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| May 2006 | ||||
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| The Making of a Leader | The Natural Leader | President's Desk | ||
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Jacob Nangai was born in an idol worshiping tribal village in Ghana, West Africa and is now serving as the director of CinA's ministry in Ghana, West Africa. Here is his story. |
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My mother believed in Jesus, and I loved to listen to Bible stories, but I
was not allowed to go to church because my father worshiped idols. He
wouldn’t allow anybody in the house to attend church because he had an idol
in the house which we were all forced to worship. In my early teens, all the children walked three kilometers from our village to school and back every day. One day I had a problem with my feet, and I could not walk back to the house from school. My sister carried me on her back. Next morning my feet were swollen and I was laid on a mat for two weeks. I could not walk or even stand on my feet. After two weeks, I would be able to walk to school one day, and the next day I'd be on my sick mat again. This became a burden to my parents because all my friends were going to school while I could not do anything. My father tried to heal me with his idol, using all sorts of medicine from the idol, but this could not cure me. |
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| Though Jacob's prayer had been that God would enable him to become a lawyer, he is thankful that God placed him in the ministry and made him a pastor and leader among God's people. | |||
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One afternoon my father took me to a river in the forest. When we got there,
he took a small bag from his pocket and swung it around my head three times.
After that he put this small bag beside the river and he said, "It's done."
Not knowing what my father was doing, I asked him why he was doing that in
the forest beside the river? He said to me, "Son, I went to the priest (Juju
man/Shrine) to seek from him your welfare. The man at the shrine told me
that it is some evil spirits that are troubling you because you will be a
great man in the future. That is why the evil spirits are trying to destroy
you. So, to save your life, the man told me to do what I have done." All of
this was not able to cure me: the problem persisted for nineteen months. One day it came into my mind to go to church. My father agreed to my request During my first time at the church service, the Pastor prayed for me. At that moment I felt within me that I was healed totally. I believed the same day that Jesus is my healer, and Jesus does not use Juju to heal people. Since then I have been able to walk from place to place every where I want to go. From that time on, I took my Bible to school with me every day. At break time I would call my classmates together under the big mango tree on the school compound. There I shared with them the stories in the Bible and what God has done in my life. Some laughed at me and some listened to me. I was elected as the school chaplain. I led worship service every week in the school. In our village, I organized an evening service where people brought their stools from their houses and sat to listen to me. My father was no longer staying with us in the same village. He was far away from us, and this gave me the opportunity to express my heart without any hindrance. Whenever my father visited us in the village, people told him, "Now your son has become the Pastor of our village." I was just interested sharing with the people through preaching what was on my heart. It wasn’t in my plan to become a pastor. My prayer was that I would be a lawyer in future. One day I prayed to God, saying that I wanted people to benefit from my life. I did not know what I was praying for and what it meant. Both the old and the young people listened to and respected me in the village, and they were wondering what this boy would become. And some people were saying that I was simply making noise. |
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In April 1994 our church held our annual convention at Akomadan. During the
service, I was called to the front before the whole congregation, when one
of the leaders proclaimed that God had chosen me as a vessel for his work to
preach his word to many and I should not fear. At the last day of the program, a meeting was called among the pastors and the elders. I was called to sit among them. I said to myself, "What do I have to offer at the sitting? I count myself unworthy." In the meeting, I was chosen and ordained to take charge of Paninamisa church as the leader/pastor. I was afraid because I was only twenty years of age and thought I couldn't do it. Within two years of my service in the church it became full of people. I give God the glory that He was revealed in my ministry. Then I was asked to move on to another village called Aworowa to start a new church in 1996. I had to stay with a young man who was not even a Christian and share his room. The trials that I went through in this house I cannot tell, not to mention my lack of clothing and food to eat. I thank God that all these years I was single. |
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| A happy family serving Christ in the cities and villages, Jacob, Beatrice and their son are pictured at the entrance to one of the village churches | |||
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We held crusades and I did door-to-door witnessing to people. Through that,
God drew many people to the church. I was ordained as a pastor in 1998, by
Rev. Elgin Taylor, then International President of Christians in Action.
Through missionary Mary McKelvy, God spoke to me of many things that I later
went through. One of those things was to attend Bible school and in my
second week I was elected class president and given many other
responsibilities. Since then I have served as the Director of The JESUS Film-Ghana, a member of CinA's national leadership council (NLC), coordinator for CinA-Ghana, vice president/chief administrator of CinA-Ghana and pastor of the Techiman Church. In 2005, the NLC transferred me to pastor the Nkoranza church, where I am currently serving in my fourth pastorate. In October 2005 I was voted in as the president of CinA-Ghana by the same people I had served over the years in different villages. |
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| Elgin Taylor, President Emeritus, presents Jacob with a pastor's credential card. | |||
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Though it was not my original prayer, I have not regretted becoming a
pastor. I count it all joy to be among those whom God has chosen to spread
the Gospel! I know that "God which hath begun a good work in me will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). It all started very
small and I did not know how it was going to be, but here am I today! God has equipped young and dedicated pastors to enhance the work here. Crusades are held in villages spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God’s grace abounds and we are filled with courage. We have sacrificed ourselves over the years and there is still so much more to be done for the Lord. Through our ministry many will be saved from the bondage of the devil. We are praying to God that He will send a missionary servant to us whom He has prepared to help train leaders on this field for the expansion of the work here. It has started expanding and we will need workers (Matthew 9:37). The future for Ghana is bright, awaiting servants of God to spread the Gospel to the lost world. It is not going to be in Ghana alone but across the continent of Africa that we want to spread the Gospel! |
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