Lds in Africa: Growing Membership Sees American Church with Unique Vision
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NEWS LDS IN AFRICA: GROWING MEMBERSHIP SEES AMERICAN CHURCH WITH UNIQUE VISION by Peggy Fletcher Stack Salt Lake Tribune religion writer 1 LC>IUCLIL JpCIICCI VV. Tnis story originally appeared in Emball, whose an- the 4 April 1998 Salt Lake Tribune. nouncement that year Reprinted in its entirety by pemis- of a divine revelation sion. ended the ban on blacks in the priest- HARARE, Zimbabwe-Across hood. sub-Saharan Africa. traditional For many black Mormon hymns are sung in African converts, the clipped British accents. LDS Mormon story of how lesson manuals preach Family LD~church founder Home Evening and food storage Joseph Smith saw to people who have no food for God and Jesus Christ tomorrow, let alone a year. In in a grove of trees some homes, Mormon inspira- when he was just tional posters and temple photos fourteen years old bedeck the walls. seems natural, in Such is the power of the LDS light of their own vi- church in Africa, where the Mormon ranks have swollen from a handful to more than one of Accra said he was hundred thousand in the two studying medicine in decades since black men first England when two were allowed to hold the priest- hood in the faith all-male clergy. It is a testament that a religion born on United States soil 168 was suf- years ago can so transform lives fering from severe halfway around the world. health problems. African Mormons gve up their "She invited them drums for organs, their dashikis in and they offered to for white shirts, beads for CTR give her a blessing," (Choose the Right) rings, and Kissi said. "She was cured in- A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH So Church leaders moved the their lively religious services for stantly" subdued reverence. It took Kissi anoth 'We want to do it just right," said Ben Ntiamoah, a Mormon convert who works in the tem- poral affairs office of the Church in Accra, capital of the West African nation of Ghana. Ntiamoah was among the thousands of Africans who in February got their first glimpse of a man they revere as their prophet, when President Gordon B. Hinckley visited Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Hincklev was the first Church president to visit the African con- the LD~church in Africa. JUNE 1998 PAGE 71 SUNSTONE African saints at a meeting where President Hinckley spoke. Church leaders moved missionaries from villages into cities; once a nucleaus is established, then missionaries move I I I When Monica Opare re- tural and religous traditions. then was called Rhodesia. In "colonial" languagesEnglish, turned to Ghana in 1977, there 1980, the white government was French, and Portugese-others was no Mormon presence. Then PRE- 1978 overturned by black nationals speak primarily tribal languages. Opare saw a newspaper adver- who won independence and "We did not know that when tisement for a "Meet the KIMBALIS REVELATION, which changed the nationk name to we first went in," Holland said. Mormons" evening and told his many hoped would erase the Zimbabwe. "We thought we could do every- wife, "There are your people." stigma of racism from "We went into the war zone to thing in the colonial languages, Opare joined the church a Mormonism, was heralded by hold church, but never felt because that's what the mission- short time later some African threatened," Neald recalled. But aries could handle the best." in a scenario whites as a many white members were What the Church discovered. seen often "Before -neat step for- "scared of the unknown . [and] however, is that the colonial lan- throughout the ward. But frightened to treat blacks as guages worked best for men in Mormon mis- mvmisison. while Holland equals." the workplace. Women tended to J sionary effort- said he knew The former prohibition also use tribal languages. women lead the 1 could not of no negative caused trouble for African mis- That was one reason the way ,, reaction in sionaries seeking converts. Mormon women's organization, One com~romise. Africa, mem- "People thought it was racist," Relief Society, took on its world- I Mormon group bers in South said Peter Chaya, the first black wide literacy project in 1992. in a village Africa and missionary in Zimbabwe. He "They have had some wonderful about 350 kilometers outside of Zimbabwe report that some served from 1981 to 1983. "I got success stories from Africa, par- Johannesburg has only women Mormons left the Church or big opposition. But I managed to ticularly among women," members! They receive the sacra- moved to whiter neighborhoods overcome it with my testimony. Holland said. ment, or communion, just once a or even countries. They could not take that away In addition, the Church has month when a male missionary Reg Neald, a white Mormon from me." approved the translation of scrip- or leader comes to bless the in Zimbabwe since the 1950s. tures into a few of the largest bread and water. said the the pre-1978 prohibition THE NEED TO READ tribal languages, such as Twi in At the same time, the per- was "hard for us. We had met Ghana and Shona in Zimbabwe. centage of black African male people who were worthy of the IF OPPOSITION has dimin- But what of those people who converts who advance in the priesthood." ished, the Church still faces in- join the LDs church without priesthood is higher than any- After 1978, Neald became the ternal challenges, the most being able to read any of the where else in the world, Holland first president of a black branch, difficult of which is literacy faith's scriptures? said. Again, he credits their cul- or small congregation, in what Though many Africans speak "Well, they are responding to PAGE 72 JUNE 1998 I MISSIONARTES IN AFRICA 1 "Before we joined the Church, I was alwavs afraid of mv father because he was so strict and GROW AS THEY SEEK rigid," she said. "After we joined, he treated us like children of NEW CONVERTS God." B AFRTCAN by Peggy Fletcher Stack Freetown, the capital of Sierra Salt Lake Tribune religion writer Leone, and presented himself for CULTURE baptism. Two years later, after This story originally appeared in finishing his degree in agricul- PRESENTS the 4 April 1998 Salt Lake ture, Banya, twenty-eight, left for Tribune. Reprinted in its entirety by his own mission. CHALLENGES permission. His two-year mission would have ended in January, but it was FOR MORMON ACCRA, Ghana-There are some extended when war broke out in things that African Mormon mis- Sierra Leone and kept him from sionaries find difficult to under- going home. Banya credits his CONVERTS stand-like Utah weather. mission with enlarging his char- "How many of you have had acter. malaria?" Mormon Mission "Before my mission, 1 could President Larry Bodhaine asked not compromise. Now I have by Peggy Fletcher Stack the eager young men and learned to live with a com- Salt Lake Tribune religion writer women gathered at an Accra panion," Banya said. "What I chapel in February. used to mock at when I came, I This story orignally appeared in Almost all of the hands shot would never mock at now." the 4 April 1998 Salt Lake out in concentric circles. UP. The African missionaries at- Tribune. Reprinted in its entirety by "You know how you get the tend a missionary training course permission. the promptings of the spirit," chills, shivering all over? Well, in Accra. But unlike most other President Hinckley said in an in- that's what it's like to be in Salt missionaries, they have not taken CAPE TOWN, South Africa-After terview in Zimbabwe. "They are Lake City during a snowstorm," temple vows because the nearest the exhilaration of conversion growing in the faith, being Bodhaine explained. one is in Johannesburg, South comes the wake-up call of real helped by those in a position to But for these missionaries to Africa, and it is too expensive to life in local LDS congregations. help them. People can talk to work effectively in their African travel there, Bodhaine said. Just ask Nigel Giddey, who them." lands, knowledge of airborne "We expect them to do every- heads the Guguletu Branch, a And in many places, mission- diseases is much more essential. thing they can to support them- small LDS congregation in a black aries and members offer free lit- Of the eighty-seven mission- selves on a mission," he said. township outside Cape Town. eracy classes as a way of reaching aries in the Accra, Ghana mission, "But sometimes all they can af- "Too few shepherds for too out to the community In the past all but thirteen are Africans. They ford is their own passports." many sheep," said an over- decade. the LDS church has-be- come mostly from Ghana and its The rest of the cost of the whelmed Giddey, from his come immersed in such humani- West African neighbors, Nigeria, two-year mission is picked up by makeshift office in the courtyard tarian service projects in Africa. It Liberia, and Sierra Leone. the Church's General Missionary between buildings. has provided money and workers For some. a mission is their Fund. The story is in the statistics. to dig wells in Kenya, distributed first trip outside of their country Most of the missionaries have Of twenty-three people bap- clothing to war victims in or even their village. In a conti- been through public schools, but tized into Guguletu Branch of Uganda, sent textbooks for nent long plagued by tribal and they see their mission experi- The Church of Jesus Christ of schoolchildren in Ghana.