On the day the walls come down, will you hear their cries?
On the day the walls come down, will you feel their pain?
On the day the walls come down, will you uncover the lost?
On the day the walls come down, will you turn away?
Will you listen, will you feel, will you fight, will you believe?
Yesterday, we stepped foot into the ghetto of Cape Coast. A neighborhood built around fishing. A neighborhood that surrounds the castle where slaves were held until they could be put on the ships and sent far away from their homes.
In the neighborhood there is idol worship everywhere you turn. Alters painted with the god, large models of the gods hidden under a sheet, and the presence of witchcraft in the air.
Standing in the middle of it all, a church with the cross rising high above all the homes and alters. To me the church symbolizes hope and possibilities of changing this community into a stronghold for the entire city. Ironically, it is the church that started the slave trade in Cape Coast. One church acting alone opened the doors of the castle to slave traders and made slavery an income. It is unknown how many slaves exited Ghana during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, but the number that went through the castle is over 1,000,000. There is no record of how many ‘died’ at sea, if there was record it would be far more than 1,000,000.
To hear that a church, a place of sanctuary opened the doors to such atrocities breaks my heart. The church is the reason this community and others like it turned to idol worship. They believe the God who was always supposed to lead and protect them also brought slavery to them. When you think of it like that I can almost understand why the people turned to idol worship.
Now the battle Acts 2 Collective and Christian missionary’s are fighting is to show this community that God isn’t the reason slavery was brought to Cape Coast. But that it was the act of a single church, not The Church.
Going into the neighborhood you see buildings crumbling everywhere. The 3 story structures have cracks that run floor to ceiling, and roofs missing off parts that have already succumbed to the weight. We met a man named Emmanuel who lived in one of these buildings. He took us inside where we climbed stairs that were only held together by gravity, the walls looked like they had been through an earthquake and were barely holding on. We learned that part of the building was already evacuated after it collapsed one night. The whole thing is due to fall at anytime and hundreds of people are still living inside. Emmanuel, his wife, and his three daughters live in the building on the top floor. They see the cracks and blocks of cement that have fallen as they walk down the uneven stairs. Acts 2 Collective is trying to find a new home for this family and all the other families inside, but trying to move hundreds of people to safety is not a easy or quick job. They are trying to work with the government to help find safety, but as all governments do it takes a lot of time.
So as Emmanuel, his family and all his neighbors wait, the building keeps getting weaker, standing against the ocean wind and the spiritual battle taking place around it. The only thing we can do right now is to pray for God to work a miracle. For God to show his mighty power to the whole community, to show that at one time the local church displayed God and Christianity as bad.
He is still good.
When the walls fall, I will not be here.
I will not hear the cries and prayers raised up. I will not dig out the rubble and help put lives back together. But my God will. My God will restore hope and faith back in the neighborhood, He will show the power the all mighty God as he protects his children, every last on of them.
He will hear.
He will cry.
He will protect.
He will respond.
