Ghana

The first SDA missionaries, Edward L. Sanford and Karl G. Rudolph, arrived at Apam on Feb. 22, 1894. Within five months frequent attacks of malaria forced Sanford’s departure, but Rudolph continued another 18 months. On Oct. 3, 1895 Dudley U. Hale (the new mission superintendent), George and Eva Kerr (both nurses), and G. P. Riggs (a colporteur) arrived at Cape Coast, where they met Rudolph, who had previously moved there from Apam. During the following year a successful medical missionary program was conducted in Cape Coast. In August 1896 the Kerrs moved to the new mission site near Esiam, 23 miles (37 kilometers) inland from Salt Pond, where a building program that was planned to include the mission headquarters, a school and hospital, was started.
Unfortunately, their work was cut short by sickness. The two Kerr children died in 1896. After canvassing for eight months, illness forced Riggs’s departure for Liverpool, where he died Jan. 8, 1897. Because of failing health, the Kerrs left for Cape Town, South Africa, on Apr. 16, 1897, and Hale departed on June 3. On Mar. 27, 1897, in the first Seventh-day Adventist baptism in West Africa, Hale baptized Francis I. U. Dolphijn, Fred and Isaac Dolphijn, and G. P. Grant.
In March 1903 Hale returned to Ghana with his family and Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Hyatt.
The Hyatts worked in Cape Coast, while the Hales moved to a new mission site near Manso, on the railroad line between Sekondi and Tarkwa. About six months later Hale and his family had to leave a second time to save his life. The Hyatts continued in Cape Coast until they moved to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1905. In July 1905 David C. Babcock, with his family, was sent to take charge of the work in West Africa, which he supervised from Sierra Leone.
During the following years Babcock and C.E.F. Thompson, a Jamaican who joined the SDA Church in Sierra Leone, with the cooperation of C. A. Ackah, J. A. Bonney, D. N. Daharty, J. K. Garbrah, and J. A. Sackey, developed SDA work among the Nzima people of the Axim area. In 1910 Babcock baptized about 50 believers, organizing churches at Axim and Kikam. Early in January 1911 Prof. and Mrs. Thomas M. French went to the Gold Coast. In Axim, on Jan. 18, two weeks after their arrival, Mrs. French died of blackwater fever, and French, suffering from repeated attacks of malaria, returned to the United States. Thereafter, Thompson took charge of the Gold Coast work until he, broken in health, died on Mar. 25, 1912.
Early Organization and Growth. At a general meeting in Sierra Leone in 1913, W. H. Lewis was appointed to the Gold Coast. He and his family were ordered to go first to the
Canary Island health base to get rid of fever. He came to the Gold Coast alone in September 1914, landing in Sekondi, while his family remained in the Canaries. With J.A.B. Davies, of Sierra Leone, he visited SDAs in Axim and Kikam. Davies was placed in charge while Lewis pushed on to Kumasi in Ashanti in search of a site for permanent headquarters. On
Nov. 6, 1914, he reported that he had found favorable sites for two mission stations. In
Agona, capital of a chiefdom 22 miles (35 kilometers) northeast of Kumasi, Lewis found an old European resthouse, which the chief offered until a headquarters station could be erected. The paramount chief of Agona, Nana Kwame Boakye, gave a larger plot of land, where Lewis erected a house and a school building with the assistance of the chief and his people. In the school there, which became the center of a group of schools, J. K. Garbrah, H. E. Boyce, J. J. Hyde, H. K. Munson, F. L. Stokes, and F. Edwards taught at various times. In 1914 Lewis listed 45 adherents who had been won in Agona, Assamang, and Ntonso. Shortly after this he was forced to return home because of serious injuries received in a motorcycle accident. Later T. Baker, L. F. Langford, and J. Clifford came to the Gold Coast, and with three African workers, J. K. Garbrah, J.A.B. Davies, and J. A. Bonney, spread the work to Kofiase, Bipoa, and other nearby towns. After World War I Langford was appointed general superintendent for the West African Combined Mission ( organized
1918), which included Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Gold Coast, with headquarters first at Waterloo, Sierra Leone, then at Agona, in the Gold Coast.
In January 1924 H. K. Munson joined the mission personnel. At the suggestion of the chief commissioner of Ashanti, the headquarters were moved from Agona into Kumasi. In 1927 they were returned to Agona. In 1930 the Yearbook lists the Agona Training School, with H. K. Munson as the first principal.
In 1931 J. Clifford, who had gone from the Gold Coast to Nigeria, returned to Agona to lead the Gold Coast Mission. In 1933 the field was reorganized into the Gold Coast Union Mission, with the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Togoland, and Upper Volta as its territory. New headquarters were opened at Bekwai, South Ashanti, with its good rail, road, and postal communications. Under the leadership of F. L. Stokes, a center was opened in new territory at Koforidua, and a church established in the capital city, Accra, the center of the Ga-speaking people. Under T. Fielding and others the work at Agona stretched north to Kwame Danso, and a church and a school were established in Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti. J. B. Tekyi opened the work in the Tekyiman area and C. B. Mensah in the Mampong district. Members from the Gold Coast developed interests in the Ivory Coast in three different centers, and these were visited by J. K. Garbrah, S. B. Essien, and J. Clifford, conducting baptisms and organizing the work. In 1943 the Gold Coast Mission became part of the African West Coast (now West African) Union Mission.
Educational Work. New education laws made it necessary either to train teachers or to close the mission’s schools. In 1939 C. A. Bartlett began training teachers to pass their External Teacher’s Certificate. In 1945 permission was granted by the Education Department to open a recognized two-year teacher training college at Bekwai, with C. A. Bartlett as principal, which later became a four-year training college. Thus was realized the goal of training SDA young people to develop into missionary teachers and open church schools. From the beginning the students were trained in soul winning, often rising at 4:00 a.m. to conduct evangelistic campaigns in nearby villages. Bekwai Training College was phased out in July 1974 by order of the government.
In 1953 the Bekwai Secondary School was opened, with N. C. Maberly as headmaster. The school, under the leadership of C. Y. Kyereme as headmaster, has expanded and is now offering preuniversity courses in arts and sciences at the sixth-form (junior college) level.
The Asokore-Koforidua Teacher Training College was opened in 1962, with C. Y. Kyereme as the principal. Asokore is now the only SDA teacher training college in Ghana. Another teacher training college was opened in 1963 at Agona, Ashanti, the place where the work in central Ghana began, with L. H. Berlin as principal. In accordance with
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government policy the school completely converted into the SDA Secondary School, Agona, in September 1974 with I. K. Ansong as headmaster.
The Adventist Girls’ Vocational Institute was opened in Techiman, Brong Ahafo region, as a day school by action of the Ghana Conference and the West African Union on Oct. 8 , 1974, with Mrs. Emelia Kusi as headmistress. She was followed by Agnes Osei and Victoria Daaku. In the mid-1980s the school’s name was changed to Adventist Vocational Institute; directors have included Nabi Donkor, A. P. Mensah, and C. A. Mensah. In October what is now Valley View College opened in Accra with Walton Whaley as principal.
Literature Ministry. After G. P. Riggs had spent a short time selling books in 1895 , little was done in colporteur evangelism until A. Cook canvassed in 1933. He conducted a field school in salesexpertise for local recruits with whom he worked most of the large towns. Again there was little activity until 1949, when two Jamaicans, L. Davidson and E. L. Brown, were recruited to revive and reestablish the work.
Medical Work. To meet the medical needs of the people, the Kwahu Hospital was established in 1955 by Dr. J. A. Hyde and officially opened on July 28, 1957; later a School of Nursing was begun and a midwifery course was offered. This was nationalized by the government in 1973. During the 1980s and 1990s the Central Ghana Conference established new hospitals and clinics.
Recent History. In 1957 the Gold Coast Mission became the Ghana Mission, and on February 1959 C. B. Mensah (the first national Ghanaian worker to serve thus) was appointed president of the Ghana Mission.
On Dec. 25, 1970, the first Black conference in all Africa was organized at the eleventh constituency meeting, held at Asokore, Koforidua, with J. K. Amoah elected as president. Since that time it has financed its own operations, and its national workers are carrying forward an aggressive program of evangelism.
In 1985 Jacob J. Nortey of Ghana became the president of the Africa-Indian Ocean Division. At the 1990 General Conference session Matthew Bediako, a Ghanaian, became the first full-blooded African to serve the General Conference. He later became a General Conference vice president.
As a result of the Global Mission strategy adopted by the world church in 1990, baptized membership in Ghana in mid-1993 was 155,465.