Graduation

A few weeks ago I attended graduation ceremonies at Good News Theological College and Seminary. Good News is Ghanaian seminary that trains leaders  from African Independent Churches in West Africa.  You can see more about them here.

Among the 16 graduates were two from the Ghana Mennonite Church (GMC).  One was Emelia Amexo, the first woman leader from GMC to graduate with a theological degree.  She was supported in her three years  of study by a grant from Mennonite Women USA.  Emelia is a young woman with much energy and is always willing to lend a hand.  In fact she received one the the Principal’s Awards for her “volunteerism” during her time  at Good News.

Emelia receiving her diploma

Receiving the Principal's Award with members of the Nkwanta Mennonite Church

Below see excerpts from a letter I received from Emelia last week.  She’s been quite busy as you can see.

Dear Pastor Bruce,

I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ who said “As the father sent me, so I send you” as the great commission.

Glory and honour be to God for the wonderful things he is doing in the life of the church especially the Northern Ghana Mennonite Church this year.

I left for Christmas in 2008 to Nkwanta to see the church and my family. I met them in good health and they have just finished with Christmas convention which was so successful, many souls won for Christ.

The church leaders and some few members in total we were twenty people. Some people were from Brewaniase including the Prophet. We took a car from Nkwanta to Kabiti and boarded an engine boat to the village, just as Jonah was on his missionary journey to Nineveh. We were not afraid of capsizing the boat or loosing our lives because Bible says “If you loose your life because of Christ you will gain it back” We saw the eternity of humanity as very important as Jesus said in John 3:36 “He who believe in the son has eternal life”

During the new year, we went on mission trips to so many places in the District. Two places we went to were Mafikope and Kitari (Kabiti area). The church is at Mafikope already but we went there for revival. We revived the church to be on fire for the Lord always. I had the chance to preach the salvation message and souls were won for Christ before we left the town for the whole one week that we stayed there. Three people were baptized and added to the faith. Some await baptism

We also went to Kitari where we had a big crusade and souls were won for Christ. We had 30 people at Kitari who we have used to start the church and the chief also gave the church a land to put up a chapel on it.

Zangbeto

“We’re going where!” our driver asked, as I was explaining our destination on Sunday.  “They shoot at people in that village,” he went on.  We were on our way to Zanzoun, a village known throughout the south of Benin for its lawlessness.  We were going to visit a church that was made up of former thieves and hoodlums.  They have abandoned their life of thieving and fraud in order to follow the narrow road, in order to walk in the way of Christ.

How did this church come to be there?  And how did these brothers and sisters in Christ come to know Jesus?  It all begins with an act of love.

Theophane at the Zanzoun congregation

The village of Zanzoun is know for two things: the predominant role of the “Zangbeto” and the frequent practice of fraudulently selling land.  The Zangbeto institution began many years ago to provide protection of property at night.  They maintained law and order.  If anyone was caught committing a crime, he had to pay a fine.  If he didn’t pay, he would be punished by the Zangbeto.  Over the years, these night watchmen have become the very thieves they were supposed to stop.  They became a force in the community that no one dared to challenge.  The Zangbeto come out in their grass costumes sort of like huge grass skirts that cover them from head to foot, sometimes with horns at the top.  Nowadays, they can even come out in the daytime.  They are accompanied by musicians tapping on their rhythm instruments and followed by laughing, curious children who keep a prudent distance.

In the village of Zanzoun, a group of people has perfected the art of selling land that doesn’t belong to them.  They will bring in an unsuspecting buyer, show him the land, take him to a fake office where he will be given a fake deed to the land in exchange for his very real money.  By the time he figures out that he has bought a useless piece of paper, he can no longer find the people who sold it to him.

One day, some of the key figures of this group went to see some people in a another town, Porto-Novo.  Porto-Novians had come to Zanzoun to share the gospel through an evangelisation effort.  The effort had not been very successful.  Now the people from Zanzoun went to see the evangelists in order to sell them some land.  The chief spokesperson for the group from Zanzoun explained that his father was seriously ill and in the hospital.  He needed to sell some land to pay for his father’s medical bills.  Did the Christian brothers want to buy land?  The Christians  from Porto-Novo responded that they did not want to buy any land.  “However,” they continued, “if you can show us where your father is staying we will go and pray for him.  Then if there are any prescriptions, we would be happy to buy his medications.  We will also help to pay his hospital fees.”

Now, of course, there was no ill father in the hospital, nor were there any hospital bills waiting to be paid.  But the spokesperson from the group was overwhelmed.  How could these brothers offer to pay for his father’s medical bills without getting anything in return?  Perhaps there was something to this gospel message after all.  He was prepared to listen this time.  He decided after listening to their message to give his life to Christ.

After he made the decision for Christ, however, there was a backlash.  The other members of the village were not at all in favor of losing one of their chief actors in their land fraud schemes.  Not only that, but the young man was also a Zangbeto.  He was the brain behind many of their activities.  He could not leave them without a fight.  Even his own father turned against him.  At one point, after he was no longer part of their activities, the gang accused him of land fraud and he went to jail for a number of months.  None of these forms of persecution made him turn his back.  He had decided to follow Jesus.

On Sunday morning, I joined in the small church’s worship.  As I was preaching from Psalm 73 about how people follow after the wicked, a Zangbeto came down the path that passes in front of the church.  Some of the children ran out of the church to watch and follow after the straw-clad figure and his entourage.  “There,” I said, “people follow after the wicked in ignorance, not knowing what lies ahead.”  But for me it is a good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, to tell of all his works.  Everyone smiled; they knew what I was talking about.

Village children upon our arrival

Anabaptists and Christmas

First the Anabaptists.  Last week at this time I was traveling back from Ghana where I met with a group of pastors who are participating in a distance education course on Anabaptist History and Theology.  In Ghana we also relate to the Good News Theological College and Seminary and normally would refer people there for theological education needs.  In this case Ghana Mennonite Church pastors asked for additional guided instruction on Anabaptist history and hence this initiative.  As Mennonite missionaries we believe we have something unique to offer on the subject!

This particular course is offered through the PSDE program of AMBS and looks at a number of the 16th century Anabaptist leaders,  some of their writings and other reflections on what it means to be Mennonite today.  It is meant to be a self-directed study though I correct the homework assignments and provide input and encouragement along the way.  When I  met with the group of 7 pastors this time we talked about Conrad Grebel and discussed how applying Jesus’ teaching in Matt 18:15-17 is or isn’t possible in Ghana today.  There were differences of opinion in the group, but all  agreed that the biggest impediment to practicing discipline in the church is the large number of churches people have to choose from.  Instead of accepting discipline people are more apt to simply leave for another church!

Christmas was special this year because Grandma Frey made the long trip from Waterloo, Ontario to be with us over the holidays.  Jeremiah and Deborah are thrilled to have her here.  Christmas morning brought the usual gift giving activities, though it seemed that there were more gifts under the tree than in other years.  Jeremiah was thrilled to get a new Calvin and Hobbes book and Deborah has been playing with her new Poly Pockets paraphernalia since Christmas morning.

Stepping Between Cultures

On April 29, Bonaventure Akowanou, administrator of the Benin Bible Institute, and I (Nancy) left Toronto at a chilly 6 degrees (42 F) and landed in Cotonou at 9:30 the following evening where it was a balmy 29 degrees (88 F). Traveling between Benin and North America, one is aware of constant contrasts. Aside from the hot/cold divide, there are so many differences between the two places. The longer I live in Benin, the more I find myself feeling out of sync in North America.
The differences really hit me again on this last trip to Canada during the month of April! Perhaps traveling with an African colleague made those differences more apparent. Or perhaps spending a few days in Montreal before landing in my own backyard, Waterloo County, highlighted aspects of Canadian life that I had previously ignored. Whatever the reason, I felt a heavy ache as I noted the incredible neediness of Canadians. Yes, you read that word correctly! Yet my last few days in Ontario filled me with hope.
Now of course I realize that in many ways Benin is the needy place: people in Benin suffer from lack of adequate health care, educational opportunities, sufficient income, and so on. So of course, Benin is a very needy place. In spite of those obvious challenges, however, the Beninese by and large seem to be a very hopeful people, filled with optimism, and strongly attached to life. They appear to have resources to face the challenges of life, resources that we North Americans do not understand. That is why when people from North America visit Benin they are often most struck by the joy and happiness of the people they meet. This joy becomes especially pronounced in the exuberant forms of worship that are characteristic of Beninese churches. We wonder how they can be so happy in spite of what we would consider great suffering.
It strikes me that in contrast many North Americans are unhappy. Perhaps before I go any further I should carefully state that I am not sitting in judgment here. I am not suggesting that the Beninese are perfect (for they are far from that) or that I prefer living in Benin to living in North America because I can’t say I prefer one place to the other. My remarks are meant to show that there are problems in North America that need to be addressed and that perhaps the strengths of the Beninese can help us to address that suffering.
Some of our greatest needs cannot be met by material resources: the need to belong, to be loved, to feel hope, to feel secure. These needs are met in the Beninese context by their communal and spiritual resources. When we try to meet these needs with only material and physical resources, we fail. Our best efforts at eating right and getting exercise do not keep us from falling ill. Our attempts to create community where none existed before are often unable to provide solid connections with others. Our attempts to make meaning out of our existence, if left only to what we can achieve in this world by our own efforts, often leave us feeling hopeless and dissatisfied.
A long time ago, I read an African myth (I think possibly from Uganda). I forget some of the details, but I will try to relay the underlying lesson it contained. The myth in question explained that when the world was created, the Creator made the rain and the sun, the earth and a human being. Inside the human being, the Creator placed a heart. After finishing the work of creation, the Creator went away. The rest of creation carried on, happy in simply being, but the human being’s heart went crying in search of the Creator. Ever since, humans have been on a quest to satisfy their heart’s true desire. As someone, (St Augustine maybe?) put it, “our hearts are restless until we rest in you.” Or as St Paul wrote, “[God is the one] in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28, but actually Paul was quoting a Greek poet!)
This need to be at peace with our Creator is at the heart of our search for all the rest: love, security, meaning, truth, etc. When this need remains unfulfilled, we try to fill it with all sorts of other things. Yet none of these other things can satisfy our deep longing for oneness with God. So we live broken lives with emptiness at our core. We live lives of constant getting that never seems satisfied. I was struck by how many people in North America are searching for something more: a quest for a genuine spirituality and a real community. Yet I was also struck by how many people are looking everywhere except the Christian faith.
Christianity teaches that Christ has reconciled us to God, 2 Cor 5:18, we can live in peaceful communion with God – and Christ has reconciled us with one another (Eph 2:14) – so that we can live peacefully together. Yet this teaching has not been faithfully lived out and in some cases the church has been more interested in preserving itself and its traditions than in living out the good news. So in North America, where the message has become worn-out, people are ready to look for God every where BUT in the church. In Africa, where the old forms of spirituality are breaking down in the face of modernism, Christianity seems to bring helpful answers to their spiritual questions. This makes it very exciting to work at Bible teaching here. In West Africa, people ardently desire to know what the biblical text says. But when I return to Canada, I find another language is needed.
I was delighted, therefore, to attend the MCEC sessions at the end of April. (MCEC is the eastern district of the Mennonite Church of Canada, covering the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.) MCEC has planned for 8 new church plants, some already begun, others about to begin, all of them finding new ways of being God’s people. These attempts at using a new language and of finding new forms for sharing the good news are very encouraging to me. I am not ready to do away with church as I have known it, nor are many other people who still find the church a good place to meet God. (Church being the people of God or the community of faith and not the building in which they meet!) However, I am so glad that there are people stepping out of the familiar ways of doing things in order to encounter people who need to hear about God’s love in a new language. I went away from those meetings with the heaviness gone and a renewed hope.
It is hard to reduce my thoughts and feelings to a page and a half. It is difficult to put into words what came as waves of impressions as often very different encounters shaped my thinking. I do not presume to have summed it all up adequately, but I share it in the hopes that others may be inspired to pursue their reflections on what it means to be human and how to live lives of wholeness.

Pastor Houngbedji’s Funeral Sermon

On May 24 a former BBI student and pastor of the Assemblies Disciples of Christ church was buried. He was a youngish man, in his 40th year, with a young family. His oldest of three sons is ten and his youngest looks to be not more than three. How do we make sense of such sadness: a father, husband, pastor in his prime who dies suddenly and unexpectedly (in this case of an asthma attack!)? The national pastor of the ADC church, Pastor Theodore Houngbedji, preached the eulogy. I was impressed with his attempt to make sense of something so tragic and to comfort those of us present. I thought maybe some of the rest of you would enjoy reading a summary of this sermon as well. It may given you an idea of how an African, Beninese, Christian approaches the age-old question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Perhaps it would be helpful for you to know that in the Beninese context an untimely death is usually attributed to sorcery. That means that a person who possesses witchcraft powers has chosen to attack and kill the pastor through supernatural means in order to increase his or her own power. This explanation is troublesome for Christians who believe that in Jesus they are liberated from the oppression of witchcraft and sorcery. Another explanation is that the pastor sinned and is being punished for his sins. Of course, this is more familiar to those of us raised in the “Christian” west, but it has its troubling aspects as well. How bad were his sins? Were they worse then mine? And what about all those other evil persons who live to a ripe old age? A third explanation is that it was simply the pastor’s fate. The problem with fatalism is that it encourages lethargy and an unhealthy acceptance of circumstances instead of encouraging people to improve their lives by making changes for the better.

Pastor Houngbedji read two passages from the Bible. The first is in Luke 12:16-21, the parable of the rich fool. This is the story of a rich man who seeing his storehouses are too small tears them down to build bigger ones. Having done this, he determines to “eat, drink and be merry”. However, God has a different plan. “But God said to him,’You fool! This very night your life (soul) is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Then Pastor Houngbedji read Ecclesiastes 8:8a “No one has power over one’s breath to retain it, or power over the day of death,” (according to the French version).

From these two readings, the pastor drew three conclusions:

1) The life of a man does not depend on his possessions. A person can be the owner of everything except his/her life. The Bible tells us that our life does not depend on what we own. (Here he told a story about a rich, Beninese man who became ill and, money being no object, spent enormous sums traveling even to France to seek treatment. In France, the doctors told him to go back home; all his money would not be able to buy him the good health he was seeking.)

2) A man is not master of this breath. (Keep in mind that the deceased died of an asthma attack!) When someone dies, we can say things like: “He is no longer breathing.” Or “She has stopped breathing.” When the pastor was a young boy, he heard that said about his own father. He resolved to never, never stop breathing and even took to practicing breathing. From time to time as a boy he would take deep breaths. However, when the time comes and our breathing stops, we have no power to keep on breathing. A man cannot retain his breath nor put off death.

3) Your soul will be demanded of you. (You will be asked to return your soul.) There is One who has all the power; this is the One who created us and put our soul within. We cannot resist this One who will one day ask for our soul again. Our soul does not belong to us, but does belong to God.

The pastor, having made these three points, then suggested three ways to live as a consequence.

1) Do not fear those who can kill the body, but fear the One who has power over our soul and who can reclaim it at any time. (Read Luke 12: 4-5) Return to God for fear that God reclaim your soul in order to cast it into the fire. If you belong to God, God will keep you.

2) Psalm 90:12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. Pray this prayer: “Lord teach me to count my days and to seek wisdom.” Proverbs teaches us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Pray for the grace to please and honor God.

3) James warns us not to make bold claims about what we will do tomorrow. 4:13 Come now, you who say, “Tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” 4:14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 4:15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”

We should put our trust in the Lord and acknowledge God’s sovereign claim on our lives, saying “If it pleases God, tomorrow I will do such and such.” We should entrust our plans to God and seek God’s direction in all our decisions.

A Time to Celebrate

Pastor Mesmen Gbaguidi opened the inauguration ceremony for the new Casa Grande center with the passage from Ecclesiastes chapter 3 For everything there is season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Today, he said, was a time to celebrate, and it certainly was.

In August 2000 Paco and Annette Castillo were sent by the Mennonite Church in Burgos, Spain to work with orphans and abandoned children in Cotonou. They started out small in a house not far from ours and welcomed, one by one, abandoned and orphaned children into their home. The idea was to provide a family centered environment where they would have a second chance to develop into well rounded, mature young adults. That focus hasn’t changed, but Casa Grande has certainly grown beyond those humble beginnings.

They soon outgrew the house here in Cotonou and moved to a larger place in Allada, about 40 kilometers north of the city. There the “family” has grown to include 25 youngsters between the ages of 1 and 17. Paco and Annette returned to Spain because of health concerns but left the household in the capable hands of Paulin and Easter Boko. Before leaving they oversaw the acquisition of a plot of land where they envisioned building a center that would quadruple the number of children they could welcome. This week that vision became a reality when the first phase of that center was inaugurated.

Named Fifatin, the center will eventually house 96 children in 8 different housing units. This first phase included digging a well, building 2 of the housing units for children and one staff unit, connecting electricity and phone lines, and putting up about half of the enclosure wall. This month everyone will move from the rented house to the new facilities.

The inauguration was a celebration that focused on God’s faithfulness to the ministry since its inception 8 years ago. Pray for continued blessings on the Casa Grande children and for a rapid completion of the following phases of construction. A school, workshop, sports field and more housing units are in the plans.

Check out Casa Grande’s web site http://www.lacasagrandebenin.org/enghome.html

Staff house, partially funded by donations from Canadian volonteers to Casa Grande.

A local group sings the praises of Casa Grande’s ministry.

A number of visitors from Burgos, Spain attended the celebrations.

See more photos of the inauguration here.

First Post

Greetings,

We hope this blog will be a means of sharing about life in West Africa and keeping folks informed about our partners and their different ministries.  We welcome your comments and questions.

This weekend is the start of the monthly seminar at IBB, Mr. Alphonse Godonou is teaching the course on The Gospels.  Starting tomorrow we are also hosting Dr. Thomas Oduro, principal of the Good News Theological College and Seminary http://www.gntcs.org/ in Ghana.  Good News has a mandate that is similar to that of IBB, to provide biblical and theological training for church leaders, particularly those of African Initiated Churches (AICs).   AICs are those churches founded by Africans, not by Western missionaries, to meet the need of a contextualized Christian faith on the continent.  Mennonite missionaries have worked with both schools over the years and continue to provide ongoing support.  We hope that this visit will initiate a fruitful relationship between the two schools.  Up to now that hasn’t been much contact between these two initiatives, perhaps because of distance and different languages (Benin – French and Ghana -English).  We’re looking forward to a good visit.