Kpene

This morning I preached at the village of Kpene (pronounced "Penny"). Rev. John Napadow, the director of the seminary where I have been teaching invited me to come and preach at this church, which Rev. John began under a tree many years ago. I really liked the village and the people in the church. Kpene is only a 20 minute drive from Tamale and we only had to ford one stream (always an adventure) in Rev. John’s car.

The service followed the tradition of most churches here. They have an “all ages” Sunday School class for an hour before the service where the pastor or caretaker of the church leads the people in a discussion of Scripture. I always enjoy that part, even though I only catch about every fifth or sixth word with my limited Dagbani.

After that the “emcee” gets up and starts the service by praying, or calling on someone to pray, and then one by one different people are called up to lead a song or prayer, followed by great singing and drumming and usually a little dancing. Kpene has no drums so they clap vigorously. They are also a little more reserved (and have less room) so there was no individual dancing, even though everyone was swaying as they sang and clapped. One man was playing a crude wooden instrument he obviously made that resembled a tambourine.

Finally I got the usual gushing introduction Silimiingas (white men – Europeans) always get over here. This one was especially profuse since Rev. John appreciates my coming to teach at the seminary. Then I preached and the people, including two completely naked children sitting on the front pew, were all very attentive. After the message Rev. John asked the people questions to see if they got what I was saying, and they remembered my sermon better than I did when I preached it.

The people of Kpene leaving the church building

One especially interesting thing about Kpene is that the chief died about two months ago. The village is in the process of selecting his successor and the church caretaker (similar to a pastor), a man named Zebulon, is the front-runner for the post. It would be wonderful to have a strong Christian as the village chief. At the close of the service Zebulon specifically asked me to pray for him that he would get to be the chief. And so I did. It will be interesting to keep up with that situation.

All in all it was a wonderful day of worship, and I am sad to say my last Sunday in Ghana for a while. As ready as I am to come home, I will miss people like those in the church and village of Kpene dearly.