The turbidity levels of water bodies resulting from illegal mining otherwise known as ‘galamsey’ has forced the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church to construct its own baptisteries to baptise new converts.
As a church which believes in baptism by immersion, a ritual which Jesus Christ himself was taken through by John the Baptiste in the Jordan River, the Church says galamsey has adversely impacted that aspect of winning souls for Christ.
In the church, new converts are taken through the same ritual as Christ in a stream or river to become a ‘new creation’.
But, the Executive Secretary of the Northern Ghana Union of the Church, Pastor Edward Nyarkoh, has disclosed that activities of illegal mining is stifling soul-winning.
The streams and rivers which hitherto, served as the church’s source of baptism in areas where there are illegal mining is no more supplementing the kingdom business, according to the man of God.
“Galamsey has come to destroy all the water bodies. So it’s also affecting our baptism,” Accra-based JoyNews reported Tuesday, October 08, 2024.
The Northern Ghana Union of the SDA church has 2,251 congregants in the northern sector of Ghana with a total membership of 218,000 as of the end of July 2024. About 2,000 new converts were baptised over the period under review.
Explaining the reason, Pastor Nyarkoh noted that the church doesn’t want both the pastors who baptise, as well as the new converts being baptised to be contaminated by the polluted waters.
“Previously, we were baptizing in rivers. But nowadays, all the water bodies are contaminated. Therefore, that has resulted in this church building this baptistery so that all those who would be baptized; pastors who are officiating would not be contaminated,” he said.
The man of God was speaking on the sidelines of the 40th-anniversary climax of the Bohyen-Kropo branch of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, under the theme: “Blessings beyond Measure”.
Meanwhile, Pastor Daniel Kyei-Baffuor Junior, President of the Mid-Central Ghana Conference, also admonished the pastors of the church to speak against galamsey, urging church members involved in the act to also put a stop to it.
“Within my jurisdiction, I am urging all my pastors that they should speak against galamsey. They should act against galamsey. When they see something with regards to galamsey, they should say something”.
“Enough is enough, simply because when we look at the dreadful nature of our environment today, and the effects that galamsey brings upon us, I don’t think we should sit as a people and continue to condone this kind of menace.
“We talk against armed robbery, we talk against other social vices. But I dare say galamsey tops them”.
The national leadership of the church, meanwhile, is yet to issue an official communique on galamsey.
