When Doris Opoku and her family immigrated to the United States from Ghana in 2008, they had no idea what ministry opportunities God had in store.
Since that time, in addition to becoming U.S. citizens, Doris was elected Woman’s Missionary Union president for the six-state Baptist Convention of New England and her husband, Seth Opoku, was named president of the North American Baptist Association of the Ghana Baptist Convention, one of several ethnic fellowships affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Doris balances her WMU leadership responsibilities, including serving on the national WMU executive board, with her roles as a pastor’s wife, mother of five and a certified nursing assistant at a group home for the elderly.
Seth, a Baptist minister while in Ghana, was called as the first pastor of United Faith Baptist Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, after arriving in the U.S. He currently is the bivocational pastor of LifeWay Baptist Church International in Leominster, Massachusetts.
During a Sunday morning message at LifeWay International’s small storefront sanctuary, Pastor Opoku reminded his congregation, “The choices you make today will determine your destiny tomorrow.”
That is a truth that the Opokus have learned firsthand.
Affirming “your destiny is in your hands,” he emphasized the most significant decision is to “allow Jesus to be … Master and Savior for life.”
More than a decade after immigrating, “the benefits are mostly for the kids,” she said. “There are more opportunities here, especially since education here is more advanced and very good for them.”
Of course, relocating to a new country halfway around the world wasn’t without its challenges.
‘Things work differently’
Describing her family’s cultural transition as an enlightening experience, Doris said they quickly discovered that “things work differently in America — not like the way we were in Ghana.”
She said it took several months to navigate such issues as renting an apartment, finding jobs, getting medical screenings and registering their children for school.
She said other adjustments ranged from coping with the frigid New England winters to building community with neighbors.
“In Ghana, you can say hi to anybody and talk to anybody,” she reflected. By contrast, she said they found that in New England culture “you have to know your boundaries when you are talking to people in the community.
“It’s very difficult to go into the communities and talk to people when it comes to spiritual work,” Doris added. “Most of the time what we do is use handouts. We go to apartments and put tracts in the people’s doors.”
As with most congregations, the coronavirus pandemic has made outreach efforts even more challenging.
On the WMU front, Doris also discovered significant cultural differences between Ghana and New England. The most striking?
“In Ghana, we have WMU in every Baptist church,” she explained. “Every married woman in the church becomes part of the WMU.
“We host quarterly and annual programs, including Bible studies, prayer and inviting resource persons to speak and educate the members on issues relevant to our walk with God and being useful to the community,” she added. “All the women in the local churches are expected to be part of the WMU. … It’s a little bit different from how you do it here.”
Spreading the WMU word
After accepting the New England WMU presidency in 2016, Doris said, “I realized that WMU is not that much known in the churches here in New England. Most of the churches don’t have WMU.”
During her four-year term as president, which will conclude this fall, Doris said her primary goal has been to help change that reality one New England church at a time.
In addition to hosting an annual ethnic retreat for women throughout New England, she said her vision is to provide churches with “information about WMU … and see the women get involved.”
Training young leaders
Taking a page from her WMU experiences in Ghana, Doris said, “It is important to try to expand” WMU’s missions and ministry presence in New England because WMU organizations such as Mission Friends, Girls in Action, Royal Ambassadors and Acteens are vital in helping “train the kids and train the young leaders as they are growing up.”
By combining missions discipleship with Christian hospitality “you have some young women and men who might invite their friends over and they’ll also listen to the Word of God and get their lives changed, accept Christ and go to church.”
Share with others: