Letter from Kwame April 1, 2014
Our dear friends in the Lord,
It’s a pleasure to write you about our recent Half Assini trip. Having talked to both Tory and Dave, we hope that the good Lord is still keeping all of you in good health, blessing all of you also spiritually in the name of Jesus. Since my last trip with Tory as you all know, I haven’t had a chance to get back on the road and I really thank God for this safe trip and thank you all for your prayers.
On the trip to Half Assini, it was me (Kwame), Ebenezer (my younger brother who has replaced Richard) and our dear brother from the City Team called Daniel Beahai. For the first time Daniel had the opportunity to visit just a little portion of the vast remote areas blessed with the talking Bibles. I must confess also that being Daniel’s first trip he fell in love with the people of Half Assini and the suburbs, he even called the place his very hometown. He was amazed how he got along with the people so easily. On this trip Daniel took advantage and brought with him what Tory and Dave call “the treasure of the trip” (being photos and videos of the indigenous people) to show the City Team.
We left Accra at 10pm on Tuesday the 18th and arrived at dawn of Wednesday 19th. We didn’t inform the people at Half Assini on the night we we traveled because for some reason City Team was unreliable and their West African director Mustapha Sandi was training in both the Northern and Ashanti regions of Ghana and so since Daniel works with the City Team and is a full time employer we had to wait until he was through with their training. We planned initially to train at Old Edobo near Half Assini but after considering the number of brothers who live at Nzimtienu, Manjian, Effasu and the rest, it was necessary to host the training at Nzimtienu even though its further west of Half Assini almost to the border of Ivory Coast whereas Old Edobo is East of Half Assini.
We consulted our brother Ezoah who have helped us on so many occasions. Ezoah is a good man and sells coconut. On the other hand, as far as Daniel was concerned, there was a language barrier and I do not speak Nzema so we contacted the few educated Christians and brother Edmund 5 other men who can be trained and expect them also to train the other people in the villages. On the first day, there was a funeral in the village and Daniel, testing our dear brothers of their knowledge about where Christians and pagans go after death raised other questions and the confusion was clear to notice. I realized how we need to really train our brothers and also teach and help them separate the truth in the Bible from what the culture has taught them and also obey what the Bible says. Our dear brothers besides Edmond said a Christian can go to hell if he or she failed to obey God’s commandment and also a pagan or an idolator can also go to heaven if he or she does not wrong anyone.
Even though we are very much aware of the freedom and the special protection given us by our Lord Jesus Christ, we move through these places with the Light of God, we also want you to be aware that idolatry and witchcraft is a big thing in the Nzema land. I don’t mean to conclude that there isn’t any church organization helping to change this area through the Word of God but I cannot mention any except those catholic church and the various churches. There are also many churches there in the land of the Nzema. On the second day of our training I interviewed three your teenagers and as young as they are they claim they enjoy not belonging to any church which will eventually call their family witches. This means that many families have been accused of witchcraft even though it’s a common thing there. Many churches in Ghana are taking advantage of Christians and causing confusion. Yes, there is witchcraft, but we believe God has reserved some people there at Half Assini and those suburbs we have brought talking Bibles to and the Gospel will reach them all soon.
Daniel and I realized the need to first correct so many things by the scriptures before any of our men can set out to train and make disciples for God. First of all there is the need to promote group studies often, even if they can meet and read and listen to the scriptures twice a week. Without uniting all of these men in the Lord, it will be very difficult to even train and this same method should be used in all the other villages or regions. We are also challenged as far as the languages go and we cannot use the City Team where a majority of the people can’t speak twi. Also, we can’t translate twice what David will say which is, I translate to twi for my the man who will also translate from twi to the language of the people. I haven’t asked Daniel of the materials he will use but I still have a training which Tory received from “Faith Comes by Hearing” and I will study that one well and then break it down into twi which I will use for my training. I also believe Tory has some materials from the City Team which I will compare to the training. We can’t think of a village where many speak English like half assini and I have talked to Daniel who is available for now.
The four days in Half Assini were spent on discussions about salvation which is equally important and Daniel did not really start the training. Brother Edmond is a good Christian and willing to bring together all the Christians and making a place for them to meet. We met in a Catholic church which is still under construction and the men we met with feared we were being spied on and that the elders there might think we are forming a new church. For now we will focus on the training of our dear friends and also make sure the other Bibles are in good shape or condition. Please consider the following language if you want to add more Bibles, Dangme, Dagaari and Ashanti. If we can afford 12 Bibles we need 6 Twi, 2 Dagaari and 4 Dangme and for 20 Bibles we need 10 Twil 8 Dangme and 2 Dagaari. Prices of gas has really increased as well as hotel as well as other expenses. We wish we could stay in Half Assini for a week but it was expensive and the money we were given for this trip was given to us back in November. Having talked to David about this, we both suggested the need to start asking the villagers to provide us a place where we can spend the night and pay 15 dollars instead of the 50 dollars a night we paid for two rooms for a night in Half Assini. We spent the entire budget because we were eating from the hotel, buying fuel to bring our brothers from their various homes, and food.
I have talked to brother Daniel and the next trip should begin sometime this weekend. We plan also to visit not only Half Assini but the rest of the villages in the western region and ask Paul and Heartwill to travel back home and bring their trip to an end for the month. Our budget has really changed for both team and we will send a separate email when we sit with Paul and Heartwill . May the good Lord bless you all and never cease praying.
Kwame and Ebenezer.