A group of Ghanaian Seventh-day Adventists now living throughout Europe welcomed church president Jan Paulsen to the 13th Annual Ghanaian-Euro Seventh-day Adventist Camp meeting in De Bron, Netherlands last month.

Members at the annual gatherings evaluate activities from the previous year and adopt new strategies to ensure spiritual and socio-economic development of individual members and their church in the west African nation of 23 million people.

Paulsen commended the group of more than 500 for their dedication to helping those in their home country. “Many people in the world face huge and diverse problems and it is those of you here who are helping in alleviating their plight,” he said.

This year, members committed to constructing new staff housing at Valley View University, an Adventist-owned institution in Accra, Ghana. To date, Ghanaian Adventists living in Europe have given more than $150,000 to build such facilities to help ease the school’s accommodation challenges.

Paulsen spent two years in Ghana, beginning in 1962, serving as a Bible teacher at Bekwai Adventist Training College. At the meeting he recounted fond memories of life in Ghana and said God purposely sent the Paulsen family there to experience the generous Ghanaian hospitality.

“I commended them for their strong commitment to outreach among their fellow compatriots and recognize a unique responsibility to reach out to others who are on the move,” Paulsen later recounted. “Such is a reality of our world today that many people outside of their native countries can be reached for God.” 

Paulsen noted the contributions to the church from Ghanaians living in many countries, including the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland and Belgium.

About 320,000 Adventists worship in roughly 1,000 churches in Ghana.

—Additional reporting by Nana Sifa Twum and Isaac Amo-Kyereme