REPORT OF THE VISIT OF GABRIELLE GRACE TO THE GAMBIA ...



Report of a visit by Gabrielle Grace

The Gambia, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria

December 2003 to January 2004

THE GAMBIA

Revd Prof. Peter Stephens: Professor Stephens is temporary Chair of The Gambia District for the current Connexional year until the new Chairman, the Revd Norman Grigg, is free to move to The Gambia in August. There will be a brief overlap of a week or so to facilitate the hand over. In addition to his duties as Chairman, Peter is also currently Superintendent Minister of four circuits. He introduced me to Mrs Comfort Clarke, the Headmistress of the Methodist Preparatory and Kindergarten School, who will soon be hosting a volunteer on the Experience Exchange Programme for about six months.

The Revd Elaine and Dr John Woolley: Elaine Woolley is Circuit Superintendent of the Central River Division - the only Methodist circuit away from the coastal region. John Woolley’s title is ‘Development Officer’ and he also helps to train local preachers. They live in Janjanbureh (formerly known as Georgetown), situated on a large island in The Gambia River. In order to visit any of the other churches in the circuit they need to get a ferry to either the north or south bank and drive from there.

The church in Janjanbureh was built around 1835, reputedly the oldest Methodist church in West Africa with a beautiful new tiled floor provided with money from the UK. There is only one other church building in the circuit, in the village of Banni on the north bank of the river, where nine Christian families live and where the Circuit Evangelist has pastoral charge. The small church is very pleasant and is well attended, especially by the children. Other societies in the circuit worship out of doors, and there is the possibility of one or two new congregations forming soon. There is a prison at Janjanbureh regularly which is regularly visited by an independent Scottish missionary and a Ghanaian member of the Prison Fellowship. Together they evangelised 15 prisoners in 2003 whom Elaine baptised in the river.

GHANA

Ian and Diana Bosman: The Bosmans are well settled in the ‘Mission House’, formerly occupied by Alan and Pam Harvey and, before them, Alec and Dilys Jones. So far most of their duties have centred on the village of Nkanfoa, just outside the city of Cape Coast. The school there was started by the Revd Alec Jones and enlarged during the Harveys’ time. It now consists of nursery classes 1 and 2, kindergarten 1 and 2, and basic school classes 1 to 5. There are also classrooms ready and waiting for basic school 6, and junior secondary school classes 1 to 3. Most of the classes have around 40 children, so there are over 300 pupils in all.

Diana had been invited to come as Headteacher but has yet to be interviewed by the Ghana Education Service. For the current term, therefore, she is designated as ‘acting head’. Though Diana’s main expertise is as a teacher of secondary maths, she is enjoying the challenge that headship brings.

Ian is also involved at the school as its Administration and Development Officer and is also ‘leader’ of Nkanfoa Methodist Church and chairs the ‘Leaders’ Meeting’. He shares the role of chaplain to schools and colleges with the Revd Daniel Essel who is now minister of Nkanfoa Church. This role involves ministering to students in around ten senior and tertiary institutions in the Cape Coast area.

Although there are many churches of different denominations in Cape Coast, only Wesley Cathedral has a service in English and Ian and Diana attend this early each Sunday morning. After that they go on to Nkanfoa for a rather longer service in Fante. They also attend Tuesday evening Bible study conducted in English in the home of a faculty member at Cape Coast University.

Diocese of Cape Coast: The Rt Revd Isaac Quansah, Bishop of the Methodist Diocese of Cape Coast, was away during most of my visit there, but came to the Bosmans’ house on my last morning, to greet me. He is clearly delighted to have the Bosmans in his diocese.

There is also an EEP volunteer in the diocese at the moment - Kathryn Larrad - though she was at home in Britain during the time of my visit. She is placed at Wesley Girls’ Secondary School where her involvement is very much appreciated. The Bishop would be delighted if further volunteers could be found for Wesley Girls’ and/or Mfantsipim Boys’ School, or perhaps a vocational school some miles outside the city. We also discussed Diana Bosman’s idea of inviting an EEP to help with the nursery 1 class at Nkanfoa.

The Presiding Bishop: The new Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church in Ghana is the Most Revd Dr Robert Mensah, who was formerly Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana. I was able to meet him briefly at his office in Accra and then again on my last day in the country when I was invited to address all the ministers in the country gathered for their annual ‘Fellowship of the Kingdom’ retreat and meeting. This is held every year during the week after the Covenant Service and is clearly an important time of learning, fellowship and renewal for all the ministers. There are at present more than 700 ministers in the church, including supernumeraries and non-stipendiaries, and of these around 50 are women. There are now 15 dioceses each headed by a bishop in addition to the Presiding Bishop and the Administrative Bishop at the Headquarters in Accra. I was also able to meet with the Revd Titus Pratt, former Chairman of The Gambia District, who is now serving in Dansoman, a new housing area on the outskirts of Accra.

The Presiding Bishop is personally very committed to the concept of fair, as opposed to free, trade. He illustrates this through the parable of the giraffe and the antelope - both are ‘free’ to eat the leaves of the tree but it is not ‘fair’ because the tree is tall - only the giraffe with his long neck can reach the leaves. Dr Mensah extends his argument also to the brain drain from countries such as Ghana, particularly of medical personnel. In Ghana, people can train as doctors and nurses almost for free, but the country gains almost nothing from them because huge numbers are recruited to work in North America and Europe. Clearly, it is understandable that people should wish to work where salaries are higher, but if rich countries are to benefit from all this expertise, should they not give considerable assistance in the cost of training medical staff? The situation is acute - one maternity unit has had to close for lack of nurses.

In his present role, one of Dr Mensah’s priorities is the strengthening of the calibre of ministers serving the Church and he is keen to liaise with the World Church Office about ways in which we might assist in this. He also spoke of the new Methodist University; he is hoping that the United Methodist Church and ourselves might occasionally be able to help find suitable temporary lecturers. These might perhaps be people who had recently retired or were able to take a sabbatical in Ghana. In relation to the Experience Exchange Programme he mentioned that a new Wesley Girls’ School had recently opened in Accra, and that this might prove to be a suitable placement for a volunteer.

NIGERIA

Churches in Action for Peace and Development (CAPAD): My main purpose in going to Lagos was to meet up with Jennie Sleep (former mission partner in Nepal), who has been invited by CAPAD as a ‘consultant’ for the first three months of 2004. She arrived there less than three days before me. On the morning of my arrival we were both privileged to meet with several members of the CAPAD Board, namely:

His Eminence Sunday Mbang (Chairman) - Prelate of the Methodist Church in Nigeria

The Rt Revd M Kehinde Stephen (secretary) - General Secretary of the Methodist Church in Nigeria

Akin Akinbote Esq (legal adviser) - Chairman of the Lagos Bar Association

The Revd U B Usung - General Secretary of the Christian Council of Nigeria (Presbyterian minister)

The Revd Precious Omuku - Director of External Relations for Shell Nigeria (Anglican Priest).

Mike Stephen outlined some of the history behind the formation of CAPAD, which is now recognised by the Government with the Methodist Church Headquarters as its official address. He mentioned also that the WCC had been very supportive. What is now needed is a Programme Officer, and it is hoped that Jennie’s work will set this in motion. Board members pointed out that it could be very useful to have a non-Nigerian in the role, since he or she would be seen as impartial with no political affiliations.

Thus far CAPAD has almost no funding, but the Chairman has spoken with the Governors of several Nigerian states who have shown an interest in providing some help. He is also making visits to national embassies; the British High Commissioner is helping to make some useful contacts with appropriate agencies that might be able to provide both funds and temporary personnel. It is hoped that CAPAD might strengthen the social activities arm of the Christian Council of Nigeria and might be used by the Government for peace-building.

Over the past few years violence between different language and/or religious groupings has flared in several parts of Nigeria. In these circumstances the churches may often be the only institutions that are there ‘on the ground’. One of the first projects for CAPAD should be to run retreats and training sessions for priests and ministers, showing that violence and recriminations are wrong, and to build up the capacity of ministers to devise appropriate strategies for reconciliation.

There is a general problem of the breakdown of authority; many young people are rebelling against traditional authority because they see traditional rulers as corrupt and selling out to multi-nationals. Nonetheless, most young people still attend church. Another problem is lack of employment that leads to a sense of purposelessness and the growth of cults. Schools are sometimes closed for months, giving young people nothing to do.

Jennie sleep will be attending a meeting of Shell ‘stakeholders’ to report on the company’s stewardship of environmental matters and community development. She is also planning to meet people throughout the country, in particular the Delta area where she will meet with clergy and others, learning about their concerns and perhaps give some input. Board members are very keen that she should feel free to report very frankly on what she finds.

Nationals in Mission Appointment: Jennie Sleep and I met with Deaconess Ibironke Oworu who is a National in Mission Appointment and Project Development Officer for the Women’s Work Department. Having attended a training course in Ghana, she sent a questionnaire to all 44 Dioceses in Nigeria to discover what is going on by way of women’s projects. Some of the returned forms revealed interesting initiatives, and she has visited the Dioceses of Ilesa, Umuahia and Okigwe. Her first report features projects such as building a clinic, working with orphaned and vulnerable children, setting up a ‘Skill Acquisition Centre’ and a Computer Training Institute, building a girls’ hostel and an oil palm project. The report includes recommendations to the Methodist Headquarters on appropriate assistance to each of these projects.

Methodist Headquarters: This was my first visit to the Headquarters of the Methodist Church in Nigeria and it was a great pleasure to spend time with the Prelate. He is beginning to work towards retirement in three years’ time - by then he will have been in post for roughly 20 years. Already he has handed on the Chairmanship of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), of which the Christian Council of Nigeria is a member, to the Anglican Archbishop. The Chair of the CAN is automatically co-Chair of the Inter-religious Council also, but the Prelate is still a member of that body.

Bishop Mike Stephen was keen to show me current changes to the Headquarters building and surrounding area. It stands on a very large plot of land - around 4000 square metres - where formerly the Methodist Boys’ School stood. During the 1980s the Church negotiated with Shell and the NAL, who each built a multi-storey office block on portions of the land, each paying ground rent to the Church. However, with the advent of structural adjustment programmes and the dramatic fall in the value of the Naira, the Church now earns little from these two buildings. Until recently the Church used a two-storey block for its Headquarters, but the building was in a very bad state of repair. This has now been leased to a bank for five years and it has paid for extensive renovations. The Church now uses the top three floors and part of the sixth floor of a ten-storey block, Wesley House, between the bank and the Shell building.

The only part of the boys’ school still standing is the hall, which by now will have been expanded to hold around one thousand people and a substantial car park and bringing in income for the Church. The World Church Office has already contributed £20,000 towards this project and the Church has added a further £10,000.

On the day of my visit it happened that there was a meeting of the ‘Strategic Team’. This is a group of lay people and ministers who are holding a series of meetings to help focus the future direction of the Church. Already there have been significant changes since the year 2000. In particular, the ‘Seed of Faith’ and ‘Ten Percent of Tithes’ programmes have dramatically increased the income profile from the circuits and dioceses to central funds. The secret has been a very high degree of accountability and transparency. Every month of the year precise figures are collated in relation to every diocese and a report is circulated to all the bishops detailing exactly what has been received. This has succeeded in instilling a sense of ownership among the people helping to generate excitement and commitment. All of this was greatly helped by an initial grant of £5,000 from the World Church Office to print the required forms for use in the dioceses and circuits.

Hoare’s Memorial Methodist Church, Yaba: On Sunday morning, Jennie Sleep and I attended the 8 o’clock English service at one of the largest Methodist churches in Lagos. The building is enormous and is the third on the same site. Beneath the church is a very large hall where the weekly youth service is held - a fairly new venture that is helping to stem the flow of young people from the church to Pentecostal churches. The original church was demolished but the second church, which is also quite substantial, is now used for children’s worship and Sunday School. On the same compound there is a Girls’ High School and several houses for staff and clergy. There is also a recently completed house for the Prelate which looks very impressive; it has yet to be furnished but should be in use within the next few months. Right next to the church the congregation is building a four-storey clinic.

Story- “How to tackle corruption”: During the CAPAD meeting, the Revd Precious Omuku, a Senior Executive of Shell Nigeria, told us of a visit he had made recently to a place where he knew there was corruption and where he have liked to speak his mind, but was persuaded to keep quiet. At the end of the meeting, however, he was asked to pray. Precious said that he felt guided by the Holy Spirit and found the words to use in his prayer that had been in his heart before the meeting. He was later told that the voice of the oppressed people had come through clearly in the prayer.

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