The sun of savanna-land was scorching yet still, the football park of Doba, a community in the Upper East Region of Ghana was filled to capacity. People of different ages and gender had congregated for the sporting and evangelism activities organized by Kingdom Investors Associates in collaboration with Assemblies of God Church in Doba; whose Senior Pastor is Anthony Akansake Akabikeri (an educationist and ordained brother).

 The event was on the theme, “Youth for Christ Football Tournament”. A representative of Doba chief, the assemblyman of the area together with other prominent opinion leaders were all at the dusty park. There was a deafening noise as the ululation of women, the chanting of supporters filled the air. Eight teams namely; Unity Stars, Eleven Pillars, Power FC, Chelsea Babies’ Unique Horses, Agrumaluko FC, Young Angels, Vision FC from Doba engaged in an extravaganza of a soccer encounter.

The players exerted every modicum of energy and stretched every sinew to; apart from winning their matches, please the spectators that had converged. This experience is worth sharing.

It was a heartwarming experience to be part of the programme which was keenly supported by Kingdom Investors Associates. I had the rare privilege of representing an illustrious son of Upper East who is the Executive Director of Kingdom Investors Associates, an NGO whose activities are geared towards evangelism and disciple-making.

He, Eric Agyedenah Ellington is a few good men of our time. Having paraded the streets of Takoradi as teenager years ago, and having done menial jobs, Agyedenah was able to educate himself to an enviable position in life. His sadness or better still his worry, are the problems bedevilling the youth some of which are self-inflicted and other unavoidable misfortunes. It was in this regard, that in collaboration with the Assemblies of God, recreational activities were organized to preach the gospel of salvation in order to free those who are enslaved by social vices.

Kingdom Investors Associates for which Agyedenah is the Executive Director is passionate about evangelism. They have observed that at a crucial time such as this when there are new souls to be won for Christ, some Christians as they have observed are engaged in what is termed as, “recycling” of Christians. Christians from other churches are frequently convinced to leave their churches to more powerful or a perceived powerful church. This as has been observed only increases the number of churches rather than a significant increase of the Christian population. Kingdom Investors Associates has observed that, at a trying time like this, the focus should be on Christ who is the salvation rather than the church. Their interest is mostly in rural evangelism especially taking the word of God to those who have not heard it

At the maiden edition of evangelism through sports, key participants who ensured that the programme as designed by Bro. Anthony Akansake Akabikeri went well were; Catholics, Lighthouse Christian Mission amongst others. Agyedenah has observed that the upper east which is one of the deprived in Ghana suffer further setbacks because of certain challenges such as illiteracy, drug abuse, early and forced marriage amongst a host of other issues. As was done in Doba, the key focus was on the “wandering” souls who have not accepted Christ. Emphasis was not solidly made on which church they should fellowship even though it was made exceedingly clear the programme was organized by Assemblies of God. However, it does not really matter if one was to fellowship with any bible believing church. Nearly sixty young souls apart from admitting that they were habitual addicts to drugs, professed they were also engaged in other heinous activities. Accepting Christ, they vowed to stand strong in faith and prayed that such activities be organized in other communities in order to draw closer to Christ, those who are lost.

The participating teams received awards and appreciated the efforts of the organizers. Unique Horses came first and second place was Chelsea Babies.           

The opinion leaders could not hide their joy. They bemoaned the high level of drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and other vices adding that this does not only aggravate the existing poverty but further creates difficult social cankers which afflict everybody irrespective of their belief.