About 38 of the 60 delegates and guests from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ghana will be late arriving at the church’s quinquennial meetings in St. Louis, Missouri. The small band was to be a part of the 2,000-member delegation charged with voting on items affecting the future of the church. However, the private plane they chartered was not there when the group arrived at the airport, said Jean Emannuel Nlo Nlo, communication director of the Adventist Church in West Africa.

The group should be leaving today on another flight, but because they did not get a full refund for the first flight, they will have to take a circuitous route. They plan to board a plane in Accra, Ghana, today, which will stopover in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and then proceed to New York. However, that’s as far as they can go on their current tickets. Nlo Nlo speculates they may have to take a bus from New York to St. Louis.

“Maybe it was our fault,” says Pastor Peter Mensah, president of the Adventist Church in Ghana. “Next time we will deal will a more reputable airline.”

Although the business portions of the meetings have not started, Mensah is concerned that they are missing a crucial part of the meetings. 

“They are missing out on fellowship,” he notes. “They need to be exposed to fellowship and get to know other people.” He explained that he believes that while Ghana has enough delegates already in St. Louis to vote, “they will be missed.”

Matthew Bediako, secretary of the world church, agrees: “Many of those missing are guests at the Session and will not be voting.” It is not clear how many of those missing are delegates.

“It’s very frustrating,” Nlo Nlo says.

“We can’t stop the meetings,” says Larry Evans, undersecretary for the Adventist world church who told ANN the matter was discussed by the church’s leaders earlier today. “Although there are other Adventists coming from Ghana, they cannot replace the missing members. They may have their own private agenda and may not represent the interests of the church in that region.”

Those interests, Mensah says, includes the unity of the church and promoting evangelism.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ghana has nearly 300,000 members.