Church & Soccer, or Faith & Football, or The Pew & The Pitch

Sunday, June 26, 2016, was a very interesting day for me on several different levels. Essentially, only two events took place: attending morning worship at Calvary Assembly of God Church in Kakomdo Village in the morning; and attending the celebration weekend's culminating soccer match on the "field" in the center of Akotokyir Village in the late afternoon.

As different from one another as these two events were in substance, they were for me virtually identical in impact; and they took me back almost 50 years to my first year of teaching Social Studies at Gifford Junior-Senior High School in Gifford, Florida.

In all three settings, I was the only white face in an otherwise black world. Actually, at Gifford High there were four other white teachers during the 1967-1968 school year; but when it came to traveling with the football team to away games, I was frequently the only white person in the stadium. It did not bother me then because these guys were my guys; but the total racial, and cultural, reversal of what my life had been prior to that year was also not lost on me. And I have been reflecting on these disparate, yet similar, experiences.

In 2010, the Teaching & Learning in Ghana team was blessed with a wonderful Tro Tro driver by the name of Dominic Ato Mensah. (A tro tro is essentially a mini-van outfitted with 3 or 4 rows of bench seats and serves as the most common form of public transportation in Ghana. While in-country we always chartered a tro tro to carry us around Cape Coast while we worked in schools and visited various cultural and recreation sites.) Dominic invited us to come with him and his wife and young son, Samuel, to their church, The Calvary Assembly of God Church in Kakomdo Village for a Sunday worship service. We had such a wonderful time worshiping and getting to know the congregation, that when some of the same team returned as part of the Fulbright TLG-2011 program, and found that once again Dominic would be our tro tro driver, they all insisted that we make this church our Cape Coast home church. Despite our traveling, we were able to worship with them two or three times during our six weeks in Ghana. Therefore, when I saw Dominic at Tuwohofo-Holly International School last week, he happens to be one of Mr. Baidoo's nephews, I told him I'd like to go to church on Sunday and he said, "I will pick you."

So, somewhere around 9:15 yesterday morning, Dominic, his wife, son and a friend, picked me up in his tro tro and we drove to church.  Dominic drives a regular Cape Coast - Accra - Cape Coast route every day, usually leaving Cape Coast around 4:30am carrying passengers to and from the capital city. Depending on the demand, he often makes two round trips in a day which keep him on the road in traffic in a non-airconditioned vehicle for 8-10 hours.

When we arrived at church, "Sunday School" was in session. In this case, there were at least two and maybe three different classes going on simultaneously in the church - each class sitting only a few rows away from the others and each with its own teachers.  All of this was occurring in Fante, which meant I could not understand anything the teacher closest to where Domininc and I were sitting was saying unless he made reference in English to a particular passage of Scripture.  Dominic's wife was sitting with her class in another section of the church.

The service began to begin around 11am with singing, exhortation, instruments playing loudly, and people joining in on the songs being sung - all in Fante and none of which I even knew the tunes to - but, I could harmonize and guess the tune patterns. So, I listened as best I could to those around me and attempted to mimic the words they were singing.  The emotions expressed and the engagement and investment of the congregants gave ample understanding that they were singing praises to their, and my, Lord.

Pastor Isaac Koomson was present in the service but did not preach yesterday. One of the elders, a professor at the University of Cape Coast, delivered a sermon on, from what I could gather from the scriptures he used and his infrequent comments in English, the rights accorded to the children of God and the inherent responsibilities those rights include. He preached for the better part of an hour which was difficult for me since I could not understand any of what he was saying so I was forced to continually remind myself that I was in his church and he was ministering to his people.  But there was no doubt or question as to the message he was presenting or as to the devotion he and his congregation expressed toward the Lord they worship.

Below is a poem I wrote several years ago in an attempt to deal with how essential it is that people hear and understand the gospel of Jesus from within their own cultural and linguistic framework.  After all, as Lamin Sanneh has so eloquently written, Christianity is a religion of the WORD and the word is always and only understood in translation.
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Heart Language Hymn

Among those who translate the Bible, the term “heart language” refers to the language with which a person feels most comfortable and at ease. It is the language of his heart.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?”

(Acts 2:5-8)

Evangelical Covenant churchmen on retreat in New Hampshire

sing Store Gud in mother Swedish.

Chinese faithful in a Qingdao church praise Shangdi

in a tongue millennia old.

Ghana Assemblies of God folk at Sunday morning worship

raise Fante hymns to Ewuradze, the Lord.

There is something unique and special about Heart language.

It speaks to the soul as well as the ear.

It comes unforced, unfettered, untampered.

It releases and frees.

It allows the voice to soar.

It invites the spirit to rise.

What lives in the deepest part of us

is what motivates, inspires, and reveals

who we truly are.

Therefore, we sing first with our hearts

and then with our voices.

Lord, help me to know your heart language

for I want to sing

with You.

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Sunday afternoon was another deja vu exerience - a football (soccer) match between T.H.I.S. teachers and T.H.I.S. alumni.  At least that was the intent; the reality was that there were more alums than teachers and so the guys combined and created two teams who played a roughly regulation match, complete with team jerseys and a referee.

The match was played on the Akotokyir Village football pitch in the center of the village. The only grass was located along one side where people sat to watch the play.  The "field" was roughly the size of a typical soccer field, hard-packed dirt with patches of loose sand. There were goal rectangles but no nets. Nor were there any markings to indicate the field's borders - unless you consider cinderblock houses and seated spectators as boundaries. Of course, given that spectators are mobile, the "boundary" on that side of the field was frequently expanding and contracting according to where the play of the ball was.

The play was fast and furious and the players extremely skilled.  Shoes were optional as several players were barefoot or in stocking feet throughout the match. The referee was good and kept the game moving and even called a couple of Yellow Cards but since everyone playing was friends with everyone else, there was very little arguing - a good deal of rough and tumble in the dirt fighting for balls - but little arguing.



Once again, as in church, I was the only white face among the several hundred watching the game - the little white guy with the camera taking pictures of the players, the spectators, and especially the dozens of children

constantly gathered around me mugging, making hip hop signs with their hands as they faked tough guy grimaces, and begging to be "snapped" and then see themselves in my camera's view screen. To those who knew me, I was "Prof"or "Dough-nald Claa-ree-ko" and to everyone else I was "Bronyi."  I wasn't a member of the community but neither was I an outsider who didn't belong. And it was OK.

And it's been OK virtually everywhere I've traveled in my life: Viet Nam, Taiwan, England, Holland, China, Thailand and, of course, these past 15 years visiting Ghana. 

...and behold, I am with you always,

even to the end of the age.

(Mt 28:20)