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A UMNS Feature
By Phileas Jusu*
7:00 A.M. ET July 12, 2012
The body of 107-year-old Rev. Isaac Momoh Ndanema is led out of church
for burial. Often called “Pa Ndanema,” he chose to live simply and
served as a peacemaker and social evangelist while encouraging the local
language.
UMNS web-only photos by Phileas Jusu.
June 19 was not a holiday in Sierra Leone but many United Methodists
defied normal work schedules in their respective offices to attend the
services for the Rev. Isaac Momoh Ndanema, the oldest evangelist and
church builder in the conference.
Ndanema passed away June 1. He was 107.
“Pa” Ndanema, as he was fondly called, spent a good deal of his life
building schools and developing congregations for the denomination. He
also was a broadcaster with the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service in
the 1970s, producing programs in the Mende ethnic language.
His work was honored by the annual conference in 2010 when he was
given the title of Conference Evangelist — the first in the annual
conference to have been awarded such a title.
Ndanema was born in Bonthe in southern Sierra Leone. He grew up in a
large family community. His father, Pessima Ndanema, had 10 wives with
several children. His mother, Sitta Ndanema, was one of the senior
wives.
From 1930 to 1936, he attended the Evangelical United Brethren Primary School in Bonthe. He gained admission into the Albert Academy
in the capital, Freetown, in 1937. He studied secondary school
education, graduating in 1940 with a teacher training and general
education certificate that qualified him to teach at the Albert
Academy.
He was a boarding home master at the academy from 1940 to 1944.
During the same period, he studied theology at Fourah Bay College, the
country’s only university at the time, and was ordained an elder in
1945. Between 1945 and 1946, he acted as assistant pastor at King Memorial United Methodist Church in Freetown.
In 1973, Bishop Benjamin A. Carew, the first indigenous bishop of
the Sierra Leone Area, called for every pastor and church to engage in
massive evangelistic ministry. In 1974, Ndanema formed the Musselman
Evangelistic Outreach.
The Rev. Issac Momoh Ndanema
Service with or without assistance
The team used Ndanema’s private old Peugeot car until it was beyond
repairs. He paid the repair cost over the years and did not receive any
reimbursement from conference, recalled the Rev. Moses Massaquoi, his
assistant at the time. Ndanema served faithfully, whether or not he was
supported by the annual conference, Massaquoi observed.
The team had four main objectives:
- To organize churches in the east end of Freetown
- To train local leadership for the established congregations
- To construct new churches for the new congregations
- To open new schools in the eastern part of the city
Their work resulted in 14 churches and 10 schools in eastern Freetown and the hinterland.
“He lived a life of self-denial. He loved a simple and humble home.
With the support of his children, he would have lived a better life in
the United States … or a far better home elsewhere in Freetown. But he
preferred to live a simple lifestyle in the Ginger Hall Community in
eastern Freetown,” said Massaquoi at the funeral service June 19.
Funeral services and death announcements in Sierra Leone usually
carry a mournful language or sympathetic expressions. This was not the
case for Ndanema, whose home calling was considered a celebration of a
life well spent. On radio and television, expressions of joy and
happiness could be heard in the announcements about the death and
funeral arrangements.
United Methodists stop to pay tribute
After the news of Ndanema’s death, congregations from several parts
of the country poured into Freetown for meetings among family, local
church and conference officials to organize arrangements to give him a
befitting funeral.
Work at United Methodist Church House, the conference’s headquarters
in downtown Freetown, stopped as everybody trudged to the hillside
Ginger Hall Community. The 200-capacity Musselman United Methodist Church
held twice that capacity by 11 a.m. for a service scheduled for 1 p.m.
A huge projector screen in the church brought Ndanema to life in video
interviews, pictures and services throughout his life.
The youth of the Ginger Hall Community “hi-jack” dance around the coffin
in the accepted tradition of the Freetown Area of Sierra Leone for
people who die at a very old age.
For eight years, Ndanema was pastor at Musselman and, despite being
offered a better home to stay by his children after his retirement in
1991, he chose to stay in a two-bedroom apartment on the premises of
the church until his death. Celebrations continued in the Ginger Hall
Community in addition to a candlelight vigil in the church on the eve
of his burial.
Colleagues of Ndanema were hard to find by the time of his death —
most of his true peers in service had passed away before Ndanema. Most
of the people who gave testimonies about the life and ministry of the
evangelist were converts he brought into the denomination or retired
pastors he groomed into ministry.
“He was a family supporter. Part of his ministry was settling
disputes among disintegrating families. I had made up my mind to quit
the relationship with my husband because he did not seem interested to
marry me after we’d had our third child,” recalled Mary Kallon, a
member of the Musselman congregation. “Word got to Pastor Ndanema that I
was moving out of the home. He called me and my husband, resolved the
matter and we wed the following Saturday.”
Alfred Josiah, who met Ndanema in his youth, said part of Ndanema’s
method of evangelism was taking care of people’s social needs. “He
helped me secure a job which became my career up to my retirement,” he
said.
Tommy Lansana said Pa Ndanema encouraged him to begin learning to read and write at age 21.
Isaac Ndanema United Methodist Church
The old boys association of his alma mater — the Albert Academy, the
denomination’s oldest boys’ school in Sierra Leone — laid wreaths and
an emblem of the school signifying honor. The school principal said
Ndanema was a true academician “who served his God and man well.”
A statement from resident Bishop John Yambasu
described Ndanema as a great evangelist and a man with a great sense
of simplicity. “To him the highest place of honor was among the people
and not at the high table,” Yambasu wrote in a tribute that was read on
his behalf because the bishop could not attend.
In June 2010, in recognition of Ndanema’s service, a church in
eastern Freetown was renamed the Isaac Ndanema United Methodist Church.
Ndanema was full of joy and praise for the resident bishop and the annual conference.
“Your idea of recognizing the work of evangelism is noted today here
on Earth and is also noted in your favor in the presence of Almighty
God. Bishop John Yambasu has made us to know that you can use Isaac
Ndanema as a symbol of the house of God,” Ndanema told those gathered.
“The house of God is today called Isaac Ndanema and the people of God
will go on to be called Ndanema people in the name of God — Father, Son
and Spirit. ”
Bishop Yambasu said he was “told that in doing ministry, Pastor
Ndanema went through many challenges and trials. I am told that because
he worked so very hard, he became a target for jealousy and hatred by
his own very colleague ministers. By the time Pa Ndanema was going
through those crucibles, he would have called it quits, but no. He knew
he had a mission to accomplish. He was an extraordinary evangelist who
did what no other pastor after him has ever done.”
Ndanema encouraged congregations to sing in their local languages
rather than in English. The Rev. S.M. Williams, a journalist and pastor
who interviewed Ndanema on his 100th birthday, said Ndanema loved to
hear African congregations praising God in their indigenous languages.
At the 2010 renaming ceremony, Ndanema said, “Wherever the
incarnate God seen in Jesus of Nazareth is proclaimed, there should be
indigenous congregations true to the soil, true to the community, true
to the people.”
*Jusu is a United Methodist communicator based in Sierra Leone.
News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470 or email newsdesk@umcom.org
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