Photographing Missions in Africa: Ghana

Little Ghanaian girl surprised by the tall westerner pointing his camera at her. In 1989 Church of God World Missions sent me to Africa to document their work in three countries -- Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. I spent about a week in each country making photographs and gathering information.My first stop was in Ghana, where, because of an error by the World Missions Department I waited in the airport hotel for two days before the National Overseer (equivalent to a bishop) showed up and took me to his home in Kumasi. The next morning we loaded into his Toyota Land Cruiser and set out to see what the church was doing in his country. Nurse Victoria Bade-Boakye examines a baby in the Church of God Clinic at Essianimpong as the mother looks on. The Republic of Ghana is a smallish country in west Africa. Its area of 92,497 square miles stretches from the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean to tropical rainforests in the north. With more than 35 million inhabitants, it is the 13th most populous…