Missionary profile – John Komla

Ghanaian Missionary

Here’s how I ended up being a John. While attending a Catholic church service with my Mom, we found a kids’ baptism ceremony going on. My Mom immediately enrolled me for baptism. When it was my turn to be sprinkled, the priest asked my Mom, “What shall we call him?” My Mom had no clue. I had heard of the name “John” from the Bible several times. It was the only name I knew. I blurted out, “John!” And so, I became a John. Like the older John in the wilderness, I am also a missionary, pointing people to the Saviour.

My parents never married, and my dad took me in as a teenager. Mom, sadly, passed away in my second year of high school.

When my Mom died, I asked myself, “Where did she go?” Is she in heaven with Christ?

All the scriptures I had heard were coming to life in my heart. These questions led me to a Scripture Union fellowship. I knew I was a sinner.

“Today is the last day I’m going to live for myself,” I cried.

I made the decision in my heart and started attending the Scripture Union fellowships regularly.

I attended a community Bible study by Navigators, and the experience was so rich that I dedicated myself to two years of discipleship. This was just before I joined the university.

The Navigators facilitated a short-term mission trip to the Ghana and Burkina Faso border. That mission experience broke me. I had grown up in abject poverty, and I couldn’t imagine anyone poorer than me, yet here were people living in more squalor than I had ever imagined.

Despite their poverty, they were extremely hungry for God. The city had many mega-churches, and people weren’t serious about Christ. I wept for days!

Despite their poverty, they were extremely hungry for God. The city had many mega-churches, and people weren’t serious about Christ. I wept for days!

Every December, we went among the unreached and came back in January. By my second year in the university, I knew I would be a missionary.

I did my National Youth Service while stirring young people’s hearts for missions. God asked me, “You pray for somebody to go; who should go? You, too, can go!”

When I moved to Kumasi to lead the Navigators Programme at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, I started taking students to rural missions yearly and did that for 11 years.

I’m now the National Director for Navigators in Ghana. My greatest strategy is to send young people to the mission field and to help them respond to the call of God in their lives the way God wants.

Expose young people to missions and missionaries. Sometimes, the only missionary they know is Paul of Tarsus. Let them know that people have lived as missionaries and continue to do so. If they see that people are doing this, they, too, will go.

#Pray:

• For God to help me keep the focus on raising Christ-like disciples/ missionaries- Judges 2:10.
• For many young people in Ghana/Africa to respond to God’s heartbeat – missions.
• For God-honouring partnerships to advance the Gospel in Ghana and beyond.
• For the Church in Ghana to live for Jesus Christ- 1 Chronicles 12:32.
• For the Lord to send us workers to His harvest field- Matthew 9:35-38.