Awomberew Village Community
The Awomberew Village is located in the Gomoa Central between Winneba Township and Swedru Township in the Central Region of Ghana.
The main occupation of the people is Farming (Agriculture). The place is dominate by Sugarcane farms which is use to prepare and produce the local alcoholic drink called (Akpeteshie) which after preparation is send to the cities and towns for sale. Besides, most women major business is trading. Buying and selling farm products during market day and other days when visited comes around. The inhabitants by profession are farmers and market sellers. The village is an old settlement of indigenous people from other villages nearby. They settle there for the farming activities.
Language
The inhabitants speak Efutu as their second language and fanti as their first language. Some understand English language as national language in Ghana but unable to speak or express themselves popular. Those with good education that speak fluent English do not stay there, they are in the Cities and Towns looking for professional jobs that are not found in our villages. They come home to meet families during occasions or festival season.
Religion
The history of this village, tells of strong Fetish Priest activities presence many years ago. The belief in spiritism is very strong. However the penetration of the Christian gospel both from the Evangelical, Protestant and Pentecostal Charismatic initiative for evangelism and Church planting are yielding a positive response, even though there are still challenges to overcome. The Christians living among them could be describe as “Nominalism” in other words lukewarmers and are not well disciple to carry out fruitful evangelism within the community they live and work without outside help or proper training. They are not well grounded in the Christian faith that they could by themselves can also disciple others for Christ. Majority of them are just church goers and not kingdom minded people with disciples making ambitions or for kingdom expansion.
There are local Churches such as
- The Methodist Church
- Baptist Church
- Church of Pentecost
- Christ Apostolic Church
- Assemblies of God Church
- Seventh Day Adventist Church
Other Pentecostal and Charismatic Church in roads into fabric of the community are growing. However more work is needed here also.
Just to mention few, there are other churches gaining grounds which I have not mention over here. These churches are seriously working to breakthrough with the gospel. They need encouragement; support, training, prayer and other assistance that will enable them sustain the work they are doing for the Kingdom of God in the community.
The major challenge is getting resident pastors to stay among them to provide pastoral leadership and service to the Churches and the community.
The Fetish Priest and their form of worship have dominated them for a long time to the extent that, to some they do not see and cannot differentiate between the Bible centered worship and spiritism worship led by their priest that practice spiritism form worship. This form of worship is clarified as an African Traditional Religion (ATR), not Bible centered worship.
Nonetheless from our finding the traditional Fetish Priest, their worship and followers are losing ground because most of their followers have shifted to the Christian community but not converted and properly disciple as born again believers! There is still practice of spotted traditional religion of this faith in Awomberew community and its surrounding today.
But thank be to God for the few local Church leaders who are doing their best to provide biblical teaching to address these issues in their respectively churches. They need encouragement and persistence prayers every day.
Reach Out Global team are here in this village working with the local Baptist Church to address these challenges and to bridge the gap by providing Bible teaching, discipleship and leadership training not only for the Baptist church but all local Pastors working in the community to train the trainers to engage in proper disciple-making, Leadership development and Church growth.
Other Religion
There are pockets of Islamism in the nearby villages and are the minorities. It should not be taking for granted; if the Christian Church fails and refuse to response fast enough we may have opposition to tackle another day. Evangelism action is now, not another time.
In Awomberew Village we see the invasion of Jehovah Witness JW. activities and even though small but are aggressive in their outreach activities. Their main targets are those who belong to a Christian faith and members of local Churches in the community. It must be face out with the truth of the Holy Scriptures, our great weapon of defense. Biblical training for the local Pastors and Church leaders equally is very significant to handle this challenge.
Besides this challenge is for the Christian Church to carefully and prayerfully consider engaging in radical evangelism, leadership development and Church planting initiatives not only in Awombrew Village but also among the surrounding villages on one hand and some social interventions that will improves the living standard of the inhabitant and its surroundings. Such as improvement of water system, agriculture, health and education for children just to mention a few. Your help will highly appreciate.
The unreached, unevangelize and unchurched villages and towns can only be reached by the local Christians and local Pastors alike. The answer is for our local Churches and its leadership in our cities to invest more human and financial resources into rural missions and evangelism.
Population
The population of Gomoa Awomberew, June 25th 2010 a total of 1.175 people living in around the banks of River Ayensu in Gomoa East District of the Central Region of Ghana. The population mention above is base on the 2010 House Population Census (HPC) conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service nine year ago. The population as at present has increased to approximately more or less than 2500. About 85% profess to be Christians and belong to a local Church or a denomination of the Christian faith. But majority of them are nominal Christians. They need to be properly disciple for Christ. From my finding about less than 25% to 30% inhabitants found themselves in the local churches every Sunday morning. This should be a serious concern to any evangelical Pastor!
Written by Rev Ed Arcton.
Rev Arcton addressing a gathering at Awombrew Baptist Church
