produced and it has been translated into multiple languages. He is also the author of HIV and Life Positive, a work originally commissioned by the International Bible Society. In addition, Don and his wife, Debra, are the founders of Africa’s Children, the childcare agency of the Assemblies of God in Africa. Don also serves as the Executive Secretary for the Africa Assemblies of God Alliance (AAGA) a fraternal association of all Assemblies of God organizations in Africa. In this role he has been able to serve as a spokesman and advocate for a stronger emphasis on responding to the pandemic through the churches of Africa.
Cry Africa National Representative
Kwame Wumbee (Ghana)
Joseph Kwame Wumbee is a Development Administrator and Executive Director of Assemblies of God Relief and Development Services (AGREDS-Ghana), the relief and development department of the General Council of the Assemblies of God/ Ghana. He has over 26 years of experience in the management and coordination of various development programmes and projects in Ghana.
As the Executive Director of AGREDS, he has led a team of multidisciplinary professionals for the last 20 years to undertake several initiatives within the fields of education, health, HIV/AIDS, child sponsorship, street children, child trafficking, rural and community integrated development throughout Ghana. Under his leadership, AGREDS has grown from a very small organization with 15 employees to 195 today. It has pioneered some of the leading initiatives in the management of domestic, as well as international, disaster and relief efforts including work with Liberian and Togolese refugees in Ghana.
Kwame is also the Executive Director of AG CARE, the Relief and Development arm of the Africa Assemblies of God Alliance (AAGA).
He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Economics from the University of Ghana (Legon) and holds a Masters Degree in Politics of Alternative Development Strategies from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands.