Everyone has a Story

Every shape, size and color is present. From the ivory white of the Scandinavian to the ebony black of the West African, the jet black hair of the Chinese to the bright red hair of the Irish. People are sharing their stories. Faces are lite up with joy and the bystander can see head nod and eye brow raising and a million other cultural ways of giving agreement.

Language after language is heard, some in the clicking Xhosa, some in flowing French, even others in languages to exotic and rare to be named or described, but each one tells a story.

This last two weeks three stories where added to the ones that all believers will hear someday. Each one might one day be told in a different language: Kasim-Nankana, Nzema, or Asante, but the end will be the same, each person received eternal life.

The first stories main character is a a middle aged Nzema lady named Veronica. Veronica's sons have been attending our Bible study for over a year now, and because of her sons, she decided to attend a few months ago. After attending my wife started the Way of Peace Bible study with her. Veronica seemed to be very interested, and learned very quickly. Though she said that she had a lot of questions, she wanted to wait until the Bible study was completed. She told my wife that she knows from being a teacher, that many times questions will be answered if the student will just listen.

The weeks quickly passed and the truths of salvation began to become clear, but still though Veronica knew that she was as sinner it was hard think about dying and what would happen afterwards. No one naturally wants to think about a subject that for many brings doubt and fear.

This two weeks ago Veronica became sick. At first she thought that it was just a another case of malaria, but after two days it would not go away. Could it be more, she thought, as Wednesday came, the symptoms became worse. She told her husband to just go to work, and that she would stay home and rest. (Her husband is a teacher also). Her oldest son Moses had gone to school already, and her younger two boys where getting ready to go to school when she collapsed on the couch. She could not breath! So matter what she did, the air would not come. She felt the lungs closing, and her chest tightening! The two young boys just began to cry and say, "Mommy, don't die, please don't die!"

Veronica, said that only one thought kept coming to her mind, "If I die, then what!" She said that she prayed to God, "Please God let me live, and I will listen, I want to know how I can know what will happen to mean after death! Please let me live!" Just then as she finished her prayer, her lungs opened and she could breath again.

She told the boys to go to school, and she went off to the hospital. At the hospital they told her that she had typhoid, and gave her the proper medicine. By that Saturday, her strength had returned, and she was ready for my wife's visit.

After one hour of study, Veronica would not let Patty and Emily go. She kept asking question, and then told them the story. She told Patty that no matter how long it took, she wanted to understand that day. So after a few more hours of study, Veronica placed her faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and added her name to the Book of Life.

After some time of rejoicing and prayer. Patty told her to take care of herself, so that she could regain her strength, to this Veronica said, "I want to get better, but I am not worried about death anymore, so even if I don't, I am fine, because now I have peace!"

The second stories main character is a Kasim-Nankana man, that is a brother to one of our converts. He arrived in Kumasi a few months ago to gather enough money to start a farm in the north. His family has the land, but if he is to take care of his elderly mother, he would need to money to buy the seed crop for the farm. For this reason he came to Kumasi to stay with his brother.

Andrew and I knew that we only had a short time to reach him, since he was only planning on staying in Kumasi for four to five months. Bismark his older brother, started to bring him to Bible studies right away. Peter, for this is the name of this young ma, does not speak much Twi, since he is from the north, but luckily for us he speaks semi-fluent English along with his local language. Andrew began English Bible studies with him and worked at braking down the false Tradition and Charismatic teaching that had been filling his mind.

Last week on Friday, our little team made the two or three mile walk to they family shanty, hoping that Peter was around. This morning the Lord was at work, and Peter would be working the evening shift at work, so he was available to talk. Andrew sat with him in the small one room wooden house, as I spoke to his senior brother outside. After about two hours, Andrew and Peter came outside.

Peter is a fairly well built man, much like his brother. They both look like body builders, so when he came out with a child like grin, that a person would she on a young child in the United States at Christmas, I was hopeful. After greeting them, I asked Peter why he was so happy.

This is what he told me. "I am happy this day, cause I know truth now. Before I did not know, that a curse was over me, that I was a sinner, and that I could not brake curse with my own power, but now I knows that Jesus blood has broken this, and paid for my sins. He is my only hope, this is why I am happy."

Pray for Peter has Andrew and I seek to have him taught and baptized before he travels. Also pray for the Lord leading for him and us, after he travels to the north.

The finally story for today centers around an Asanta man named Asamoah. I have written about Asomoah and his accident in past journal entries. It has been almost a month since his accident, and the doctors have told him that he is fine for now. He does have a skull fracture, but the hospital has said that they want to wait for the swelling to reduce before they make any further actions.

This last week Asomaoah's story has had a good chapter added to it. Many people have been telling Asomoah that he has been cursed. That someone cursed his grandfather. They tell the family that the reason that they all drink so much is because of this curse, and until this curse is broken, they will never be free from it power.

Taking this idea, I took Asomoah to the Bible. I showed him that no one has cursed him, but that because of the sins of Adam and Eve, we all have been cursed. That this sin curse is in all of us, and covers and controls everything in this fallen world. I showed him that just like in traditional thought, the Bible says that forgiveness and the braking of this curse can only come through blood.

This teaching seemed to be making ground, but there where times that I was not sure how much his head injury was affecting his memory. But finally after tree weeks, the pieces began to fall in place. On Friday, while some young school children in America where praying for me and Asoamoah (I was told this by the teacher, that they where pray at the same time that I was witnessing)the Lord became to really open Asomoah damaged eyes.

After two hours he eagerly prayed and accepted Christ has his eternal hope. Afterwards I tried to encourage him to tell friends of the decision that he has made.

It is a joy to relive these three story again today, but it will be a greater joy to hear them again someday in heaven.

Complete Spiritual Family

My wife and I have come to another first in our time of ministry here in the new Bible Study. This last week one of the wives of our converts finished our "Way of Peace' Bible study and trusted Christ. With her conversion, this marks the first time in our current ministry that there has been a complete nuclear family that are converts.

Bismark and Matilda have been attending now for about six months. They attend Sunday on a regular basis and my wife and I visit then on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It has been amazing to see how God has worked in their lives. He allowed their son to get sick and almost die, so that they could see the power of God to answered prayer. (I read a book awhile back entitled "Power Quest', that spoke about this topic. The author said that for many Africans to grow in faith, either before they convert or after they will see faith in God tested so that they know God is more powerful they other things). He has allowed Matilda to providentially meet other Christians so that she could help her to see that being poor was not a curse. These things are just a few of the things that God has brought into their paths as they have come to faith in Him.

It is exciting to see a home that has been claimed for the the Lord. Now that they are saved, the next step is Matilda to be baptized (her husband was baptized in December). Also we are encouraged that though Bismark cannot read, each night, his wife reads to him. She has a junior secondary education, and can read basic English. After reading the Bible together they discuss the reading and try to understand it. Please pray that they will continue to follow the Lord. Pray that their son, Benedict will come to understand salvation when he is old enough. Pray that this small one room shanty that they live in, will be a place that God's light shines brightly. Pray that Bismark's younger brother Peter that has come to stay with them will listen and come to Christ.

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.