I was young, passionate and full of zeal for the Lord. I cannot forget the day I landed on the soils of Abidjan, Cote D’ivoire ready you take territories for Jesus!
I must confess that my first experience with accommodation though was pretty sobering.
It is usually advisable that missionaries work on living arrangements while in their home country. The process can take quite a while. I on the other hand just decided to just go, as arrangements were dragging.
So well, I just arrived trusting and believing that something would work out when I got there.
I was met by some other missionaries at the airport who helped me get hold of a pastor in Daloa (the 3rd biggest city in Côte d’Ivoire) where I was to start my church.
My understanding from discussions with him was that he was going to host me. I discovered however, upon getting there that he had organized for me to stay with another pastor and not with him.
Not left with much of a choice, we arrived at this ‘new’ pastor’s house where I was to stay.
He lived in an ‘almost hut’ with a single room with his wife and children. I couldn’t stop wondering how this pastor even agreed to host someone else. They practically had no rooms.
Just the sight of his living conditions sobered me up, considering where I had come from – East Legon, an elite part of Accra, Ghana (where i used to stay with my auntie).
Anyway, as you can imagine, I was on my way elsewhere in no time. He took me to another person whose conditions were a bit better. This man was actually half Ghanaian so he spoke twi, which helped care of the language barrier.
He gave me a room which was practically a storeroom with a cockroach-infested mattress.
The heat and mosquitoes in the room was unbelievable. There was no ceiling, just a roof with openings into the room. I could barely sleep the first night.
The next day I went to buy a fan to deal with the heat problem.
One night while asleep, I felt something nibbling at my toes. I woke up suddenly and literally heard mice scurrying off. There were mice too!
I needed a quick solution – mouse traps! The traps almost became my alarm clocks. My morning routine now included throwing away dead mice.
As if all of this was not enough, my host’s wife pointed out to me one day something that almost made me jump out of my skin.
The room actually belonged to their son and his wife and apparently this woman (their son’s wife) was into juju (fetish). And she had pots with concoctions and other things in the room. My room!
That is how the prayer marathon started. Oh how I prayed – binding loosing and breaking!
I had such an adventurous experience in that house. God taught me many things while I was there. It was a blessing.
My host was not in a hurry for me to leave the house.
His daughter eventually built another house and they moved me there.
The wife and children actually joined the church when I started it. They were part of my very first church members.
Daloa was such an experience! A real training ground and stepping stone for me. God blessed me and the church there! And yes if I had my life to live again I would do it again!
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Romans 8:38-39 KJV)
Benaiah Kwaku Owusu-Ansah (Missionary – Cote D’Ivoire)