M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

The Day of Africa
Text by Maurine Proctor and Sylvia Finlayson
Photography by Scot Facer Proctor

click photos to enlarge

PART FOUR

On the temple lawn, beautiful people mill about, waiting for their turn at one of three dedicatory sessions that President Hinckley will conduct.  Some of them live in tinned-roof shanties; some in comfortable homes. Some sign their name with a mark; some have Ph.Ds.  Some who were married in a tribal tradition had to legalize their marriage; others have already been sealed at another temple. All of them will wear white in the temple and their vast difference in rank and opportunity will dissolve.  All of them represent the hope of Africa.

Goodbye to the shanty towns of the heart.

It took much behind-the-scenes work for each person to be here, who smiles with such hope, waiting in line, with a white or colored ticket, for the dedication.  Today it was a physical effort—washing and brushing and preening little children until they shined, negotiating a ride, maybe traveling long distances   For this day of dedication, nearly 100 people have come from Ivory Coast. The choir has practiced so they sing with power and verve. 

More than that, however, each person here has made a journey of the heart, looking up from superstition or despair, believing that God could love them, that Jesus was the Christ and their sins could be forgiven.  Here are people who have heard a whisper when the marketplace was shouting, families who could see beyond the paint-peeling, dingy realities to learn the high knowledge of the temple.

Some of them have a long way to go before they comprehend the nuances of the restored gospel and how to live it. They are new to the Church, recent converts. Others show how remarkable the human spirit is at comprehending the things of God, demonstrating that there are no stronger Saints or stakes than in Ghana.

Family History

To prepare a land for a temple is multi-faceted work that takes advanced vision and planning. Family history specialists have been at work in the stakes for years helping people find their ancestors.  For the Aba, Nigerian temple, currently under construction, the Latter-day Saints have already found 15,000 family names, according to Thomas Okben, family history specialist.

In Ghana, genealogy miracles abound as they do in every place where people become concerned about their dead. Clarence Baah Kofi, a high councilor in the Ghana Christianborg Stake, found that the family home was scheduled for renovation and all the old clothing, papers and records of his great grandfather were to be burned.  He rushed over to see what papers were scheduled for the ash heap and discovered that they were the journals of his great grandfather, kept throughout his life. They were very old and fragile, but still easy to read.  Studying them, he learned that the journals recorded names and dates of births and deaths for the family members as well as for the members of his grandfather’s congregation.

Clarence sent 239 names to the temple in South Africa and has compiled all the documentation for 700 additional names that he has saved for the Accra Ghana Temple.

This day of dedication marks the beginning of their new day.

Click here to go to Part 5 of The Day of Africa

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