ECLOF supports mission of churches
From its beginning, ECLOF has provided credit to churches for a variety of projects including the financing of buildings. The last issue of New Horizons, included information about this work in the Philippines. Now it is the turn of Ghana.
Tema Christian Centre
The Tema Christian Centre – Assemblies of God Church is located in the Tema area, in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The church, which was founded in April 1983, had an initial membership of 110. The current membership of 900 is made up of 600 adults and 300 children under 13 years of age. Women make up 70% of the adults. Since its establishment, the church has 'planted' seven mission churches in the Tema district through its evangelistic activities.
At the inception of the church, worship was held in a classroom of the Redemption Valley Primary School in Tema. However, two years later, in 1985, the church was forced to put up its own structure for its Sunday services and other church activities as a result of a directive from the then-military government that barred all churches from using government schools as places of worship.
Members of the Tema Christian Centre's Women’s Fellowship dancing and praising God during a service.
By 2000, the church auditorium had become too small for the growing number of members due to the church’s energetic efforts in evangelism. The church council therefore began the construction of a 2000-seater auditorium and a hall for 700 to accommodate the children’s service. When finished, the new complex will also have offices and guestrooms.
Building began first with the construction of a basement to accommodate the children's service. For this, the church took out a first ECLOF loan of 75 million cedis (US$8,200). Then, in 2004, ECLOF Ghana granted the church a second loan to the equivalent of US$25,000, to 'top-slab' the basement. Once finished, the basement will serve as the foundation for the main auditorium.
The basement for the children’s service under construction.
The first loan was repaid on time while the repayment of the second loan is good. The Tema Christian Centre is one of the best performing clients under the General Capital Loan programme of ECLOF Ghana.
Earnings
Low income earners make up 40% of the adult congregation and work in both government and private employment. The majority are labourers, artisans, traders and small-scale entrepreneurs in the private sector. Young people and school leavers awaiting enrolment into higher education make up 19.7% of the congregation. Some 32.2%, who are middle range personnel employed by government agencies, earn between 15 and 30 million cedis per annum (US$1,650 to US$3,300). The remaining 8.1% earn between 30 and 40 million cedis per annum (US$3,300 to US$4,400). These people are mostly private sector entrepreneurs.
Excellence
In a bid to make the Tema Christian Centre a modern place of excellence for the total development of people, the church has been supporting its members and the neighbourhood in areas such as health, education and social activities.
The church organises HIV/AIDS workshops to educate rural populations, especially young people, with regard to the causes, prevention and impact of HIV/AIDS. The church also invites professionals to give lectures on business management and other relevant topics during the yearly youth and women’s week.
The church has adopted a policy whereby it pays the medical bills of those sick members of the church’s community and those living in life threatening conditions, who are too poor to meet their own costs. An example is 56-year-old Agnes Kyerewa Tackie.
Helping the helper
Agnes Kyerewa Tackie is diabetic and has been housebound since 2002. She had to retire from her work as an accountant due to her ill health. She lost her husband shortly after her retirement and her three siblings, living in Nigeria, seem to have abandoned her. Mrs Tackie's only child, Linda Nyarkoa, a small-scale dress designer, is now her only hope. Linda has to be with her mother all day in order to attend to her needs. For this reason, Linda runs her business from home. This makes things very difficult for the family because Linda does not get enough customers to earn enough for herself and her mother. The church has therefore stepped in to assist both mother and daughter in cash and in kind in order to make life bearable for this family.
Agnes Kyerewa Tackie (centre) with her daughter Linda Nyarkoa and John Avorgah, the youth pastor of the Tema Christian Centre.
Education
It is also the policy of the church to assist needy parents to pay their children's school fees. The church has so far assisted two students up to university level and 11 students to senior secondary school level. In 2005, 50 day students in various senior secondary schools each benefited from a 90,000 cedis (US$10) subsidy from the church, and 80 boarding school students each received a 160,000 cedis (US$18) subsidy for the payment of their school fees.
The church itself opened a vocational school in 2001 to help train teenage girls unable to gain admission into senior secondary schools. So far, 60 girls have graduated in dressmaking and catering.
The church has acquired a piece of land on which they plan to develop the vocational school and incorporate a computer centre to train the young people of the church and neighbourhood to enable them to acquire employable skills.
The youth in the church organize monthly clean up campaigns in Tema, and once a year they donate blood at Tema General Hospital. They also make regular donations in the form of cash, secondhand clothes, blankets and food items to the Tema SOS Children’s Village.
The church also distributes cash and food items such as rice, oil and other foodstuffs to help church members who are widows. Currently there are ten widows in the church who receive regular support from the church.
