We had a sad experience on Sunday, the first day of September. We went to Mulipido to help with the burial of Elijah the Church leader. When the brothers who attended the monthly class on Friday found out how sick Bro. Elijah was they decided to take a collection to help him with his hospital expenses. Timothy and I had planned on visiting Bro. Elijah so we took the gift to him. Elijah was suffering from Hepatitis B. During our short visit Elijah was struggling to breathe but he was able to tell us that he was surprised he was still alive. We could tell Elijah was very happy to know the class had remembered him and his family. After a prayer we left the hospital. We left at 11:00 and by 3pm we received the call that he had passed away. When a Church member dies there is always an uncertainty about whether the burial will be a Christian burial or a pagan burial. It all depends upon what the family wants to do. Almost all of the Christians we work with are first generation Christians and their families are pagans. After Elijah’s family decided to give the burial over to the Church we made plans to go to Mulpido the next day. Several from the Kulkpeni congregation wanted to attend so I decided to take the good van after I was told the road was in fairly good with no water blocking the roads. That was one of the worst decisions I have made in a long time! A two hour trip turned into a 3 hour trip. The road was worse than terrible with potholes and ruts filled with water in a couple of places that were nearly waist deep!! About 1000 yards away from the village, we went through some swampy places that I was afraid to take the van through so we walked through the swamp to the village. Oh, how my passengers howled but I wasn’t taking any chances. We performed the burial service and then the Church met for worship services. Everyone was happy we had come for the burial. We were advised to take another route back to Yendi and we were told there wasn’t any water on the road. Wrong! Two places were deep enough when the nose of the van hit the water it splashed up and covered the windshield. My poor van!
Last month after the monthly class several men came to me with the concern that due to the drought and the corn crop failure they were worried that their families would be hungry later in the year and asked if I could help them with money to buy corn. After mulling things over I decided to talk to the Elders to see if we could help them. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters we were able to give each of the church leaders, evangelists and workers a monetary gift to buy 400 pounds of corn. The men who occasionally attend were given a smaller monetary gift to encourage them. The men were advised to use the money to purchase corn to “pack down” for later in the dry season when food is scarce. Corn is cheaper now than it will be later in the year. The men were very happy to receive the gifts. One brother said that when I heard a rooster crowing the rooster would be saying “thank you” for all of them.
Twenty-eight men were present for the September class. One of the leaders from the village of Jomani said their congregation had started a new congregation and there were 62 baptisms. The other leaders reported that 17 people were baptized and 3 people were restored to the Church.
We finished the series of eleven lessons on the subject of the responsibilities of the men, women, and children in the home and the Church. Timothy Niligrini has typed up the last of these lessons into the Konkomba language so now we have to transfer the lessons over to our computer so we can get them printed and into a booklet for each of the congregations.
The congregations that we visited this month were Mulpido, Duni, Jegrido, Bakpaba, and Kulkpeni. The leadership at Duni asked us to speak about the use of prayer camps and faith healing. This is big business and is popular with people that have severe health problems. Many times the health care profession will not tell the patient that they are terminally ill but will tell them that theirs is not a hospital case so they should treat it locally. The unscrupulous people claiming to have “power” extract large amounts of money for their “services”. The church at Kulkpeni requested we discuss why we do not work with some Churches and the denominations. When we visit the congregations I want to speak on subjects that the people need; we are happy when the leaders let us know what they want us to discuss. As some of you may already know, the last two weeks of the month were spent in the dark. Well, the electrical transformer that supplies electricity to our area blew up! We have had to run the generator day and night. We thank the Lord for our generator and the people who support the work so we can buy diesel to run it.
Since most of you do not have a rooster or will hear a rooster crow we will say “Thank You” for all you do for us and the work in Ghana. We are so grateful we are able to serve the Lord here in the Yendi area.
In His service,
Stephen & Kandie Taylor
