4 decades of changing lives, the launch of ‘Go Ye’ the FGBMFI story in Ghana
Saturday, September 11, 2021, live, at the five-star Labadi Beach Hotel, Accra.
It was a get together of ordinary working people – judges, engineers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, plumbers, teachers, auto and air conditioning mechanics etc – being made extraordinary by the power of the Holy Spirit.
In one sense, this was a typical Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International meeting, men and women sharing the love and compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ, raising holy hands to God in gratitude for grace and mercy.
They had met as story tellers, not re-telling what they had heard but narrating stories about their own transformed lives, testimonies of extraordinary encounters with the Holy Spirit ever since they believed.
Under some canopies were a former Chief Justice and some current Supreme Court Justices of Ghana, members of the apex advisory board of the land, Council of State, seated side by side with relatively lowlier ranked junior office clerks. Under other canopies were powerful bishops and cardinals, seated side by side with people who got born again a few weeks ago.
The diving lines were broken. For all of them, Jesus Christ had become, and is, the leveller reconciling, in His death and triumphal resurrection, the Jew as well as the Gentile, the rich as well as the poor, the high as well as the lowly.
They ate, sang, danced and shared the joy of being together again, knowing that in dwelling together in unity, God’s anointing is released, like the precious ointment that flowed down Aaron’s beard.
In another sense, however, last Saturday was an unusual meeting. A book had brought them there. Titled GO YE, the book is as much the 40 years-plus history of the Ghana fellowship, the full story of all the birth pangs, the false starts and re-starts, as it is an inspiring confirmation of the faithfulness of the God who has sent them.
Many in the audience had, in the fellowship’s past, seen God’s oil flow, tasted the anointing on many occasions at typical FGBMFI breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings. They had witnessed, live, the straightening out of shrivelled legs, one short leg lengthening to be on a par with the other.
They could point to women who had gone for years without babies but had, after being ministered to at FGBMFI meetings, been gifted with the fruit of the womb. At ministrations by these laymen, amazing healings and powerful deliverances had taken place.
With the fellowship, the gospel can now go where it is not easy for full time ordained preachers, with all the limitations, to go. At one outreach meeting in the mid-90s, for instance, the American Ambassador in Ghana received Jesus into his life at the four star Novotel Hotel (the highest rated in Ghana at the time); at the same venue a few months later, a firebrand Secretary (Minister of State) in the Rawlings military regime, surrendered, in tears, to the Lordship of Jesus; a guerrilla warrior who had tasted war in the bushes in the Angolan liberation struggles, came to faith in Christ at a meeting of the fellowship at the then Ambassador Hotel.
Above all, Saturday was a throw-back. In their midst was founder of the Ghana fellowship, Mr Joseph Kwaku Kwaw, a man of incredible humility and prayer who, 40 years ago, turned a chance meeting with a Nigerian at the Tema port into a business visit to Nigeria, where he learned of FGBMFI.
Back in Ghana, in his determination to start a branch of the international movement, he met with frustration and struggles. But God showed Himself faithful, The first chapter was born.
At the head table with him last Saturday was Mr. Kwabena Darko, of Darko Farms fame, showing no signs of ageing. Forty years ago, Joseph Kwaw’s torch lighted Kwabena Darko’s. The chicken magnate ran with the torch.
From one chapter in Kumasi and under his inspiration, Professor Adjiri Wellington, a lecturer at KNUST, took the mantle and also began to run throughout Ashanti.
One year later, amid tireless running, fasting and prayer and heavy financial outlays, 11 chapters had been birthed! Last Saturday, both of them were at Labadi Beach Hotel. Kwabena Darko took the mic and shared a secret he had kept from everybody: that there was not a cedi he spent on the fellowship which the Lord did not give back, in totally unsuspecting and unanticipated circumstances.
There was Mr Akwasi Amoakohene. In every regional capital and some districts of this country, the staff and finances of his A Life trading company facilitated the birth and sustenance of new chapters. On one journey to plant a chapter in the Western Region, his vehicle was involved in an accident.
With pains wracking his badly broken body, his legs in POP at the Winneba Hospital where he had been admitted, he ministered to the nurses and doctors. Thus was born the Winneba Chapter.
In the laying out of financial resources for the sake of FGBMFI, his story was similar to that of Mr Kwasi Prempeh, through whose trading company, PGs, finances were made available to bail out new chapters from nearly impossible situations. He was operating under direct instruction by the Holy Spirit in 1983, to “take care of the financial needs of new chapters for a while to help them stand firm”.
Then Rev Frank Hutchful, third President of the Premier Chapter took the mic. He shared the joy of seeing the rains and the clouds obey him, an ordinary Mr. Hutchful, a layman at the time. This was at an outdoor breakfast meeting in Takoradi. The clouds had blackened the skies and the rains had actually started.
At his command in the name of Jesus, the clouds rolled away and the rain ceased. The meeting was saved and souls were harvested.
For being willing and obedient, going wherever the fellowship sent him to speak in Ghana, Burkina Faso (during which outreach the wife of President Sankara was born again) and to South Sudan etc, the Lord commanded a Ghanaian pastor to give him his brand-new Mercedes Benz. A day earlier, the Holy Spirit had told (then Mr) Hutchful that He was going to give him a car to facilitate his trips throughout the country.
Details of all these stories and more are in the GO YE book. It is jointly authored by Mr Kingsford Amoah, the first Treasurer of the Ghana Fellowship, Mr Mike Osafo Mensah, Rev Hutchful and Nana Akwasi Amoakohene. The book is a hymn to fortitude, resilience and commitment, a celebration of God’s grace in the affairs of men.
About Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International
Who We Are: We are the happiest people on earth, comprising ordinary men and women doing the extraordinary. We are globally one, with a deep concern for every nation and every race, networking thousands of people on weekly basis with Christ our Anchor. We equip one another to reach out to others through our personal testimonies.
Why Join The Happiest People On Earth: We are a fellowship, a service arm of the Church. Recruiting, Equipping and Deploying members to complement the mission of Church here on earth. Our core function is to train members and send them back to their respective Churches to better leasers, and not to be pew members. Be a part of this great move of God in bringing men to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Join and be part of The Happiest People on Earth.
Our Vision: “A vast global movement of laymen comprising men and women being used mightily by God to bring this last great harvest through the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Mission: To reach men in all nations for Jesus Christ and call them back to God; help believers to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and to grow spiritually.
Train and equip men to fulfill the Great Commission and provide opportunity for Christian fellowship while bringing a greater unity among all people in the body of Christ.