Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 6, 1994                   TAG: 9408080044
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE MISSION WAS MEETING, KNOWING

Janet Adams misses dancing in church.

In the West African nation of Ghana, in the remote northern village of Binada, she found a joy in worship she didn't realize she had been missing.

"Instead of singing canticles" and grudgingly dropping a check into a passing collection plate, worshipers at Binada's Anglican parish of St. James dance to the front of the church as they make their offerings to God.

The gift might be the equivalent of only a nickel here, said Margaret English - who accompanied Adams and five others on a trip to Ghana last month - but it represents a significant sacrifice for parishioners who have almost nothing in terms of material possessions.

"Most people [in the United States] look down-in-the-mouth when they give," said Betty Field. But not in Binada. "This was joy."

Through worship, work and play, the visitors from Roanoke's St. John's Episcopal Church last month were adopted into the family of their Anglican brothers and sisters at St. James parish in Binada.

With Adams, English and Field were William Dandridge, Jean Darby, Lucas Little and the Rev. Thomas O'Dell, rector at St. John's. They were in Ghana for most of July, returning to Roanoke last weekend.

The seven sojourners took materials to help build an electric fence to keep animals away from groves of new trees. The trees supply fruits and nuts, shade, leaves for mulch and, perhaps most importantly, help stave off the persistent encroachment of the Sahara desert.

The Roanokers also took medical and school supplies, but their mission was one of relationships at least as much as it was of meeting some of the Ghanians' desperate physical needs.

"We were sharing ourselves," O'Dell said. He tells other parishes they can send money, and that it would be appreciated, but only by traveling to Ghana can they "make friends, pray with other people. It is the only way to truly share our gifts with each other."

This was O'Dell's second trip to Ghana. He was there six years ago when he met fellow Anglican priest Joseph Anyindana and jointly led a worship service in Binada. Earlier this year, coinciding with the Easter season, Anyindana spent two months in Roanoke serving as a missionary to the St. John's parish, O'Dell said at the time.

Anyindana - a slightly built, soft-spoken man - quickly endeared himself to the Roanoke congregation, whose members called him Father Joe. His stories of the faithfulness of his people in the face of tremendous hardship moved the Roanoke congregation to join in partnership with them.

"In our culture, we tend to use material possessions as the only criteria to judge certain people," O'Dell said. "These people [in Binada] had absolutely nothing. Some of them are starving to death."

"We take everything we do for granted," said Little, at 16 the youngest member of the mission team. "I'm thankful I can just go out and do things, go swimming. They have to work all the time just to survive."

"You learn that it is not material possessions that are important in life," Dandridge said. From a spiritual perspective, the Binada residents are "content without worldly possessions."

"The people had nothing materially," Adams said, "but you always felt they were giving you something."

Being with the Binada residents helped Darby realize how often Americans "put our hope in technology, in modern medicine. In Ghana, they have to depend on God because there is nothing else to depend on."

But with the Binada villagers facing famine because of a drought during what should have been the rainy season, sometimes it was hard not to be disillusioned.

On the Sunday after the group's return, one of the Scripture verses at worship quoted Jesus promising that "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

Hearing that, O'Dell wrote in the church newsletter this week, "I felt anger welling up inside me. I fought back tears. What could our Lord's promise mean to the people of Binada? How hollow is its hope in a land where drought and hunger haunt the people's lives?

"As I struggled with my anger, the Lord helped me to see what I had forgotten. The lives of the people of Binada are rich and full: full of courage, full of hope, full of faith."