Opinions of Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Columnist: Akpah, Prince

A Day Spent At The SCOAN, Ghana

It was a great experience being at the Ghana branch of Prophet TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations this Sunday. Even though I never wanted to write about this, I was driven to tell this story because of the other matters arising and tell it the way I had the experience and let the world hear the story from an attendee. I know it can bring about the topic of difference in faith but if you can’t contain it please end here and put your comment below.

Truthfully, I have never being to a church as early of about 4:30 am. But last Sunday even though I did slept around 3:00 am because of the addiction to watch the Ghana Music Awards’ ceremony I made that debut to Spintex. But the desire to be there was also prompted by my controversial article titled-TB Joshua provides alternative for Ghanaians, doctors can go to sleep. Being one that has promoted the free distribution of the anointing water by TB Joshua, I decided to join my family to the church service. We reached the premises of the church as just around 4:30 am. But to our surprise, as we thought we were too early, the crowd gathered outside the gate to enter the church premises, were just uncountable as compared to the sand at the sea shore. There were no seats to sit on, because all the seats provided were filled to capacity and some being reserved for relatives or friends.

If the media now reports of the death of some people, it should be because of the various crowds and queues that were present outside the venue. As we arrived, we also decided to join the latest procession which was long and that as we joined it, within 5 minutes the people behind us were too much for me to count for an exact figure. Seeing no hope to enter the premises through our queue, we got the hint that there were few people by one of the gates which may be open for visitors to enter the SCOAN, Ghana. Very close to the gate as we were, our hopes of being part of the first entrants were very high. The ushers, I wont say they were either rude or kind because their relationship with us the visitors. Whiles we were standing out as visitors, members of the church who even came late were being ushered in through another gate with the provision of some evidence which I thought shouldn’t have being the case since it was the house of God. Standing by the gate from about 5:00 am was one that I think will qualify me to join the military because as a matter of fact, I stood there with others until I left when it was about 08:00 am. My legs couldn’t stand it. Despite from showers to rain, the people around me were never discouraged to take a leave of the place because of their nearness to the gate. The ushers at our gate were so authoritative and making us hopeful about opening the gate only for us to find out he does not even have the key with him. We were by the gate also seeing people entering and it was such a sad story to see some of them entering with only one shoe, sandals or theirs cloth, some expensive as dirty as a mud ground or torn. And this tells you that the struggle just be part of the church service were one that everyone wanted to fight; some might see it as a good fight of faith. Who knows that might send you to a pathway to your healing or blessings and the solutions to the problem you came with. Even the rain couldn’t send people home.

About the death of some attendants for the Sunday service, as I became tired and decided to leave, I just had to find my way out. But as I was going out then were more people coming in for the free anointing water service. It was as if the church was about to start and according to what a pastor of the church said about the population, I believe and according to my sight the crowd was over 50,000 people, just for a church service. Going out, I drew closer to an ambulance which was parked in the premises for emergency cases. The police were also there in full capacity. I saw two old women, one on a stretcher with the back of her head sandy and another sitting on medical chair from the ambulance also wailing. Without doubt, I believe this people could be one of the people who died because of the condition they were in wasn’t one to survive. The struggle to enter could have made them fall which the crowd couldn’t have waited for them to stand. In the crowd no one knows and old person or a young person.

I decided to leave and I left. Also just to reach home to hear that the service was cancelled by TB Joshua. To my surprise while watching Emmanuel TV other countries were also up to the same task. My other family members also started their journey home safely for us to watch the live program from Nigeria. Thank You

Akpah Prince

akpahprince@ymail.com akpahprince.wordpress.com