"Annual Report for the Station Begoro in 1880"

Written and signed by Mohr. The personnel of the station at the end of 1880 includes Gottlieb Munz and Stephan Sakyi as catechist, at Fankyeneko catechist William Emmanuel Obeng. David Huppenbauer was on the station for 6 months, then was transferred to Kibi. For a short while too Frederick John Okanta was in Begoro as teacher, working mainly in Anyinam, however. He was then transferred to Tumfa in the Kibi district. Benjamin Ntow was transferred to Anyinam, and Stephan Sakyi came to Begoro in his place. In describing Sakyi's work it seems that some re-organisation of the life of the station had occurred. His job in the daytime was to start afresh the community school. In the evenings be held an evening school for the adult members of the community. They have not been able to teach reading in the evening school. An effort will be made in the future to teach people to read before baptism. Obeng in Fankyeneko with his far-flung responsibilities and the problem of building a house (not yet completed) is discouraged, not working so well, and has asked to be sent back to Akwapim. Ntow in Anyihame is doing well and has at last got married. Schools - in Begoro clashes over whether boys were to be allowed to leave school for the snail-hunting season continued and a meeting of the people had decided that they would only send their children to school if the mission paid the parents some money each month. Instead on the station they have set up the community school. Heathen parents may send children, providing they pay 3d p.a. school tax, and deposit 2-/p.a. as a guarantee of regular attendance on the part of their children. By the end of the year there were 8 children in the school, 3 of them heathens but accepted as members of the community, since they were to be baptised in the forthcoming year, and sere living on the station. In Begoro too they had had the idea of starting a girls' school under Mrs Mohr, but they are having difficulty even getting sufficient numbers of girls to work in the house. Most come from Kukurantumi. The parents are adamant in not letting their girls come into contact with the mission station and this has been the case ever since two girls said that having been given instruction in the church they would not marry heathen. In both cases the girls were eventually drawn back into their family circles. In Fankyeneko out of a school group of 6, 5 have recently gone into classes 2 & 3 at the Kibi Boarding School. The school has been able to recruit more children, however and is still about the same size. In Anyinam there was great eagerness for schooling among the children, but the mothers took them away to do their work in the farms and the gold-diggings. There are only two Christian children in Anyinam, and they are 2-3 years old. Christian Communities - altogether over the course of the year 25 people have joined the Christian community in Begoro, 13 in Fankyeneko, and 10 in Anyinam. On the other hand they have lost 10 in Begoro, 2 in Fankyneneo, 1 in Anyinam, and 2 in Dwenase. The total of the Christian community in the district is therefore 110. In the course of the last three years 16 people have had to be excluded. Of these only three have maintained their links with the mission and been re-accepted. The losses are partly among people who want to live towards the world and who want to be unwatched and who find it difficult to separate themselves from their heathen families and move into the Christian villages. In fact these are the people who have little 'inner life'. The people who are on the stations enjoying community prayers daily agree that it is very necessary for them to be separated from the heathen, although indeed traffic with the heathen town is not forbidden. Certain professions present special difficulties for the conversion of a man, traders, for example. Mohr describes the ethics of trade and the average trader in extreme terms. They a people who do not wish to work, live on credit, waste their time, force payment of debts. He has refused to help Christian traders with credit. The problem with the hunters is not that the ethics of their profession are against then but simply that they are away in the forest for a month at a time, meeting only the middle men who take their meat to the towns. Since they cannot read, they are without any spiritual food, and the family is very backward too if they continue to live in the heathen towns. Marriage in the community continues basically on heathen lines - man and wife live separate lives. The Christians live idly too, and have debts. Even when people have money they do not pay cash, but buy on credit, and when a man comes to collect his debts in the usual heathen way there is pandemonium. And while people usually have money to buy fine cloth oil, hats and umbrellas they have none when, it comes to paying church tax.

16.01.1881

16.01.1881

Text