March has been quite a month for all of us! The Coronavirus dominates the news all over the world, and Ghana is no exception. As I write this letter, I am working from home during a two-week partial lockdown. Two weeks ago, the government closed all schools and church services, among other things. When our church decided to comply with the government’s mandate, the church staff instantly started looking for ways to connect with our church members and to spread the Gospel even more. Two wonderful opportunities arose as a result.
In Ghana, each community has an information center. Information centers use a system of loud speakers to blare whatever people pay time to say across a segment of the community. When traffic is low, the information centers can be heard quite well over a good distance. Our church already uses information centers as a mean of preaching the Gospel, but the closing of all church services opened a new opportunity. Information centers do not normally operate on Sunday mornings, but now that everyone would be staying home, our church bought time slots from 12 information centers for Sunday mornings! Thus, many of our members can hear someone from our church preach, and many new people in those communities can hear the Gospel.
We also got the opportunity to go on the radio! Sunday morning would not normally be a good time slot, so our church was able to get it for the duration of service closures. Pastor Speer now gets to preach to our members and many more each Sunday, and on Wednesday evening, our Ghanaian staff preach the Gospel in Twi. Few Ghanaians can use Facebook Live, but almost every Ghanaian listens to the radio, so this is a wonderful opportunity.
I know that most of your lives have also been greatly disrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic. I know that many of you are facing hardships. Please know that I am praying for you. I ask that you would pray for the Ghanaian people also. Now that we are on lockdown, many have no work–and for many, that means they will eat little to nothing. Many people will seriously suffer during the next few weeks. Please pray for God to bring good from this situation. Please pray that God will use our church greatly.
Fruit to Your Account
In February and early March, our Bible Club team worked in North Suntresso. It was an unusual club in a few ways. For one thing, we met in three different locations over the course of five weeks. We first met under a large tree—but then it got cut down. Then we met at an unused community structure—but the next week, some women were cooking there. So, we held Bible Club in the shade of a nearby building. Normally, changing locations hurts attendance and Gospel-giving opportunities, but at this club, each move brought in new people. While this club was never among our largest clubs, it was unusual in another way. We have had more children come to church from this club than any other! At least 16 children have visited, and about 7 of them have started coming regularly.
Yours for souls,
Micah Christiansen
