Clean drinking water for the children at the school in Wyamba

It has been a while since we posted to our blog, but we have not been idle. After a week away at our team conference we have returned to Tamale where for the last three weeks we have been busy laying the ground work for our Church planting efforts in the village of Wyamba about 6 miles north. Our most important project in this ground breaking is to win the trust and love of the people. We discovered that the children were drinking unfiltered water from a pond because there is no well or other source of clean water, so we have been hauling about 150 gal. of water from our house to the school every week. In these pictures Mr. Lansah our assistant/ driver and house help is delivering a load of water which is carried by truck in 30 gal. plastic garbage can(clean of course). The older boys are eager to help as you can see. This is a temporary measure. We are going through the school staff and the school's PTA and the village council to petition the water company to connect the school to a water line that runs about 100 yards from the school buildings. When our next volunteer team comes they will help with this project. The village people will contribute the labor needed to dig the ditch to run the water pipe in. We hope to secure a Polly tank for the school for water storage once the pipe is installed. Then the school will have clean water on demand. Clean water for the children will mean fewer health problems. When our volunteer team arrives July 3, 2009 we will begin evangelism and VBS in the village and hold the first Christian worship service ever in Wyamba. We will use oral Bible storying as the main evangelistic method.

Video from Wyamba

Visit with the chief

There is a certain protocol that must be followed in gaining entrance to a village. First you must find someone known in the village who will approach an elder and request an audience with the chief. In this case we used Pastor Daniel who had once lived in the village. He approached the elder who was also the linguist for the chief. The linguist speaks to and for the chief since it would not be acceptable for us to speak directly to him. The elder set up the meeting, and on the appointed day we went to the house of the elder and gave him what is called "Kola" which is actually money. In this case the amount was about $5. In former times this gift would have been in the form of Kola nuts which have a great deal of caffeine and are chewed by the men for the buzz it gives them. The elder/linguist then took us to the chief's lodge or greeting house where we were granted an interview with the chief and all the rest of the elders. When we entered the presence of the chief we bowed and clapped for him. The linguist explained the nature of our visit, gave our names and passed the Kola to the chief. The elders clapped for us and we were then questioned by the chief through the linguist as to our purpose. Having satisfied himself about our intent he granted us permission.

Wyamba, Village of the Dagomba people

This begins what we hope will be the chronicles of the planting of a church in the village of Wyamba. As far as we know there are no believers in this village of several thousand.
We made our first visit on May 19, 2009 to greet the chief and ask his permission to enter the village and tell people about Jesus. This is a Muslim village, with some African Taraitional Religionist also. The chief questioned us about why we wanted to do it and I told him that the most high God had told us to go everywhere and tell people about Jesus. He asked if we would help his people in other ways and I told him that we are taught to love and help everyone whenever we can and that we would do whatever we could do to help his people. He welcomed us to his village. Without his permission we could not do what God sent us to do. Thank you for praying for this first step. Keep praying and watch for future postings as God does a work in Wyamba.

Grinding mill at Kushibu

This is the long awaited grinding mill at Kushibu. This will save the women hours of transporting their produce to another village to have it ground. This should also provide much needed income for the village. This is not the harvest season so it is not getting a lot of use now but that will change after the new crops come in.

Worship with Pastor Stephen Napari at Shalom in Tarikpaa

Sunday we went to worship with Pastor Stephen at Shalom. I asked to be excused from preaching because I told them we just came to join their worship not lead it. this is an encouragement to the local pastor. I was interested in strengthening our relationship here. Pastor Stephen is a good preacher, pastor/teacher and worship leader, who has a real heart for God. These pictures show the praise service and the children's choir.
Pastor Mohammed has matured as one who keeps things from getting bogged down, and he is a good preacher and inturpreter.

How is this for a Wednesday night service

After Tommy and I got pictures of the new roof on the church, (see previous post) we went by Bakko's village to deliver a set of African mad e drums to his people for his church. Bakko is another student pastor and he preaches at about 6 or 7 villages when he can get to them. Each one is about 5 or 6 miles from the others and he uses a borrowed bicycle to travel on. Bakko is a farmer/hunter to support he and his family. The churches up here in the bush don't pay a salary, maybe some corn or rice, or yams. We are taking resumes if you are interested. Then we went to Nanjgoaa, a Konkomba villiage where Tommy preaches on a fairly regular basis. It was Wensday night. There were only about 8 or so people at the compound made up of mud huts with grass roofs. It was dark with only the moon and stars providing light., because this village is beyond the power lines. Those present started beating on a drum and singing. In just a short time there were over 60 gathered. After about an hour the singing and dancing tapered off and I preached for 15 min. using the story of Zacchaeus. After the message I asked those who wanted to pray to become Christians to pray as I prayed. With the aid of an interpreter about 20 of them prayed with me. That beats most Wendesday night services I remember back home. God is good all the time.