Our goal is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many communities as possible on each of our mission trips. We prioritize villages that have not been reached with the love of Jesus Christ. We tell the stories and parables of Jesus to as many people as possible in each village. The first milestone was the number of people who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The second milestone was the number of people baptized. For example, we baptized eighty-one people in 2003. Almost one hundred and fifty people were by the riverside to watch those baptisms! The third milestone was the number of people worshipping together in one faith community. The growing faith community in turn began to ask for a place to worship. It was usually when we had a thriving and growing faith community that we decided to build a church.
We targeted the Mamprusi Tribe who are located in the African bush of northern Ghana. Our partnering church in Ghana wanted to reach the Mamprusi. I’ve grown to love the Mamprusi. They have a strong sense of family. They are hard working and are open to the gospel. It also feels like we’ve traveled hundreds of years back in time in some of the villages. The Ghanaian people overall are wonderful people who have endured great hardships and are open to God.
Ghana is a majority Christian nation with most of the Christians in the southern one-half of the country. The Christian denominations place most of their efforts expanding and growing in the south. Kumasi is the heart of the Ghana Methodist Church. We wanted to go where it was fairly rare for Christian mission teams to reach due to the hardships of travel and communication.
Some of the Ghanaians in the south have a fear of and a bias against the people of the north. In addition, a potential pastor from the north is usually taken south for seminary or training and usually stay in the affluent south after receiving their training. Other Tribes: We’ve also worked with the Ashanti tribe near Kumasi, and other tribes near Tamale, Sunyani and Bolgatanga.
I became an international mission team leader in 2005 after God’s call for me to return to Ghana. We’ve had different people and churches represented on each mission trip to Ghana with a few people able to join the team several times. The average size for a team is three to six people. The average length of a mission trip is two weeks. The short-term mission teams work with the churches in Ghana to keep the work going year round. The teams include laity and clergy. The team members have ranged in age from 25 to 73 years old. Previously, I led local and regional mission teams in the USA to Henry Fork Service Center & the Gulf Coast.
Teamwork: United in Christ in the USA
I was a member of an independent mission team in 2003 to Ghana. As a result, all of the mission teams have people of faith from all denominations. We are united in Christ across churches in the United States. Redwood United Methodist Church is my home church near Rocky Mount, Virginia. Redwood UMC is also part of “All Things New.” We have team members throughout the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church and as far south as Georgia. We’ve had several Baptist team members. The U.S. churches with team members usually contribute to the effort to build the faith communities.
I am the pastor at New Hope United Methodist Church in Callaway, Virginia. They are also supportive of the effort in Ghana. We’ve also had churches contribute for Bibles, food, or church construction that just heard the need and opened their hearts. New Song Community Church, an independent church near Atlanta, Georgia built the foundation and walls for the church in Nabari. We raised money for the roof, benches, stucco, windows, doors and floor to finish the Nabari church. The New Song Community Church pastor joined me on one of the mission trips.
Our Other Partners: We do a lot of humanitarian work with the Rotary Foundation to provide clean water so we have Rotarians also on the mission teams. We’ve also partnered with the Carter Center, Ghana Health Services, and Project C.U.R.E. to dig wells, supply the Tamale Teaching Hospital and Tamale Eye Clinic.
Teamwork: United in Christ in Ghana
We work with an independent church called Come Preach Christ Church in Kumasi, Ghana with a vision to start faith communities in the West Mamprusi District of the Northern Region of Ghana. Come Preach Christ Church targeted a different tribe (Mamprusi) with a different language (Mampruli). The Ashanti tribe speaks the language of Twi in Kumasi.
We’ve also preached with Rev. Emmanuel Atia, an Assembly of God pastor in Bolgatanga, Ghana in the Upper East Region. Pastor Atia believes in connecting a new church plant to the nearest church regardless of denomination. The neighboring pastor will serve as the interpreter for the revival and mentor for the new faith community. We edify that pastor and neighboring church during our revival even for churches of other denominations. Other local pastors have joined us to interpret for revivals or worship with us. We worked with willing partners since the Methodist presence in northern Ghana is small.
In 1999, I read the scripture from Luke 12:48b “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” God blessed me with my wife, Susan, and our four children. I began by praying to God what he asked in return.
God’s first answer to my prayer of what was demanded from me was my first mission trip in September 2003 to West Africa. I am the Pastor of New Hope UMC in Callaway, Virginia since November 2008. New Hope UMC is a thirty-five member church. We just dedicated an activity hall in December 2010. I am a licensed local pastor. I was a member of the Virginia Conference Board of Missions for many years. I am very active in missions locally, regionally, and internationally. I am also a very in the Rocky Mount, VA Rotary Club.
We identified spiritual lay leaders in each village who would lead their people in the study of the Bible and worship of God. Some of these leaders are sons of the chief. One is the son of the Juju Priestess or head witch doctor. All are willing servants of God.
Each village needed to have an organized set of spiritual leaders with a local lay pastor, associate pastor, Sunday school teachers, and a treasurer. We accomplished this goal by providing the written word with a few English Bibles and many Mampruli Bibles and explaining the need to serve God out of thanksgiving. We evangelized using the words of Jesus about sowing seeds and being the good shepherd.
Men and women of faith care for the people of the villages after the short-term mission teams go back home. Also, Kofi Boakye from Come Preach Christ Church is a loyal and faithful leader who oversees a lot of the construction of the churches. Many of these people had to deal with leaving witchcraft or the Muslim faith.
All of the spiritual lay leaders are “tent makers” like the Apostle Paul. They are farmers primarily with one school principal and one chief. We provide some support with a possible purchase of a bicycle or donkey to enable them to get to worship services. We repaired one pastor’s eye glasses so he could read his Bible. The local lay pastors did not have a regular salary from the U.S. churches.
We encourage and edify the local leaders. We preach with faith and boldness. God shares his power, grace and love with the new faith community.
I met with the Bishop of the Ghana Methodist Church and the District Superintendent of the Northern regions of Ghana in 2007. Those meetings were not very productive. The district superintendent was very discouraged. His wife had malaria. He said that the mission funds of the Methodist Church did not reach to the far north of Ghana. The Bishop was nice, but not interested in building new faith communities in the north.
In August 2010, our pastors and associate pastors met with me. They asked me how their churches could become Methodist as well. I didn’t know how easy it would be for the Methodist Church to reach to the “African bush.”
Fortunately, we made a contact with Mary Kay Jackson, a full-time missionary from Georgia at the same time we met the Bishop in 2007. Our first connection was to promote a Ghana Methodist Water Project as an Advanced Special endorsed by the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Mary Kay Jackson made the connection with the new district superintendent for northern Ghana. She is now helping to get our churches to be “adopted” by the Ghana Methodist Church.
Mary Kay Jackson also made the connection to the St. Louis United Methodist Church who wanted to preach in the African bush. The St. Louis Methodist Church preached in our churches and baptized a few people. The new district superintendent came for the services and baptisms. The names of 143 people baptized were added to Methodist rolls. A district superintendent likes to add names to the rolls! Adding the four to six churches to the Ghana Methodist Church will be a blessing.
We were able to buy Mampruli Bibles that had been translated for the first time into the Mampruli language in 2003 by Wycliffe. We learned how precious the Bible was on our mission trips to Ghana. We had the opportunity to give out and see the excitement for a brand new translation of the Bible. We purchased cases of Bibles for each village where we preached.
We purchased as many Bibles as we could afford. The Bibles were usually given to the chief, elders, and the parents of the village. The first thing that the parents did was to give the Bibles to their children. I asked a parent why they gave the Bible away. The parent said “The Bible is the greatest gift that I can give to my child.”
We gave additional Bibles for the active members of the faith community who did not get Bibles during the earlier trips. We also tried to find a way for each household to receive a Bible. We also would ask them to bring Bibles to worship services and Sunday school. We also would refer to John 1 or John 3 during a worship service and give them time to turn in the Bible to the scripture. The faith community did more than we could ever do to explain how precious God’s written word is to his people.
We provided study Bibles for a few key pastors. We also gave English language Bibles to a few of the teenagers who wanted to read the Bible in English. The Good News English and the King James Bibles are the translations that can be purchased within Ghana. We also purchased other local language Bibles when were worked with other tribes.
We shared the love of Jesus Christ to provide the basics of our faith with the goal of Christian conversion and discipleship. We preached on grace, faith, salvation, Jesus Christ, and prayer. We preached on the basic tenants of our faith.
I used the Faith Sharing New Testament with the Psalms (NRSV) published by Cokesbury and organized by the World Evangelism and World Methodist Council.
The front of the Faith Sharing New Testament has a lot of wonderful sermon topics with corresponding scriptures. I relied on their suggestions when I was evangelizing for the first time in Ghana. This Bible was sent by my daughter after receiving it at a Virginia United Methodist Conference Youth Retreat.
We usually preached in the open air under a large tree in the villages. The chief and elders of the village would usually sit near the trunk of the tree or under a shelter. The people usually stood or sat in the shade of the tree. The average size crowd for an outdoor worship service would be several hundred people. We used a local translator to translate the sermon from English into Mampruli.
Over time, the local lay pastor would interpret for services for their local faith community. We used the amplification from God to be able to preach to the masses for many services. On some occasions, we had a microphone and sound system. We also would use a generator to power fluorescent lights on four poles which would provide light for night services. Many times we would preach in four or five villages in one day. We even had a mosque announce our worship service one time. I’ve even preached using the light of a kerosene lantern or the light from a head lamp.
We preached wherever we were given the chance to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We planted the seeds of faith and let God do the rest. We were not always sure on the first visit to a new village what kind of reception we would have and whether they would be willing to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Music is an essential part of all worship services in Ghana. A set of steel drums were usually the second contribution to a faith community after Bibles. The drums are essential for singing and dancing in worship. The drums are used to call people together for worship. The children would come running and the parents would follow.
It was easy to find drummers in each village to play the drums and the women would usually lead in the singing. Most of the songs were in the local language. A few praise songs were sung in English, but all of them shared the joy of Jesus Christ. Teenagers are always valuable drummers and singers. It is moving to see teenagers from one villages traveling to a nearby village to sing praises to God.
We usually preach in a new village in the evening after the work is done in the fields and the meal has been prepared. We use fluorescent lights on poles to light up the area and music provided by steel drums to start “drumming up a village.” We’d get permission from the chief to preach in his village. Most revival services would have two or three sermons with music before and after each sermon. The alter call is made by the last evangelist. A prayer of salvation would be done with the group of believers. We pray for anyone needing prayer afterwards.
Parts of a Regular Worship Service
The worship service follows Sunday school. We usually had two or three sermons by our mission team members. The worship service contained a lot of singing and dancing which usually would happen before and after a sermon.
We preached about how to worship God and how to learn about the mysteries of the gospel. We told them to “come every time that the “church doors” were opened. Most of the wisdom about Jesus Christ was given by the gift of the Holy Spirit. People danced to give the offering in a bowl sitting on a table. We preached until we felt the Holy Spirit was ready for us to finish the service.
The women usually carried benches on their heads to the worship service. The children would sit in the dirt as close to the evangelist and local pastor as possible. We would eventually buy additional benches to allow more people to worship together. The faith community in a village may worship for several years under a tree or in a school before we thought about building an actual church. We provided study Bibles or used Sunday school material to assist the local lay pastor.
We’ve baptized by dunking and sprinkling in the villages. I preached in August 2010 about the joy of the lost sheep being baptized in my church of New Hope UMC. That joy turned into a desire for more baptisms in Ghana. As a result, more people are asking to be baptized in 2010 and 2011. I also explained that sprinkling is a common method of baptism in the Methodist Church.
We preach all over Ghana, but my “favorite district” is the West Mamprusi District in the Northern Region. I try to spend several days of each mission trip preaching in the villages of this area. The capital in the West Mamprusi District is Walewale. We preach in each village for a couple of times per trip. We preach about faith, Jesus Christ, prayer, grace and salvation. We also preach about spiritual warfare using Ephesians 6 to explain about the Armor of God. We preach in any village where the chief allows us to preach. We preach in many villages that believed in witchcraft or had a strong Muslim presence.
Initially, the people worship under a tree or at a nearby school when it was raining. We try to encourage worship services to be at the same location each week so that they would worship on Holy Ground. I lovingly call those trees our “preaching trees.” We prayed, preached, and sang in the same place in each village so that we could preach on Holy Ground. Later, we would dedicate and consecrate a church building so that we could preach all the time on Holy Ground. Once, I preached under a tree in Bugiya after the church was built and learned that it is a mistake not preach on Holy Ground. The community of faith always grew on Holy Ground.
The Christian presence was so small in Northern Ghana that all Christians encourage and edify each other. Other denominations build churches in some of our strongest villages, but we were thankful that the village was able to worship in a church. We weren’t as much focused on building “our kingdom” as building the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
My clean water ministry in Ghana takes me from the northeast corner to the southwest corner of Ghana. We are blessed to be welcomed by pastors all over the country to join them on revivals.
We’ve had many chiefs offer land for a church when he saw the faith community growing in his village or a neighboring village. In one village named Sagadugu, the chief would ask me every year if I would walk the boundaries of the land for a church. Every year, I would say no. Finally in 2008, I agreed to walk the boundaries of the land. He showed me the few trees in the bush that would be next to the future church. He had the villagers clear the land for the church. He sent word to me in America that the land was prepared and they were ready to start construction.
In 2007, we distributed 100 kilo bags of maize and rice to villages after a flood. Every chief on that trip offered land for a new church. I told them that our church was there only to bless their village with food to help with the loss of crops in the flood. We just don’t have the financial strength to build churches in every village where a church could grow.
How We Physically Built a Church
We used standard modern Ghanaian building practices to build the new churches. We dug a trench and mixed concrete on the ground to form the foundation. Sometimes, the foundation was poured as a promise that a church would be built in that village in the future. In many cases, we poured the foundation on faith that we would have funds to continue construction next year.
Next, we would make concrete blocks on site which would cure in the West African sun for several days. Most of the lumber for the roof, windows, and doors was transported from Kumasi in the south to the northern village so that we could save money and have stronger rafters.
The concrete, sand, and gravel were usually available locally in Walewale. Our goal was to build the walls and to get the church under roof. At this point, the faith community would have a place to worship out of the rain. It took many years to raise the money to pay for windows and doors for the church.
The local pastor would make the appeal for windows and doors to keep the goats, sheep, and soccer players out of the church. Most of the churches waited another year or two for the funds for the concrete walls to have stucco. The dirt floors were wet down so that the dirt would not be kicked up in worship service. The final piece of construction would be to pour a concrete floor for a church. We built practical churches. They are not fancy. We focused on a reasonably priced building. We tried to size the church building to the potential members from a village.
We also hired tradesmen for the concrete work or to put on the roof. The women would bring water to mix with the bags of concrete. The men would clear the land. The children would gather stones to make the concrete floor stronger. The women would bring the water to mix the concrete. Everyone finds a way to contribute to build the new church. It helped if the church was built in the dry season to get more help from the community. We usually provided food for the workers. Some of the work was done by the mission teams, but most of it was done by the local church members and laborers.
We have built churches in Bugiya, Sagadugu, Diani, and Nabari. We are also repairing a church roof in Bulbia. We are building a sixth church in Sandini paid for by a member of Rocky Mount United Methodist Church this year. I spoke at a UMW Christmas luncheon for that church to tell them how a church can bless a village. We received a donation for a church and a well one week later.
Bugiya is named as a place for Satan. This village had the strongest presence of witchcraft in the entire country. It was a very scary place when we first preached there in 2003. We had an evening service that first year after barely getting permission from the chief of Bugiya. Bugiya has seen the greatest transformation. The youth joined us to sing God’s praises in neighboring villages in 2006. All of the chiefs of the Mamprusi tribe had a group meeting in the church to marvel how a church could be built in such an evil place.
Nabari was probably the most desperate place for us to build a church. New Song Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia started the church construction and gave up after the walls were built. We finished the church. It has blessed that village ever since. The chief of Nabari attended worship in August 2010 for the first time.
Sagadugu is a sentimental village for me because that is the village where I first preached God’s word in Ghana. I’ve seen the pastor and the people grow in their faith. I’ve seen the number of people continue to grow year after year. Sagadugu is sponsoring the new church in Sandini.
Diani is probably the village where the witch doctors gave us the biggest fight. Diani has been a joy as well as a place to be feared before the church was built. The witch doctors told the people that a Christian prayer would kill the people after a woman who regained her sight died of old age about nine months later. Now, the next generation of believers is growing up in that village.
We’ve also preached in many villages that have churches now that are supported by other Ghanaian churches and denominations. We’ve felt very good about edifying strong pastors and churches near a future church plant.
Blessing of a Church in a Village
The blessings are shown in pictures taken over the last eight years. It is amazing the difference God can make in a village. It is obvious to see the words from Deuteronomy 28 come to life. I’ve observed over time the blessings that a church provides for a village. The children would not be starving with extended bellies from hunger. Instead, they would grow taller and stronger. The livestock would be blessed. For example, the hens would have five or six chicks instead of two. The goats would start to have twins. The fields would be blessed. The ears of corn would be bigger and full of more grain. The crops would produce more food. The babies were stronger than babies born before the faith community was formed. These blessings are real, not just words from a prayer.
We will continue to preach and evangelize on mission trips to Ghana. My next mission trip is March 12th. I will continue to tell people about the need to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in West Africa.
We are repairing the roof of the church in Bulbia. The roof was blown off several years ago. The church was built by New Life Church near Atlanta. I had a vision about the church a month ago. I sent Pastor Kofi Boakye to go check on the church and the people worshiping there. He told me that they had over one hundred people still worshiping without a roof. We hope to dedicate the churches in Bulbia and Sandini in March 2011. I am thankful that God has used us to prepare a place for people to worship God. It is my prayer that God will continue to use me. We will continue to go to share the love of Jesus Christ.
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