In the smaller, rural Ghanaian villages, a woman can be proclaimed a witch for any number of reasons: They are considered too beautiful, or they have been "caught" walking about in the moonlight, or some ill-fated circumstances (like a child's death or an outbreak of disease) have been supernaturally linked to them...or perhaps they have done nothing more than simply grow old and are now no longer useful for farming or childbearing.

Indeed, witchcraft is a quixotic mix of the natural (disease, birth and death) with the supernatural (omens, black juju, spirits, potions and curses). And both of them combine to form one of the most brutal forms of human rights abuses alive and well today.

What may be most heart wrenching is that the "spell" of today's witchcraft in Ghana is used against the most vulnerable and frail members of its society – old women who can no longer fight, protect or fend for themselves. The overwhelming majority of people proclaimed as "witches" are older women, usually over 50 or 60 years of age. And when they are "found" to be a witch, they are sometimes killed or brutally beaten, and then cast out of their family and their village – forced to live in extreme poverty in a designated witch's village – shunned by the children they birthed, and victimized by a society they once strengthened.  The people are mainly pagan, the “tindana” (witchdoctor) is considered all powerful, and no one dares to help these proclaimed witches, lest they be cursed by their supernatural powers.

 

Photo 5: As you can see, the structure does not afford any real protection against rain or dust. This is where I set up the triage & patient intake area. Photo 6: After receiving free medical care and a handmade stuffed toy, the children of the N’gani church cheer!

Photo 7: For four years, WMP has provided aid and free medical care to Ghana, giving free medical care to up to 800 patients per annual mission. Medical care includes free diagnostics and medications, the use of our brand-new mobile ultrasound, vascular doppler fetal tone readings, rehydration therapies, malaria and parasite (worm) treatments, vital signs, paid hospital and insurance payments for long-term care patients, and more. In the photo, Dr. Flowers and a local medical aide run a battery-powered ultrasound through a laptop.  Photo 8: The current chief of the witch’s village, who lives in Yendi. The five-member WMP (north) team received two guinea fowl from the chief as a gift last year for our services to his people. Traditional values are paramount, so at no time can your head by higher than the chief’s.

There are No Witches Here:

N’Gani, the Condemned Witches Village 

“GOD has heard your prayers and sent us,” the World Missions Possible team member explained on the first visit to the condemned witch’s village of N’Gani in northeast Ghana, West Africa. The small group of women – all exiled, shunned and condemned as “witches” – had anxiously gathered under the thatched lean-to to hear what this curious group of white people from America was planning in their village. But over the next 3 years, these socially ostracized “witches,” who were no witches at all, were to lose their suspicions and gain the love of this medical team from America.      

You see, rural villages in Africa can be chock-full of superstition, black “juju,” magic, and witchcraft. As a medical team working in Ghana, West Africa, we know that even the straightforward science of medicine is mixed with both elements of the “natural” (pathogens, bacteria, disease, etc) and the “supernatural” (curses, magic, and witchcraft). So even though medical personnel may diagnosis an illness – such as a febrile seizure due to malaria or an outbreak of TB – that doesn’t always mean that the villagers embrace that as the “whole story” behind a person’s illness or death.       

So it is commonplace during these clinics that the villagers “explain” and self-diagnose(!) their own and their neighbors’ illnesses and diseases. Case in point: One elderly woman had a terrible gaping, open wound on her ankle, which was now a deep bone infection – the skin (literally) rotting away. The villagers explained to the WMP medical team that the woman was clearly a witch who was “cutting off her own flesh and eating it at night during secret witchcraft ceremonies” (a commonly held belief in local witchcraft lore). Indeed, to the untrained eye, the flesh looked to be “cut away” – but her wound was clearly due to a lack of medical care, not some creepy tale of bewitched bloodletting! And so the clinic and the villager’s explanations went – explaining away the “bad juju” of throat cancer, malarial fevers, TB, parasites, tooth infections, etc…         

But after the clinic, Bishop Joseph Atto Kwame Brown (Northern Diocese, Methodist Church, Ghana), who has been our faithful organizer of the Ghana medical teams, looked at the WMP team members, reflected and announced: ”There are no witches here.” Indeed, there were no “evil” witches there, but only a mighty warfare to be fought against oppression,.

What WMP’s service has meant to the village, directly in their own words:

“We were here hopeless, but now we are in the mood of happiness since we first saw the World Missions Possible” – 63 y/o Amadu Zeinabu

“I have been here 3 years and there was nothing given to me until the World Missions Possible came with drugs and medical equipment. We are now in good health. We have seen great changes in our health and have renewed our strength to do our farming. So I thank the doctors.”

– 46 y/o Abdul Ayuisheitu

“I would like to say that without your help, some of us would have died through illness, so I hope you will not stop helping us.” – 33 y/o Budahi Asane     

                The service in N’Gani breathes life into WMP’s motto, taken from the words of Mother Teresa’s selfless service: “As human beings, we can do no great things, only small things with GREAT LOVE.” 

It is this Great Love that touched both the lives of the people in N’Gani and the WMP Ghana Medical Team. And because of it, we are all changed, encouraged, and enriched – and ready to continue to serve those in need all across the world.