By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
So soon, another 31st December is here with us again. As usual, various special church services are to be held across Ghana to bid 2023 fare well while ushering in the new year, 2024.
And Christians in the Ashanti region, just like their colleagues elsewhere in Ghana, are gearing up for the special event.
And in barely 24 hours from now most of these people will be congregating in their respective churches to thank God for surviving 2023 while praying for divine protection to enter the new year with renewed hope and aspirations.
‘As usual, I’ll go to church to thank God and also beseech him for a peaceful and blissful 2024 ‘cos he protected me during the year ‘, said Frank Amankwaah, a driver.
Another resident, Yaa Kyerewaa told GBCNEWS, ‘if God has been protective throughout 2023, we also have a duty to go and thank him. So, I’m prepared to attend the 31st watch night church service even after the main weekly church activity.’
‘I’ll ran over into the new year. I’ll go to church and pray for God’s help’,Madam Helena Amoako also said.
‘Incidentally, that will be the time some men of God plan to also release a barrage of prophecies about certain individuals and the nation in 2024, including the possible outcome of the Presidential elections.
GBCNEWS’ scann through the Ashanti regional capital showed many churches advertising their watch night church services, tomorrow, Sunday December 31, with billboards, banners and posters of various sizes, shapes and designs and erected at vantage locations across the city for noticeability of passers-by.
Most churches are also gearing up to mark the occasion despite the 31st December falling on a Sunday when the usual weekly church services are held.
On the issue of the Ghana Police Service’ restricting how supposed prophesies must be delivered, even though all the Ministers of God interviewed by GBCNews were unanimous that God does not wait till the last day of the year to give prophesies and that, it is abnormal for many prophesies to be given by God at the same time.
The Men of God however had divergent opinions about the directives of the Ghana Police Service.
On his part, the Founder and Leader of the Great Eternal Harvest International Ministry Cathedral at Daaban, Archbishop Professor Asafo Agyei Anane Frimpong, said some of the supposed prophesies are canal purely to attract patronage.
“If you’re mature in the word of God, you don’t just give any prophesy when it’s not given by God. And, it’ll prove whether it is God-given or your own imagination”, he noted.
For his part, the General Overseer of the Freedom Holy City Chapel International at Sokoban, Bishop Eric Owusu, the police administration is acting unconstitutionally and should not be allowed to do that.
“If other faith adherents are allowed to make manifest their beliefs through various forms of sacrifices because of freedom of religion and belief guaranteed by the Constitution, how can you regulate how I should communicate God’s message to his people. I’m only a vessel to deliver God’s message, not my own message and so I can’t change how God wants his message communicated to his people”, Prophet Eric Owusu fumed.
Meanwhile, the sale of firecrackers is booming as many unemployed youth are now making income from hawking it with just hours to the end of the year.
The hawkers say, even though sales is currently low, they are hopeful that patronage will increase as the reality of end of year begins to dawn on members of the society who use it to signal the dawn of a new year.
