"From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised."
Last week, l had the opportunity of being invited by the area head of the Church of Pentecost, the largest Pentecostal Church in Ghana to speak at a pastors retreat .The area comprises 18 district and each of the districts has about an average of ten churches each. This means it was an opportunity to speak to pastors overseeing over 180 local churches. Even though this church had been involved in the first Vision Conference, according to the area apostle, he is not seeing much of what they are doing and as such will like us to energize this pastors into activity.
It was a real success because this apostle who understand what it means to minister wholistically, gave a lot of credence to this ministry and lots of experience from his over 30 years in ministry and requested his ministers to involve us in all their training. Again, he suggested to them that henceforth a committee will be set up to oversee how each district is making these teaching practicable in the districts. Just after the meeting many of these pastors contacted me and we have since been discussing how we can help to incorporate our BASICS into their adult bible study classes and possibly plan some quarterly programs for them.
I and my wife for the past two months have been working on a seed project for the people in our community. We realised that the community is a typical African rural community, and as such basic hygienic practices were lacking. They were drinking all types of polluted water and did not take proper care of the kids especially mothers and as such diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and cholera was rampant.
My wife and l decided how best we can demonstrate God's love for this people who know us very well but sometimes think we don't care so much. My wife being a public health nurse decided that we should organised all the mothers in the community for a seminar on basic hygienic practices. We got some of the people in the community in organizing the people and together with the Presbyterian Church which is the only established church in the community ,the seminar came on last week-end in the community.
Over 48 mothers attended and after giving the introduction speech in which l talked a bit about the Transformation story, God creating us in His own image, the dignity and love He accorded us to be co-creators and the need to live to be a blessing even to our children. My wife in a very compassionate manner talked on Diarrhea and malaria, the causes and preventive measures to stay healthy. Additionally he taught the women on how to take good care of the children especially in cold weather.
After her lectures, questions were asked and the anxiety and excitements amongst these mothers to ask questions and seek for clarifications attested to the fact that many were living in complete ignorance as far as basic health care is concern.
At the end of the seminar, the vote of thanks that was given and handshakes of thanks that we received from the participants drew tears from my eyes, indeed each of us can contribute something, however little as a demonstration of God's love to our communities. |
