I knew that Pastor Mash and his team were church planters long before I lost sight of the American coastline on the flight to Ghana. But there was this religion, animism, that was totally foreign to me. I kept thinking I had heard the word before I arrived in Accra, but if I had it was only once and then it had not remained in my mind with any longstanding interpretation as to what it meant.
Mash had been an animist and as I was to learn, he had the physical scars to prove it along with a pre-Christ history of personal torment. Now he was my brother in the Lord, saved by God’s grace and witnessing with immense joy to the reality of the cross. On my first night there we were praising God only as Africans can in a small white-walled building just outside the capital. I remember calling my husband after worship ended saying, “I’ve already been so blessed I could come home right now, but if it’s okay I’m going to stay a while longer.”
I did. The church plant in M. was only the beginning. God was about to serve a spiritual feast that would include giving me the high privilege of opening His Word in four locations throughout this West African nation. I had prepared well in advance, through prayer and long-distance fasting with Mash. My notes referenced Scripture linked to the themes of hope, finding our strength in God, contentment and what it means to be His child. I felt I was ready to join this team, but I never once lost sight of realizing how incredible it was that God would count me worthy.
Besides Mash who was the team’s leader, there was Pastor Christian who had oversight for the church plants in the south. Pastor Reynolds assumed leadership in the north and under his tutelage was Pastor Obed. Ah, Obed. We sat and talked one entire afternoon, just the two of us. Obed told me how he came to know Christ and how his family had attempted to kill him once they learned of his conversion. Miraculously God led him to a home filled with Christians where he vomited his poisoned food. Today Obed mentors Pastor Paul, the one who was to receive the Bible I had brought with me to leave behind in Africa. Had I known how difficult Bibles were to come by for this discipleship team, I would have brought suitcases filled with them. Instead, I distributed salvation tracts knowing that every one of them would be put to use.
Other members of the team included Shirley and Ebenezer. Shirley cooked for us, and we quickly bonded as women. Ebenezer drove and how he could drive! He totally took his responsibilities as a sacred assignment, but I could never do what he did. Our van went around large dead trees where there was no road and through a rainstorm that had everyone inside our vehicle praying for God’s deliverance and safe arrival. More than once Ebenezer circumvented large crowds of citizens on the streets of Kumasi and Accra. Everywhere we went, he cradled young children as though they were his own.
Early in the week we traveled to Kakum National Park and while we first thought we had arrived too late to do the ‘ropes course,’ God had arranged for a guide to accompany us after the park had closed for the day. We crossed seven spans of a threadlike bridge built 130 feet off the ground and just over a thousand feet in length. It was our time to come together as a team before a journey that would take us to the remotely-located villages of D., V. and K. I was struck by the close bond that we developed for each other and how quickly it had happened. Only a few days later I was to say good-bye to my friends and end with this parting sentence, “I love you all.”
But for now, we had work to do and the Kingdom to contribute to in D. where we arrived late the next afternoon. As people gathered around us, I was reminded of the American church phrase, small groups. I watched as these believers temporarily set aside their sweeping, cooking and visiting in order to come and listen to any page and chapter we were led to open in God’s Word. When darkness arrived darker than any night sky I had ever experienced, we gathered on an open space with no light except for what was coming from my tiny flashlight. It was all I needed to read Scripture and my notes. The power in God’s Name overwhelmed me because I knew I was the instrument but it was God, totally God, who was speaking the words.
Afterwards, Mash and Reynolds asked the people to come forward for prayer. I did not hesitate when Mash asked me to place my hands on their shoulders and pray for them, but I do remember having a moment where that request seemed extraordinary. When we left the village the children ran after the van, and a believer on a motorcycle led us out to the main road. But it was really God on that motorcycle, just like it was really God earlier when I spoke and had prayed.
Animism had been the religion of the people in each of the four villages where we served. It is a belief system containing fragments of voodoo and faith in the earthly elements of creation, rather than in our Creator. As I watched Mash and his Ghanaian team reach these people with the gospel, I could see just effective they were. No foreign church team could ever make the eternal impact that I was witnessing. There was no time to waste – only souls to reach with the Good News, even as another religion was in the area and in combat for them.
It was so hot in the Northern Region that my traveling companions commented on it. I made the remark that once we returned to Accra in the south it would be like being in Alaska in the winter. They all laughed. No one had a heat stroke, although when we first arrived I think I came close.
We made our way to V. late in the day and night was soon upon us. While we were there, I remember that two size-D batteries were replaced in the only available lantern. Once again I was thankful for my tiny flashlight. All I could make out as I looked forward were the distinct outlines of physical shoulders. When worship was over, Ebenezer brought the van closer to where we were ministering saying that the pigs had probably already eaten most of the snakes. All was well, and the stars in the sky were tiny but I was sure they were giving off sparkles like no others anywhere else on the planet that night.
Sunday arrived and before leaving Bole we stopped for snacks to take to the children and teenagers who would be waiting at K. When we arrived, God’s love was poured out on us with former animists jumping, waving and shouting our arrival. It was quite a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Worship began with our brothers and sisters dancing and leaping under an open-air thatched roof supported by skinny poles that had been stripped of their bark. They asked me to join them, and I did. I had some difficulty getting started, but half-way down the dance floor I was into the rhythm. The sound of the konka drums continued until they went silent and became my pulpit later in the morning.
I had two translators that Sunday in a worship service overflowing with enthusiasm for the great and glorious God we all serve. All the while we stood under the flat roof that kept our skin from being scorched. I spoke from Psalm 119, Deuteronomy 5 & 6 and I Corinthians 3. I challenged worldviews and suggested to those listening that they talk about the message after they returned home. Later I was asked to pray for the pastors in the adjoining villages, men who were being mentored by Pastor Mash and his team and who had walked some distance to join us. I was gripped by the reality of the moment. In the middle of an isolated place that God had created and knew existed, He was asking me to bring encouragement to these men. I remember praying with them for a long time and urged them to meet often for fellowship, that in doing so they would find the strength and endurance to continue with the work of the Kingdom.
We left the next day for an orphanage where in the midst of despair there was a bundle of love contained in a room filled with colorfully woven mats. Caring relatives sat on them holding their newly-acquired, beautiful children. In Ghana if you are the first relative to touch the corpse of a mother, you are signaling your desire to assume parental responsibility. Not all the children present had caring relatives. In the afternoon, we took school supplies to other children waiting in another village.
We ate our meals outdoors and inside. Our bond was growing firmer still as we laughed together and often prayed together. We had come to understand that God was even greater than we had known Him to be before we had begun the journey in the blue Toyota van. The time was passing quickly, almost prematurely our days together were coming to an end. We sang, “I Can Only Imagine,” as we traveled the last kilometers back to Accra with each of us realizing that the song was sure to cause our eyes to water the next time we heard it.
