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When the Head of the Pentecost Church visited Finland
• A section of the audience at the event
Three weeks ago, on Friday, September 30, 2022, the Global Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye visited Finland.
It was a visit to acquaint himself with thec in Finland and a mission to spread the message of God.
He was accompanied by Apostle Emmanuel Agyemang Bekoe, the International Missions Director of the church.
They were hosted by the Church of Pentecost Finland (COP Finland), led by its National Head, Rev. Francis Owusu Kwaah.
Powerful ministration,inspiring experience
It was an unforgettable experience. Despite the fact that the event took place on a Friday, a working day, it was attended by an impressive number of people.
In attendance were other religious leaders from various churches or missions and dignitaries.
Organised under the theme, “Equipping the church as an army to possess the nation”, it was, indeed, an occasion of powerful worship and ministration with spirit-filled songs of praise.
Apostle Nyamekye preached a powerful message on the need to work hard to draw closer to God and win more souls for Him.
The Church of Pentecost, he said, would strive to become a church whose members go to possess or take nations by promoting values and lifestyles that would turn many people to Christ. “The church is for whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ”, he sermonised.
The Church of Pentecost in Finland
The Church of Pentecost in Finland was established about 20 years ago. It started 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. The church has grown and spread to other towns and cities in Finland.
Today, in Helsinki alone, there are two branches of the church. There is the Akan Assembly where worship is done mostly in the Twi language. The other branch is the English Assembly (or the PIWC) which is attended by other nationalities and African immigrants aside Ghanaian immigrants.
In addition to the two Assemblies, the COP Finland has branches in cities such as Turku, Tampere, and Vaasa. There are other branches in Oulu and Kuopio, according to Elder Samuel Yaw Anni, who is the National Secretary of COP Finland.
The National Executives of COP Finland, Elders, Deacons and Deaconesses were introduced to Apostle Nyamekye.
Growth
Soon after its inception, COP Finland established contact with Ghana, and it has since grown increasingly both in numbers and in spirit.
It has received countless visitations from representatives of other Church of Pentecost missions around Europe, including UK, Italy, and Norway.
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 Pastor Francis Owusu Kwaah, who took over from Apostle Appiah as the National Head of the Church in Finland a few years ago. And there is every indication that the church would grow to more places in Finland.
COP Finland has been one of the major channels through which the Ghana Union Finland (GUF), an association of Ghanaian immigrants in Finland, has made more contacts with members of the Ghanaian immigrant community.
Thus, it is one of the major Pentecostal or Charismatic churches dominated by Ghanaian immigrants which has been of immense benefit to GUF.
Previously, before the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 and its attendant restrictions, newly-elected executives of GUF got the chance to introduce themselves to other Ghanaian immigrants by visiting them at church sessions. This boosted easy interaction. Thank you!
[The writer is a Ghanaian lecturer at the University of Helsinki, Finland]
Email: perpetualcrentsil@yahoo.com
By Perpetual Crentsil
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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