Kossie and the Old Chief

Our trip to northern Ghana in the early weeks of June 2025 was a return to the Kingdom Road area we had previously visited in September 2023.  This time the primary focus for the women on our team was to conduct a “Women’s Day” while a handful of the men ventured into new fields to plant more churches.  The women met at the big church building we built in the center of Kingdom Road about a year ago.  With overwhelming success, they ministered to 1,000 women, 360 children, representing 37 different congregations, and adding 37 new Christians in baptism.  By the time we returned home on June 14^th, an estimated 6,500 people had heard the gospel of whom 813 were baptized and 28 new churches were established.

Two contrasting stories come to mind when reflecting upon my time in the villages proclaiming the good news of Jesus. 

Saturday, June 7^th, we arrived at the village Lanch a little before noon - lots of children many of whom could speak English.  I visited and played with them briefly before the rain pushed everyone back inside.  Several hours later the rain subsided, and the tennis ball lured the children back out. 

Around 3:00 we met the village chief in the entryway to the courtyard of his home—a small, circular mud hut with a thatched roof, traditionally used as a gathering place for a handful of people.  A mud wall extended outward from both sides of the hut, encircling the courtyard and connecting to his main house on the far side.

As we stepped into the meeting hut, the atmosphere was immediately striking. Just to the right of the doorway, the remnants of a recent ritual were evident: a fowl had been sacrificed there. Dried blood stained the earthen wall, and a few feathers still clung to the surface. On the left side, three cow horns jutted out from the wall, firmly embedded in the mud. These elements—both the blood and the horns—were presumably placed to ward off evil spirits and to protect the space from harm.

Inside, the room was dim and musty. The air was thick, and the walls were adorned with the decaying remains of animals, their presence unsettling. The dirt floor was cluttered with random items, giving the impression of disarray. Seated in the shadows was the chief—an elderly man clothed in worn, tattered garments. His expression was heavy, his demeanor subdued, and he seemed burdened by something far deeper than age.

After a respectful conversation and receiving his permission, the chief joined us outside, where we waited for the villagers to gather. I took a photo of him then—sitting quietly in a wooden chair just outside the meeting hut. Behind him, the blood-stained wall and scattered debris framed the scene. The image captured not just a man, but a mood—one of sorrow, spiritual weight, and the palpable sense of darkness he seemed to carry with him.

We rejoiced that day as 21 people from the village chose to be baptized—a powerful sign of hope and new life. Yet, the old chief remained unmoved, still caught in the grip of darkness. His image, captured in that photo, now hangs on my bedroom wall. Each day as I pass by it, I pray that he, too, will one day see the light that has begun to shine in his village. 

In stark contrast, this next moment took place two days later in the village of Anilituln, east of the Oti River near the Togo border. People had begun gathering beneath the shade of a large mango tree, which stood beside a towering baobab at the center of the village. As we sat in a circle waiting for more to arrive, my translator Philip—who knows I enjoy finding an authentic village souvenir on each trip—leaned over, whispered in my ear, and pointed toward a tool resting on a low-hanging branch.

One of the men noticed the exchange, stood up, and handed me the hoe from the tree. The crowd chuckled as I gave a lighthearted demonstration of my hoeing skills. To my delight, a man named Kossie—introduced as the village blacksmith—spoke up and told us he had crafted the hoe himself. It had a short wooden handle about two feet long, angled at 45 degrees on one end. A heavy piece of metal had been shaped to fit around the wood, then flattened and sharpened to cut into the soil.  I took a photo with Kossie and purchased the hoe as my keepsake.

By this time, a sizable crowd had gathered, and we shared the gospel with those assembled. Many responded with open hearts. We followed the group about a quarter mile down a well-worn trail that led to a flowing river for baptism.

As Philip and I walked the trail, Kossie engaged him in conversation. Philip turned to me and said, “Kossie has a question.” He explained that Kossie was known in the village for using fetish idols to cure sickness and impotence, and now he wanted to know: should he continue to use these idols after his baptism, or should he throw them away?

We stopped there on the trail. I looked at Kossie, raised my hands, and motioned as if tossing something away. I told him, “Throw them away. Jesus will now provide all that you need.” Kossie then asked, “Should someone else throw them away, or should I do it myself?” I told him we could help—but that it would be a powerful act of faith if he chose to do it himself. He agreed.

As we continued walking, he quietly reflected, then said something profound: “It’s like looking into a bottle—you can only use one eye to look inside.” Yes! We agreed. From now on, he would stop serving other gods and devote himself fully to the One True God.

We baptized 40 people in that river, surrounded by joy and celebration. As we stood on the riverbank, we shared words of encouragement from 2 Corinthians 5:17–20: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” I scanned the crowd, found Kossie’s eyes, and said to him, “The old is gone. The new has come. Today, you are a new creation.” He smiled and nodded.

The beauty of this story stands in striking contrast to the one just a few days earlier. While the old chief remains bound in spiritual darkness, Kossie cast it off and stepped into new life with Jesus. Today, his photo hangs beside the chief’s on my wall—a daily reminder of both the weight of lostness and the joy of redemption.