10 Years in Ghana

The cashew trees lining the driveway of the Luke Society's 30-acre hospital campus in Ghana signaled how the ministry has grown so abundantly since Dr. John Oduro Boateng began it 10 years earlier in a three-room hut with no electricity. These trees provide more than just beauty and shade; money from their harvest contributes to the operation of the ministry as part of John's holistic approach. Nothing is wasted, and everything works together in his efforts to redeem this impoverished community.

When John arrived in the Ejura Sekyeredumasi District of Ghana in the fall of 1989, only two health centers and no doctors served a population of 100,000. Because most people worked on farms, they needed the help of their children in the fields, making schooling a difficult prospect. They had no electricity, and most of the water came from shallow wells that dried up every year when the rains stopped. The infant mortality rate was 30 per 1,000 live births, and many diseases--including malaria, diarrhea and intestinal parasites--were endemic to the region.

Only five of the roughly 100 villages in the district had Christian churches. Instead, animism, fetish worship, and ancestral worship dominated the culture. Witches, wizards and fetish priests held great power over the people, often claiming healing powers on which the people relied.

John had returned to Ghana from Liberia to start a medical ministry, but he couldn't ignore the pressing spiritual and economic needs of the community.

"Seeing the poor, the fatherless, communities without churches and bound to fetishes," he said, "all this challenged me to depend on the Lord and the help of others."

Fighting Spiritual Darkness with the Gospel

John established a base in the village of Kasei that served as both clinic and home for his wife, Theresa, and son, Kwami. During the day, he provided basic medical services and began training individuals to serve as community health workers who would teach hygiene and disease prevention. In the evenings, he would hold open-air evangelistic meetings.

Soon, the first church was planted in Kasei --with a vision of spreading the Gospel throughout the district. As new believers were discipled, they took leadership roles and helped plant churches in neighboring villages. They continue to periodically gather together for a week of prayer and fasting, often holding all-night prayer vigils, in preparation for four- or five-day crusades.

People are drawn at first by the lively singing and dancing of the worship services that open the crusades. Evangelists explain the Gospel and baptize new converts. Because most are former fetish worshippers, the crusades include deliverance sessions to bind spirits, cast out demons and set people free from their satanic and ancestral covenants. As a sign of their new covenant, many publicly burn the idols they had looked to for power. Believers from established churches continue to disciple the new Christians and preside over the newly planted church.

To date, John has helped plant more than 35 churches with a combined total of nearly 1,000 members. Some meet under the shade of mango trees, while others have built large stone sanctuaries. Wanting the churches to have accountability within a denomination, John works closely with the Church of Pentecost, where he serves as an elder. But the Luke Society of Ghana also works closely with churches from other denominations, and staff members and volunteers cut across denominational lines. The common bond of faith in Jesus Christ and a desire to share that faith unites them in their work.

Fighting Disease with Medicine

The medical work has also come a long way in a decade. The clinic quickly outgrew the three-room hut, and John was able to acquire 30 acres across the road, where the current compound now sits.

He developed a procedure to repair hernias using local anesthetics, allowing patients to walk away from the surgery. He often performs the operation in less than 20 minutes, thus reducing the risk of infection. Wealthier patients from all over Ghana--and even neighboring countries -- began coming to Kasei for the operation. Their fees helped offset the costs of those who could not afford to pay for the surgery. Since hernias are extremely common among the hardworking farmers in the region, he grew busy and hired additional staff. Eventually, the hospital building was completed.

The current hospital includes dental and eye care facilities, a surgical theater and several patient wards. John's home, a staff complex and a guesthouse complete the campus.

It's difficult for the people in outlying villages to travel to the hospital, though, and John had a vision for training community members to help prevent, diagnose and treat disease. Staff member Dr. Margaret Mensah now oversees five Luke Society community health clinics in the region, each of which serves several other villages further in the bush. The professional staff at the hospital and clinics train volunteer community health workers in each village. Because clinic workers and volunteers come from within each community, a level of trust and understanding develops naturally between the Luke Society and the people in the village. Health committees from the village work closely with the clinic, giving the people a sense of ownership in the ministry.

Besides treating cases of malaria, fever and infection, health workers teach concepts of prevention: building latrines, improving hygiene and clearing the environment of weeds to reduce the malaria-carrying mosquito population. The Luke Society has also trained traditional birth attendants in many of the villages.

Fighting Poverty with Opportunity

Along with the need for healthcare and evangelism came a need to respond to the poverty of the people with whom John worked. A quick walk through the villages of Kasei and Ebuja-Nkwanta reveals the deep need for economic development; most of the children go about shoeless, and huts are crumbling apart. Many homes are made solely of mud and thatch, and during the rainy season, collapsing huts take the lives of some villagers -- a tragedy that struck the family of one staff member last year. Toddlers wander naked outside their homes while their older siblings play between the huts. Nearly all the men are subsistence farmers, and the meager fruits of their labors are dried, ground, mixed and cooked over smoky fires on the dirt outside each door. Even the name of a nearby village, "Hiawuowuu," speaks to the desperate conditions. It literally translates, "When you're poor, don't kill yourself."

Starting with less than $100 of clinic income, John built a coalition of partners to provide loans to individuals so they could rent larger plots of land to work or develop small businesses. The Luke Society, Opportunity International and the local community joined forces to create The Community Bank of Amantin and Kasei.

Farmers who barely fed their families working on a single acre can now build income by farming three or four acres. The microeconomic development projects -- ranging from a staff member's wife baking bread to a woman selling cassava root in the market -- provide food and building materials for their families. Without the community bank, none of these families would have ever qualified for a traditional loan.

Many of the development projects have involved a variety of partners as well. John saw the need for a regional clean water supply so he initiated a land survey and drew up blueprints with the faith that God would provide the funds. The cost to erect a water tower and lay 8 km of pipe was $150,000, but the tower would provide water to thousands. By working with World Vision, the Lion's Club, the district government and the Luke Society USA, John was able to complete the project as planned.

Adjacent to the Luke Society grounds, New Kasei village stands as a monument to John's desires for his staff to benefit from their dedication and hard work. Staff members were each given a share of the community bank and lots on which to build homes. Many have already begun construction. I toured the village at dusk, visiting families as they prepared their dinners. Pots of fufu -- a doughy West African dish made from ground casaba root and yams -- and stew cooked over wood fires and coal. Children played in the fading light, and extended families sat in the cool evening breeze. New Kasei has no electricity or running water, but the glimpses of family life I saw -- pride in what they've built for themselves and the love they share for each other -- offers hope among the poverty so evident in the region.

"Everywhere we go is a permanent community base," John said, "either in terms of a community clinic, a church building, a water project, school or bank. We have things physically there where people can be reached out to physically, spiritually and economically. We also have human assets based in the community -- committed Christians who have been trained. They live among the people, eat what they eat, drink what they drink and share their testimonies with them."

About 120 people now work for the Luke Society in Ghana, either for the bank, the economic development projects, the eye clinic in Accra, the hospital in Kasei or the outlying community health clinics. Not all are paid directly by the Luke Society, but all share the vision and goals of Dr. Boateng: helping the people of Ghana develop spiritually, physically and economically. That vision has become a reality.

A Humble Beginning

Though John had a successful medical practice with a large industrial firm in Liberia before returning to Ghana, he was all too familiar with the impoverished conditions of the region. His own childhood in a neighboring district wasn't much different.

As a group of village children, some dusty and dressed in rags, followed him around, John said, "That was me up to fifteen years old, running around barefoot."

Polygamy is common in Ghana, and John's father had 15 children with four wives. John was the last, and his father was nearly 80 when he was born. His parents often presented sacrifices to the local fetishes, and John himself was dedicated to one of the deities.

John's father died when he was eight, and he was sent to live with relatives. These years were a toughening time; he was forced to do a lot of the menial work from which his cousins were spared. At one point, he had carried so many buckets filled with food, wood and water on his head that they wore his hair down to a bald spot.

"I thank the Lord for that period, looking back," he said. "It was a time I learned what it means to be on my own -- taking my own initiative, planning on my own, doing things on my own."

His initiative earned him a spot at the secondary school. His background --- coming from illiterate and fetish worshipping farmers -- was a sharp contrast to that of his wealthier classmates. He was very timid, shaking visibly when he had to stand and speak.

But 17 years after his parents committed him to the fetish shrine, John committed himself to Jesus Christ.

"Literally, when I became a Christian," he said, "I found security and confidence in the Lord. Having to work and go to school built aggressiveness."

That aggressiveness has served John well as he fights a three-front battle against spiritual darkness, poverty and disease. He has worked hard not only to win souls, not only to heal patients, but also to lift his fellow man out of the struggles of survival into a world of relative comfort and security -- all through a strategic and coordinated effort. By the grace of God, he's seen that work have a tremendous impact in the last decade, bringing the people of Ejura Sekyeredumasi hope for both a better life on earth and eternal life in heaven.