THE FRANCISCAN CAPUCHINS IN GHANA
THE FRANCISCAN CAPUCHINS IN GHANA
THE FRANCISCAN CAPUCHINS IN GHANA
Ghana, which was called Gold Coast, a country in West Africa, was evangelized by SMA Father and Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) almost 135 years ago. Since then, many missionary congregations have played a major role in the work of evangelization. The Capuchins, too, now share in this process of evangelization. In Ghana, the Capuchin Presence has been from the year 2005. Three Capuchin friars from St. Francis Province, Kerala, India, started its missionary work in Kongo, as Animators of the Spiritual Renewal Centre of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese in the Upper East Region of Ghana. From there, another community was created in the year 2008 to care for the pastoral needs of the people in and around Kpassa in the northern part of the diocese of Jasikan in the Oti Region. In the year 2018, in the month of March, we officially inaugurated our third presence in the Diocese of Sunyani in the Brong-Ahafo Region. Again, in 2022, we showed up our presence in the Diocese of Accra to take care of a parish and one outstation.
THE FRIARS
At present, there are eleven friars in Ghana Mission. All the Friars are from St. Francis Province, Kerala, India. The first three communities are endowed with three friars each and the last one with two friars. In addition to the eleven Friars, Ghana has three native students, Br. Paul Bismark Dotse, who is doing his philosophy and two postulance in the persons of Michael Sony and Paschal, who are in the initial formation.
OUR MISSION WORKS
Ø KONOG COMMUNITY: This is the first community that we formed in Ghana. Here the community is entrusted with administration and animation of the Spiritual Renewal Centre of the diocese, and hence the friars are engaged in the giving retreats and spiritual direction to those who come to the Retreat Centre, animation of the Sacred Heart Devotees who come to the Marian Grotto for the First Friday Devotion. They also perform a great task of organizing two major Marian Pilgrimages of the diocese, which takes place in the months of February and August. The pilgrimage takes place in Kongo. The Immaculate Conception Church at Kongo, which is an Outstation of the neighbouring parish of Tongo, is also under the care of the Friars and hence the spiritual care of Kongo Catholic community is an added duty of the friars. The friars do give a helping hand on Sundays to other neighbouring Outstations of the Parish. Here, Friars live in a house provided by the diocese.
Ø SUNYANI COMMUNITY: This community, too, is entrusted with the Pastoral Centre of the Diocese, caring for the spiritual needs of the people who come to the Centre and also in the outstation The duties of the friars in this community are similar to that of the Kongo community.
Ø PRAMPRAM PARISH IN ACCRA: Entrusted with a parish which we will develop with more outstations.
Ø KPASSA COMMUNITY: The second community in Kpassa (pronounced as “paassa”) is in the diocese of Jasikan, and Friars here are directly involved in the evangelization works. The community started its presence in Jasikan Diocese in 2008, living in a rented house for almost one and half years. Today, we have our own house at Kpassa and St. Michael’s Church at Kpassa was raised to a parish entrusting it to the care of the Friars. The community has to care for the parish Church and 19 Outstations under the parish and five more villages. People request our presence, and we will be establishing those communities very soon. All these outstations are located in far places . I would say the last stations on the four sides that are north, south, west, and east would be 40-45 kilometres far. The condition of the road is very bad. Everywhere mud roads. When there is rain slushy and muddy and when there is no rain, there will be a lot of dust. We will have to travel on the rocky roads and also in the forest. There are many villages within Kpassa District, where Catholic presence has not penetrated. The possibility of reaching out to many more villages with the message of Christ stands as a challenge before us. I am a member and the parish priest of this community. We also under the thread of the armed robbers who will appear from the bush, and at any time we will be attacked, but we depend on God. We are certain that he will take care of us.
Ø OUR CHALLENGES
In most of our villages, we did not have a proper place to worship, so they worship and conduct masses under the trees or small sheds or in the class rooms. Now, the government don’t allow them to do the church services in the classrooms, so they have the other two options. When the rain falls, those two places are unsuitable for the Eucharistic celebrations. By seeing these as serious matters, we started to build churches according to the capacity of the people. I am here from 2018. Hence, in these two years, I could complete and bless three churches, and there are a few more churches that are under construction with the generous help of the people.
-We too have distributed 3500 Bibles and 7000 rosaries and other devotional books.
- Distributed more than 90 boxes of clothes for the people
There is too much water scarcity in most of the villages, so we could drill a few boreholes
People have to walk about 8- 10 kilometers to grind their food items so we can fix a few corn mills
In most of the places in the villages, the children are left alone, and the parents go to the farm, and the children may not have food to eat until the parents return home. Hence, we provide food items to them
Covid-19, many of the private school teachers and other local people did not have food materials, but we provided for many families these items and some money
Though, I mentioned here all what we did, but we need more help on the above indicated things.
The needs are:
Church buildings
Corn Mills
Boreholes
Clothe items
Food items
Bibles and rosaries
Schools
Difficulties are:
Transportations
Road ways
Possibilities of terrorist attacks
Language barriers: There are 60 local languages
Faith
The Christian communities are growing, and people want to know more about Jesus Christ. Though we have 19 Outstations, but now almost in 5 places, the people demand for the establishment of new churches. There are many other Christian denominations.
The other religions are:
Traditionalist, that is to say something like our Hinduism
Islam
Visit, culture, and languages
Definitely, you are more than welcome to visit us at any time. Culture will not be a problem as you have many Africans in Europe. The language, though we have more than 60 languages, you can manage with English, since it is the national language.
Food
There are many local foods like Yam, Maize, Cassava, they use all these items with soup, fish, and meat.
Most of our community people are farmers, and they completely depend on rain . When there is no rain, they can’t get all the food materials. Hence, many may not have food as well. We have only two seasons, rainy and summer seasons.
Our challenges:
The three Capuchin communities in Ghana are quite at a distance. Travelling from one community to another community takes almost a day. Secondly, our direct involvements with the people are mainly in Kpassa and Kongo and Prampam.
For all these villages where we are looking after them, need more generous hands to support them, providing water, food, schooling and other things. We totally depend more on the generous people and pray for all of you.
Fr. Robinson Melkis OFM Cap
