Dayton UMC Ghana 2012 Church Planting Mission: Traveling blues...

Friday, February 17, 2012

Traveling blues...

The first 24 hours was mostly sitting on planes or sitting in airports or standing in lines or... you get the idea. Tired and stiff, we arrived safely at the mission house in Kumasi. Stella and her team of cooks had a great meal prepared for us. Then devotions, plans and prayers. Power has only gone off twice!

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The Mission in Ghana Continues

For the fifth consecutive year, a team from Dayton United Methodist Church joins our missionary partners in Ghana, West Africa for outreach in rural areas of the Ashanti region. This year’s trip takes place from February 16 through February 29 in the villages of Ayensua Fufuo and Obuasi in the Offinso Circuit of the Kumasi Diocese. You can keep track of our progress as we populate this blog with stories and photos of our ongoing work. Please visit as often as you can to follow our adventures as they unfold. As always, your prayers are cherished.

The main goal of the trip is to introduce the people in the villages to Jesus and offer them the opportunity to receive salvation. Our partner in ministry, Joseph Otsin, an evangelist and church planter for the Methodist Church Ghana has already been working to start a small congregation and to train a lay pastor before our team’s arrival. Together with this congregation, Joseph, and the Methodist Church of the Kumasi Diocese, our team plans to participate in evangelistic outreach in the villages. New believers will be encouraged to become involved in the newly formed churches where they can grow as disciples of Jesus

Our team will also partner with our friend Dr. Cameron Gongwer, a medical and public health missionary who has served with the Mission Society in Ghana for the past 12 years. Cam’s brother Curtis, also a physician, will join us. With two physicians and support people to assist them, the medical outreach promises to make a significant impact. Cam has worked to coordinate our clinics with the hospital that is closest to the villages. With this partnership, we will set up screening for malaria, and for anemia and malnutrition, especially among children. The goal in the medical clinics is to receive every person who comes, diagnose and treat their ailments and share with them the love of Jesus.

When evangelist Joseph Otsin visited our congregation last September, he highlighted the need for water wells in many of the smaller villages in Ghana. On our past trips, our work was not centered in areas where drinking water must be obtained from creeks and streams. Surface water in Africa typically harbors disease and parasites. Joseph asked us to accept the challenge of providing clean water to one or more remote villages this year as a part of our outreach. Senior Pastor Mike Dominick challenged the church to give a birthday gift to Jesus this Christmas in the form of water wells for Ghana. Our congregation responded generously with more than enough funding to pay for drilling bore holes and the installation of six well pumps in communities currently lacking access to safe drinking water. We will have the opportunity to visit at least some of these villages where construction is under way or to participate in the dedication. We look forward to sharing with the villagers who will receive them.

Pastor Austin Bender from Dayton UMC will accompany the team again this year. Austin plans to focus on outreach with children and young people in the villages. Austin and his team of “kid people” from Dayton are looking forward to working alongside Anne and Caylor Gongwer, who are also joining the team. Cam’s wife and daughter, Anne and Caylor have also lived and worked among Ghanaian children for the past 12 years. We are hoping to learning from them new and culturally appropriate ways to reach out to the village children with the Gospel of Christ. The Gongwers plan to bring two of their Ghanaian colleagues to work along side us in ministry. The team from Dayton is looking forward to meeting them and partnering in ministry.

Members of our team will also be involved in the construction of a worship pavilion for the Methodist church in Nkankom. Our team members will join our friend Ghanaian carpenter Yeboah and his crew. We have worked with these men in the construction of four church shelters to date.

The first Sunday in Ghana, the team will divide up and travel to as many as possible of the nine congregations in the area with whom we worked in past years. We look forward to reconnecting with friends while sharing in worship and the Word with the members of these young churches. During the second Sunday, the team will attend the inaugural service of the two new churches planted during this year’s outreach.

A Little Bit of History about Dayton UMC Missions in Ghana

Our mission outreach in Ghana began in 2006 when Pastor John Walls lead a team from Dayton United Methodist Church to support the work of Dr. Cameron Gongwer and his wife Anne at the hospital and library in Ankaase, Ghana. Pastor John and our congregation began asking the Lord for an opportunity to partner with someone from the Methodist Church in Ghana to bring the unreached to Christ. We asked the Lord to lead Pastor John to someone who is making an impact for the Kingdom of Heaven that we could assist and support on an ongoing basis. God was faithful and arranged for Pastor John to meet Joseph Otsin. Joseph, and his wife Stella are both ordained by the Methodist Church of Ghana. They have been given the task of carrying the good news throughout Ghana, with a focus on the Ashanti region.

The Otsin’s ministry operates on an annual cycle. Joseph works with his Bishop to identify communities that they believe are ready to receive the Gospel. He then goes into the communities and begins to prepare the way. Joseph locates individuals who can become the core of a new congregation and from this group selects one or two individuals for additional training, which Joseph conducts as part of his ministry. Eventually one of these people is selected as the “caretaker” or lay pastor of the new church.

Joseph and Stella partner with evangelists and local churches from the United States and coordinate with the Methodist Church in Ghana to facilitate revival style meetings in rural villages and newly developed suburban areas. The new believers who receive Christ at these meetings are introduced to their lay pastor and are organized into a new congregation. The lay pastor is given a bicycle, a study Bible, and discipleship training materials to help him or her begin leading the church. The new church becomes a part of the local circuit and a member church of the local diocese of the Methodist Church of Ghana. Later, as the church grows, Joseph may be able to bring a team of workers to help the congregation construct a worship pavilion.

In 2008, Glenn and Sue Meiser, serving as vanguards for Dayton UMC, joined a team of evangelists heading to Ghana and lead by Cecil Williamson. During that trip, eleven new churches were planted and thousands of people came to faith in Christ. The Meisers watched and learned as much as they could and began planning to return to Ghana with teams from the church in Dayton. They remained after the Williamson Crusades concluded to help construct a worship Pavilion for the church at Atwima Mim.

The Meisers returned to Ghana in 2009 with one Spirit lead couple joining them. During that trip, two churches were planted and hundreds of people came to faith in Christ. That year, we began to include outreach to children as part of the daytime activities. We held medical clinics with the help of Ghanaian nurses, and helped to put a roof over a Methodist congregation. We also worshiped with our friends in Atwima Mim and with the two newly planted churches. (See our blog at dumcghana2009.blogspot.com)

We returned in 2010 with a team of nine that included our new senior Pastor, Mike Dominick. The 2010 team was able to expand our ministry and outreach in every area. We participated in evangelistic events, medical missions, children’s ministry, and pavilion construction. Pastor Mike also preached at an interdenominational prayer meeting and at a camp meeting attended by all of the Methodist congregations in the Kumasi area. Members of the team worshiped with the newly planted churches as well as with those with whom we worked during the two previous years. (See our blog at dumcghana2010.blogspot.com)

During the 2011 outreach, our team helped two small congregations reach their neighbors for Christ by providing extensive medical clinics, children’s ministry, children’s ministry training, pavilion construction, Gospel presentations during the daytime medical clinics and during evening evangelism events in the two villages. Team members were able to attend worship services with our friends who comprise six different Methodist congregations in the rural areas of the Kumasi Diocese. (See our blog at dumcghana2011.blogspot.com)

Dayton UMC Ghana 2012 Church Planting Mission

Friday, February 17, 2012

Traveling blues...

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