The church is located not too far from the center of Accra in a part of the city where dirt roads are the norm. The church is in the process of building a new building (more on that later) and so therefore the new building is on one side of the road and the old building is on the other side of the road.
The old building and grounds are used for children classes as we saw when we arrive. We stopped into 3 classes and with the exception of the little bitties, the other two classes were very academic, i.e. teaching scripture and verse - way over my head!
The little people were all lined up in little chairs and were singing songs - until we arrived and I think when they saw me that the giant had arrived!
The congregation worships on the ground floor (future parking are) of basically a building under construction. NO WAY THIS WOULD HAPPEN IN THE STATES. The congregation has no idea when they will finish the 3 story building. As Rev Daniel says when The Lord provides, it will happen - for now they have a 3 story building with no walls, but a roof, which allows them to worship.
The service was great, a tad longer than at Idlewild, I clocked today's service start to finish right at 3 hours - certainly a new record for me.
Lots of activities during the service - but probably the best thing they have going is that the church is "kid friendly" during the service. They attribute a large part of their growth to being kid friendly - reminded me of a place back in Memphis up on the hill - "as my friends at GSL say".
I had been given 3 days notice that there was going to be audience participation during the service in the form of dance. Now for those of you who know me - you know that I don't dance (ask Chalmers - it's a bad subject in our household) and the 2-3 times I have danced usually are memorable by others, not so much by me!
Nevertheless, the dancing during the service took place during the offerings (yes - plural). So, I used the first offering just to get a feel for the process and rhythm of the dance - not hard to do - plenty of people there to help during that first run at it. Shuffle your feet a little bit, move your arms a little bit and drop the money into the bowl with your right hand. I think I probably looked like a choo-choo.
Offering II. Now that I had my trial run behind me, it was time for the main event if you will. I jumped in the middle of the Elder line (think of it kind of like conga line) and started my moves. I started with the choo-choo and then moved into kind of a MIchael Jackson meets Frankenstein with a little bit of hip & arm action. But what really got the line going was when I decided to shuffle backwards -evidently the line is only supposed to move forward - oh well - I think I at least gave one of the pastors good stuff to talk about for a week or so.
In all seriousness, all week I have gotten a very strong sense of what God means to the Ghanian people. It is a very religious country and you can see and feel that from almost the moment you arrive. I think today's service really brought it all together for me. The participation of the church members in the service, the pride the women and some men had in wearing the "fabric" of the church, the group bible study time during the service, and everyone gave some thing in both offerings - and know that the second offering was exclusively for local outreach.
Nice picture of Jim in just general celebration mode.
Great time for sure.
If you read to this point then you get to know why this post is titled "Yaw". During the service the congregation breaks into bible study groups based on which day of the week they were born - because somewhere in their name is the day of the week they were born - so I have met 3 men named Kofi. So, when I was asked by an elder which group I should attend - No idea. However, whipped out the iPad, leaned on Google, and presto - I am I Yaw - I was born on Thursday.
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