[Home] [Newsletters & Updates] [Prayer Requests] [Contact Us] [Ghana News and Information]
[Westover Home] [Westover Worldover]

This newsletter is also available here as a MSWord document, which might be preferable for printing.

Report from Richard & Linda Benskin with Joanna & Daniel

Dear Friends,

We send you warm greetings from Ghana. The rainy season is nearing an end in Yendi. Local farmers have already begun to harvest some of the earlier crops, with the rest soon to follow. We hope this season finds you all well and enjoying the Grace and Joy of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is doing great things in Yendi. I hope this account will convey a few of the highlights of His work.

Hamidu

The shortage of health professionals in our area is increasingly acute. According to a recent news story in the Ghanaian Chronicle, the entire Northern Region (an area the size of the state of Maine with a population of 2 million) is currently served by only 20 doctors. This includes both government and private (mostly mission) facilities. Yendi District, with several hundred thousand people and a government hospital that draws patients even from beyond the district, is now served by only one doctor. This busy man does all the surgeries, makes rounds at the hospital, and has extensive administrative duties as well! Nurses are, of course, in similarly short supply. We would like to share one story of a delightful little boy who almost became a victim of this shortage.

Hamidu had deep burns over much of his upper body when hot oil spilled over him in a cooking accident in May. At the Yendi government hospital, the pediatrics ward is full of malaria patients requiring blood transfusions, so males needing dressing changes, even if they are only three years old, are treated in the men's surgical ward. Hamidu understandably fought the painful procedure. After three weeks there, he had developed serious infections. With little progress and a poor prognosis, he was released abruptly, and his parents expected him to die. A week later, he began coming to the mission clinic for further treatment. He was feverish from the infections and malnourished from the large amounts of protein and blood lost through his burns. With frequent meticulous dressing changes, protein and iron supplements, and constant prayer, his little body is gradually recovering. While you may think we fix everything with duct tape, the silver-grey material on his chest and arm is actually a special dressing for his wounds that is later covered with an outer dressing. Pray that his recovery continues and that he and his family may come to know the compassion of Christ through the hands of Christians working at the clinic.

Rendezvous with Joanna in Germany

On our last visit to the USA, we were persuaded that we should take a "mid-term" vacation between furloughs. We also began to think about getting Joanna back to the States for some of the summer 2002 youth activities at Westover (our home congregation). When it came time to make the arrangements, we were stymied. The few locations that would offer much change from the environment in Ghana proved almost impossible to get to without going through Europe. When a friend told us about waiting three extra days EACH WAY traveling to Guinea on one of the leading regional airlines (no, they did not offer to pay his hotel bills), we gave in and decided to take our vacation in Europe itself. This worked out well, since, while we had accumulated enough airline miles cover Joanna's roundtrip to Texas, the airline could only get her back as far as Europe; all seats to Ghana were booked. We met Joanna in Frankfurt and spent some very relaxing time in and near Germany. We were able to stay in less formal country homes and "vacation apartments," rather than expensive big city hotels (the little German we speak went a long way here). It was very refreshing to be able to take long walks in the country without being stopped every few minutes by someone wanting to guide us to our destination (walking for pleasure is unheard of in Yendi). The cooler weather was great; we even enjoyed some snow on a glacier. The ease of making meals (great grocery stores, and even fast food options) did a lot to refresh us. We returned to the work here in Ghana healthier, though perhaps a bit overfed. Joanna's time in the USA was also a great success.

Successful Primary Health Care Worker Course in Kumasi

Lively but matronly Rita was the de facto "mother" of this recent class of students. Rita wants to be a PHCW to allow her husband to preach full time in areas where the church is not strong enough to support their family. We held a contest to find misspellings and editorial errors in the manuscript of the new handbook. Rita gained quite a few points by polling the other women students and compiling a list of words used in the handbook that are not used in "Ghanaian English" (like "garbage", "cramp", and "booster"). But, in the end, a Liberian preaching student who spent hours checking for "typos" edged her out of the first prize. We appreciate the helpfulness of all the students.

In addition to seventeen new students, three more of the students from the March course in Yendi, cut short due to the violence, were able to graduate from the June PHCW course in Kumasi. Squeezing all twenty students into the classroom for the final exam was a bit of a challenge. But, we are happy that almost all of the students from the Yendi class have now completed the first foundational portion of the course along with so many new students.

Uneasy Peace in Yendi

One of our Dagomba co-workers left his job as a junior high school teacher last January to work towards a degree in Biblical Studies at a college near Accra. When he returned during a recent break, an elderly man asked where he had been. Although the man is a Muslim, his reaction was enthusiastic. "I am so glad." the man said, "Teach our children about Christianity. I will always be a Muslim. But, if my children become Christians, it would be better." Another older member of the Muslim community actually chided a Christian brother for not offering to study the Bible with him sooner. Comments like these are not too unusual around Yendi, but since the violence in March, they have been even more frequent. There seems to be a growing awareness that Islam is not helping to bring peace to the people. One thought that comes up particularly often is that, on those tragic days in March, men were praying together in the Mosque in Yendi, only to be killing one another a few hours later. Islam may be gaining strength in some areas, but here it is seen by more and more people as a failed religion.

While there is still a lot of unresolved tension in Yendi, the peacekeeping troops have been very effective. The troops also seem convinced that this mission will not be over soon. As long as they are here, we feel quite safe. Continue to pray that the Prince of Peace may expand his reign in the hearts of men in the region.

Great WBS Campaign in July

World Bible School (WBS) is a great asset to the work here. English is the common language of the government workers stationed in Yendi, and it is the language of the Ghanaian school system, so, most of the literate people in this area are able to study the Bible in English. Two years ago we began distributing lessons in the town of Yendi. This summer, we wanted to follow-up with a seminar for these students, but we also wanted to expand, reaching as many people in the rural areas as possible.

The junior high school students in Ghana take a standardized test at the end of their third year to determine their future educational options. The students from the Muslim areas, like Yendi, typically do poorly on the Social Studies section on Christianity. What an opportunity! With a little advance preparation, we were able to secure invitations for "American Christians" to teach lessons on "the Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ" in all the junior highs in the Yendi district. We also arranged to visit both senior high schools.

During the planning stages of the campaign, some of the Ghanaians were a bit skeptical. This is not a Christian area. Would we really be allowed to speak in all the schools? And it is, after all, the rainy season. When the time available for farming is as short as it is in Yendi, the level of activity during that time has to be intense. We would be asking people who were not yet Christians to abandon their farms for a full day to attend a Saturday seminar. And, of course, there are the obvious difficulties with traveling muddy roads. We all prayed that the Lord would bless our efforts.

Five enthusiastic Austinites, representing the WBS teachers in America, were joined by five Ghanaian evangelists, the Thorntons, and the Benskins to form three teams. Using 4WD pickups, we fanned out in all directions. We hoped to reach about 4,500 students in 24 schools spread over an almost 1500 square mile area with virtually no paved roads in only three school-days. A thunderstorm greeted us the first morning. In response, many teachers simply chose not to have classes that day. The students and teachers alike stayed home while it rained. Most of them went to farm, rather than to school, when the weather cleared. But, some of the schools in town opened at midday, and when they did, the teams were ready. The weather improved, and despite the slow start, the groups were able to get to all but one of the schools. (Written summaries of the lesson, along with WBS lessons, were left for when classes resume there.)

The teachers, even at the Islamic schools, greeted us warmly, encouraging the students to pay close attention, take notes and ask questions. "Pray for the students." they often insisted at the close of the lesson. Incredible! Public Christian prayer is no problem in these schools. Many of these were even officially Islamic schools. Yet, we were not only invited to tell the basic Gospel story, we are even urged to lead the students in public prayer afterward. We were overwhelmed. The WBS lessons were so popular that students, teachers and other community members all across Yendi District are now studying the Bible through World Bible School.

Saturday (Seminar Day) dawned cool and clear - an answer to prayer. Soon the church building and classrooms overflowed with 170 current WBS students studying in English, some interested adults who attended small groups in local languages, plus many children. The number of Christians involved in the effort grew to meet the need, as clinic staff and other church members joined the workers who had been going to the schools to teach. A group meeting under some cashew trees broke up for a few minutes to drive away a snake, but otherwise the day progressed very smoothly. Naturally, we are planning for additional WBS follow-up seminars in the future.

The campaigners also taught special classes for church members on Sunday, held one-on-one Bible studies, and held church services at the local prison. Not bad, for spending only five days in Yendi!

Prayer Requests

• Pray for peace in Yendi, especially the peace that comes from knowing Christ.
• Pray for continued physical and spiritual healing for those coming to the clinic. Pray also for patients' families.
• This may seem trivial but, we ask that you pray that our computer will continue to serve us. Some annoying glitches have been hampering the work on the health handbook as well as this newsletter.
• While we try not to focus on this, Satan is also hard at work in Yendi. Pray that his efforts to derail or destroy the work of the Lord are always quickly overcome.

In the Service of the King,

The Benskins

[Home] [Newsletters & Updates] [Prayer Requests] [Contact Us] [Ghana News and Information]
[Westover Home] [Westover Worldover]