To all worshippers in the magnificent Temple of Christ Presbyterian Church, Akropong Akuapem in particular; and to all members of Presbyterian Church of Ghana I send this goodwill message.

I became associated with Christ Presbyterian Church Akropong Akuapem for the first time in 1937 when I was a pupil in the famous Akropong Salem. On Sundays we marched bare footed in white drill suit from the great gates of Salem to church. In those days the chapel was an improvised one built with corrugated iron sheets near the practice school of the training college. I remember one of our marching songs was:
“See the morning sun beams
Shinning on the woods;
Silently proclaiming, God is ever good.
See the morning dews on the mountains
Green proving as the sparkle
God is ever good”.

I remember in the same year when the late Very Rev. Peter Hall died one Saturday morning, I was among the first selected senior boys who filed past the old man’s corpse lying at his hall singing:
“ Grant we beseech thee
Merciful Lord
To thy faithful people
Mercy and peace”

The following year, 1938 when the present chapel was about to be dedicated the big bells were being put in place when we heard this big shouts from inside the tower: “ twetwe me kÉ soro, ede me ba fam”. Meaning “ pull me upward, I am being weighed down!” it was the German church builder, one Mr. Kitchner shouting to his workers. Everything however went well by God’s grace.

Eventually the chapel was dedicated on 16th October 1938 but a pitiful event happened. When the officiating ministers opened the door at the chapel, an anxious mob of worshippers rushed in. there was a stampede; the Moderator, Rt. Rev. Charles Martinson fell down and was declared dead!

This sad event is the reason why nowadays when a new chapel is about to be dedicated, members of the congregation are made to be seated in the church and doors locked before the function is started.

“Blessed is the dead, which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13).

Again I remember from the pulpit of the present chapel the late Rev. J. D. Asante many a time preaching a massage of Environmental cleanliness, saying: “bere a mekoo Scotland no, mekyin mehwehwee fi, nanso manhu bi”, which means when I visited Scotland, I search the streets for filth, but I never saw any.

These and many others are memoirs of the glory past.
“Where for see seeing, we are also compassed about with great a crowd of witnesses, let us laid aside every weights and the which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with Patience the raise that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our Faith … (Heb 12:1-2)

The past poet Longfellow truly said:
“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And departing leaves behind us
Footprint on the sands of time,

Footprint that perhaps another
Sailing over life’s solemn main
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing
With a heart of any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labour and to wait.”
(Long fellow)
May Christ Presbyterian Church, Akropong Akuapem and the Presbyterian Church of Ghana flourish forever and ever.
Amen

REV. O. K. DAKO (RTD) FORMER PRESBYTERY CHAIRMAN (1993 – 1996) AKUAPEM PRESBYTERY