Twifo Praso Blood Bath

It was on the fifth day of June, some eight years ago, just about this time. I had gained admission into the university the year before and as such had completed my first year in college.

This day had begun just like any other day but with a little more enthusiasm about a trip I was about to make in the evening. This was a journey to save the lost, perishing and dieing(or at least so I thought). It was the Student in Church Evangelism(SICE)for the Presbyterian students on my university campus. This was a program for community volunteering in the very rural areas and to preach Christ to them.

I had volunteered to be part of this experience, as some of my colleagues had, all ready and fired up to 'depopulate hell, talk some tongues and chase some demons'(Looking back with humor at how I felt as a young crusader). 

The journey promised to offer a life changing experience and it indeed did, at least for me, but it was nothing close to what I had expected. It is the surprise in the mystery and thus its unforgettable memory it left me that I share publicly for the first time in eight years.

I am sure you still may be wondering what exactly happened? A bloodbath is what happen! But before I lay it all out on you, just bear with me as I tell my story. 

1. Goodwill does not exclude hard chances. I had completed my exam two weeks earlier and had traveled some seven hours from cape coast to Duayaw Nkwanta, the town I lived with my parents. In the spirit of good faith of reaching out, I traveled back to campus to help make history by reaching out to lives. Prior to this journey I believed once you had chosen to do the right thing, you become trouble free. The story of Israel, a fresh college graduate on the bus thought me, goodwill may actually lead to death.
2. Faith or the lack of it is born in hard time. I saw my faith grow exponentially after the event, maybe because I was safely spared but I saw people steadily lose their giant grip on faith as mine grew. I am sure I have question the why it all happened countless times, but the truth is, it does indeed happen! and if it does, pray it causes you to grow rather than kill you.
3. Purpose can be born through all circumstances if you don't give up. No single event in my life has forge purpose for me than, my near death experience at Twifo Praso. I became resolved in life to make a difference because I had seen the fleeting nature of life with my own eyes. I had seen beauty been stripped off the skins of humanity and that horribly sad story of twenty three young student who only wanted to help somebody get better, gave birth to my own purpose for life.

I end by telling the real story, it was eight years ago when boarded a bus to save souls, a body in the bus was lost and an arm was amputated with many injuries through a fatal accident. It was on this bus my very soul was eternally saved and burdened with the responsibility to tell the world of the story of these young men and women who will not give up until they had sacrificed to see their fellow humanity made better. The experience did not end for me in the hospital, it did end with me and some other people going back to a village called 'Betimore' to tell them the simple message of Jesus and how much He could make us better irrespective of how difficult circumstance may be. I tell the same story today, just with an invitation to tell you eight years after that, "All things indeed work together for the good of them that love the Lord, those who are called according to His purpose".

Let me sum it up by saluting the pain and loss of every person on the bus and the family of my comrades, we remember the day not with happiness but with the memory of sacrifice which  must drive us not to waste the blood of these young men and women but to toil in making our land a better place to live.