Features
The second visit of Head of the Pentecost Church to Finland
Apostle Eric Nyamekye and wife
On Sunday, October 8, 2023, the Global Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, visited Finland. It was the second time he was in Finland.
His first visit about a year ago was to acquaint himself with the Pentecost Church in Finland, and spread the word of God.
This second visit of the Global Chairman was, therefore, a follow up to the mission of propagating the word of God as outlined in the first visit.
Apostle Nyamekye was accompanied by his dear wife, Mrs Mary Nyamekye.
They were hosted by the Church of Pentecost in Finland (COP Finland), led by its National Head, Apostle Francis Owusu Kwaah.
Powerful and inspiring ministration
In a well-attended church service patronised by other religious leaders from various churches or missions and dignitaries, Apostle Nyamekye preached a powerful message of spirituality, religious devotion and evangelism.
It was indeed an impressive occasion of powerful worship, ministration and spirit-filled songs of praise and under the theme, “Repositioning the local Church for maximum impact in the nations”.
Apostle Nyamekye sermonised on the greater need for Christians to be spiritually and morally upright for the greater glory of God. “Our greatest need is the understanding of the word of God”, he preached.
The Church leader also spoke about the Diaspora and building the Church of Pentecost in the world.
He asked for efforts to build a church that is multicultural, multiracial, encompassing various nationalities and diversity. To build and grow such an all-embracing church requires the efforts of the people themselves, he said.
The Pentecost Church in Finland
The Church of Pentecost in Finland was established about 20 years ago, in September 2000, as a prayer group with a small number of devoted persons in Helsinki (see www.copfinland. fi).
With time, following the growth of the group, there was the need to secure a place of meeting in the Helsinki area. Today, the Church has grown and spread to other towns and cities in Finland.
In Helsinki alone, there are two branches of the Church—the Akan Assembly where worship is done mostly in the Twi language, while the English Assembly (or the PIWC) where worship is done mostly in the English language. The other branch is attended by other nationalities, including African migrants, apart from Ghanaian migrants.
The COP Finland also has branches in the Finnish cities of Turku, Tampere, and Vaasa. There are other branches in Oulu and Kuopio.
In 2013, Apostle Edmund Appiah was posted to Finland as the National Head of COP Finland and there was growth during his term, including re-organising the Vaasa branch.
The growth of the Church has continued under Apostle Francis Owusu Kwaah, who took over from Apostle Appiah as the National Head of the Church in Finland a few years ago.
Expanding the Church
During his visit, Apostle Nyamekye met with leaders of COP in Finland, including the national executives, Elders, Deacons and Deaconesses, to discuss ways to expand the church in Finland and elsewhere.
There is undoubtedly a huge optimism about the efforts to spread the church in Finland, as can be perceived from the expression on the faces of the leaders and members of the Church, like Elder Charles Sarfo.
Finally, as I wrote previously, the COP Finland as one of the major Pentecostal or Charismatic churches dominated by Ghanaian migrants, has been a key channel through which the Ghana Union Finland (GUF), an association for the Ghanaian migrant community in Finland, reaches out to many members of the community. Thank you!
By Perpetual Crentsil
Email: perpetualcrentsil@yahoo.com
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
