Bringing in the New Year

2009 was a good year. During its 365 days there where some lows and highs. Though these lows where difficult they also where helpful and life changing. It is amazing how the Lord uses the lows to prepare for the high times. Overall He seems to follow the verses in Isaiah 40:4-5 "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it".

God uses our weakness to keep us from getting proud about our strengths and uses our strengthens to overcome our weaknesses. Though this year started out with times of weakness it has been able to end in ways that bring great glory to God. It seems that that is His goal Hgains glory.

The year started off with our new friends arriving from America. They started out the year totally dependant, and the Lord has used that do build their dependance on Him. Our own family started the year with dealing with our own spiritual weaknesses, but where allowed by God to brake through these areas and move to higher plains.

All these ups and downs have led us out of 2009 and into 2010. Here in Ghana, it is a modern cultural practice for most people to attend church on the New Year. Even people that do not go to church at all during the year attend.

Since seeing the important that people place on this new years time, the Bible Study tries to use it as an opportunity to reach people for the Lord. This year was no different. The annual service started at 8:00 pm. It was kicked off with our normal song service and then Pastor Andrew preached. The people listened well, and by about 9:00 pm most of the people had arrived.

From about 9:00 pm until 11:00 pm we had activities and games. One thing that Christians here do not see is that a Christian can be serious about God, and still have fun. Most people think that the fun is in the world and that the Christian just prays and speaks in tongues (what almost all the 'christian' in Ghana do). Many of them live two lives: the 'spiritual' one of church and the 'fun' one of the world. On these nights were the services are so long, games are added to the schedule so that people can see that it is enjoyable to be a Christian.


The people really enjoyed the game time, and it greatly helped the younger people to stay awake until the later hours. It started off with Bible Drills. Then we split everyone into teams. Each team has an appointed captain. This allows our faithful men to develop leadership skills in a casual way. Then a shoe realy game was played. Each person has to take off their shoes and then they have to put them back on when their number is called. After the shoe game was played the games "Candy Catch" was next. Each time selects two people to throw candy into someones mouth. The pair with the most candy caught wins.

The next game that we played was "Orange Pass". (No, the men are no necking!) All the men in each group where lined up then they where given an orange for each team. The rules where such that they had to pass the orange from person to person only using their necks to hold the orange. This was a great game, everyone was laughing and almost rolling on the floor.
After passing the oranges around, each team picked one person to play the next game. The next game consisted of drink all the liquid out of an unripened lemon. (For those that have never seen a African lemon, they are very big, and very sore). It was hilarious to watch the guys as they tried to drink the juice from their lemons.

The final game that was played was broom hockey. Now do not think that when the term broom is used that it refers to the classic American style broom. This word refers to something totally different here. The local brooms of Ghana, are hard, dry grass stems. They are about two feet in length and are tied at one end with a string. These local broom are used every where and are very cheap. They make excellent paying sticks for our game. Also the girls are better at using them then the boys, so this gives them an advantage that they do not normally have when playing active games.
After about 1 hour of hard fought play, there was a winner, and everyone was ready to sit down for a while. After the games we sang a few songs and then had are second time of preaching. I preached using the flannel graph pictures that the Bible study has. The passage was found in Acts. I preached about the time when Paul had preached the gospel to the people of Corinth. After their conversion, many of them burned idols and items in their homes that did not please the Lord. I encourage them to remove things in their life that would not please God. Though many of them where saved, they would not truly experience freedom in Christ until these items, influences, and idols where removed.

One older custom in the Akan culture was able to be used during our Watch Night service, that went along very well with our preaching. In the older days around the Akan new year the people would clean out their homes. During this time they would remove all old clothes, broken things, and anything that would make the people of the home dirty. These items would be taken outside and burned. Even today, on the 31st night a person can see many people burning tires and house items. On the 31st I used this idea to help with the preaching. Each person was given a piece of paper (since some of our people cannot write, we did not ask them to write on it). They where told to think of physical things and spiritual things in their lives that did not please God, and told to tell God that they would remove them. Like the people of Corinth, they where to burn them (the paper was given to represent these things that offend). It was excite to watch as the people seriously thought and one by one placed their papers in the fire.

After most everyone burned their papers, the adults where allowed to give testimony. It was so encouraging to hear some many tell about their new faith in Christ. Even one woman, gave testimony about the great change she has seen in her husband (He is a security guard and could not attend, and she is not yet converted). After each adult gave testimony, each person prayed in the new year.

The light of that fire was so warm and inviting (it was kind of cold that night, in African terms). It was such a blessing to experience that close family spirit that only comes with a group of true believers. Though the year had its low times, we each know that it has been preparation for this wonderful high time that ended 2009.