A Small Decision with Big Results

Emma Swift and Enoch Nyador in Ghana, West Africa, May 2011

My daughter Emma is in Ghana, West Africa. She is there due to a series of events that started thirty years ago when I accepted an African man as my roommate when we were in seminary.

I was raised in the Deep South by parents who were steeped in a culture that was prejudiced against blacks. Like many Southern whites, my parents respected individual blacks, but disliked the race. I remember my father yelling at the television and using the "n word" when a member of the NAACP demanded equal rights with whites.

For that matter, I told "n jokes." It was part of the culture. Prejudice was in the air I breathed and as taken for granted. If I could get a few laughs from friends or the approval of my father for telling racist jokes, it was well-worth it to me.

In my second year of college, the Christian faith I inherited from my parents became my own faith. I transferred to a college to prepare for ministry. I started to take the social implications of the gospel seriously and I realized that racism and following Jesus were mutually exclusive. Two events helped turn this realization into action. The first came on a metropolitan transit bus in Atlanta, Georgia when I surrendered my seat to a black woman. The second came when I accepted Enoch Nyador of Ghana, West Africa as my seminary roommate.

Enoch was a graduate of Ghana Christian College and came to prepare himself to return to Ghana to serve his people. I was dating a woman whose father ran a medical mission organization. Bob Reeves worked with indigenous people around the world to bring medical care and the good news of a loving God to people who had neither. I introduced Enoch to Bob and good things began to happen. Enoch graduated with a Master's in Divinity, returned to Ghana, and Bob worked with Enoch to establish a Ghanaian based mission organization. Ghana Christian Mission has baptized thousands of people into Christ, started over thirty churches, and provided medical care to tens of thousands of people.

Now, thirty years later, Emma is in Ghana with Enoch and his family. She is working on a project to start small Ghanaian owned businesses that will sell solar panels at low cost to villagers without access to electricity. The panels will provide power for light bulbs, radios, and to recharge cell phones. She will return to the USA at the end of June and continue working on the project in Indiana. Emma sent me an e-mail after she arrived in Ghana. She wrote, "I've certainly been noticing and thinking a lot about the huge ripple effects that have been made possible because you decided to room with an African." I made a small decision to follow Jesus. God has made much of it. Thanks be to God.