To Rev Dr Ben Yemoh

25 Jan 2014 

“The memory of the just is blessed” (Proverbs 10:7)

It seems like just yesterday when we posed for that post-CFC picture with me teasing you about your greying beard – conveniently ignoring the grey epidemic breaking out on my own head…

It seems like just yesterday when you asked me to preach at your mum’s wake-keeping…

It is only a couple of weeks since we were talking after Core Leadership Seminar and joking around…

It seems like just yesterday when I paid you that visit and we sat, together with your sweet wife, talking about Ministry and the goodness of the Saviour…. and I promised a visit I never got a chance to pay because

It was only a few days after that that the Master called you home, suddenly…

In the famous words of Vince Gill’s song,
“Go rest high on that mountain
Son, your work on earth is done
Go to Heaven a-shouting
Love for the Father and the Son”.

Goodbye, my brother, my friend, my fellow-soldier and fellow-servant in the Lord’s Vineyard! Your hard work and dedication to the work of God will never be forgotten.

Revelation 14:13 (KJV)
¹³  And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

Do remember to keep a little corner of your heavenly mansion cosy, for we must still catch up.

You see, I still plan to pay that last visit I never got a chance to pay on earth!

2 Corinthians 5:1-4
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.
For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. “

Farewell, Rev Dr Ben Yemoh! God keep you till we meet again!!!

TO JAMES LESLIE MAYNE AMISSAH, or JIMMY TOPPOS.

February 2019

To borrow a thought from the late South African author Peter Abraham’s book Tell Freedom, Poetry doesn’t always come to us dressed in the garb we expect and, as a result, we sometimes don’t recognise her. Or, to quote Thomas Hardy’s view of Angel Clare’s treatment of Tess in his novel Tess of the D’urbervilles, “In considering what she was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire”. You walked among us, poetry in motion, but we didn’t always recognise you!

It’s become all too common to say good things – true or untrue – about our departed friends. However, it is almost impossible to exaggerate your kindheartedness, Jimmy. Anyone who knew you will testify to that. The other day I was saying, truthfully, that I don’t recall ever seeing an angry Jimmy! (I have since been told of a time when, as a form two boy, you fought to a stalemate with another Santaclausian, under a “double-decker” bed. I was told you nearly gouged out his eye because he was trying to throttle you 😊).

The discovery that we had some close mutual friends outside Adisco, not to mention that we were in the same class for our A Levels, helped bring us closer together. We spent many an evening sitting at the foot of the Katanga stairs chatting for hours about all sorts of issues and I discovered a kind heart, a gracious soul and a friend who would do anything to help others.

There was that day in your dormitory in Ebiradze House. A few other Lower Sixth Form friends were there, waiting for you to get ready. It was a Saturday and boys were getting ready to go to one of the girls’ schools in Cape Coast to visit friends. It was a parade of blue jeans and spotless white shirts – we, as always, wanted tolook our best. And then I spotted your blue jeans hanging on a nail in the wall. Bluer, newer, nicer than most. I commented on it, casually. You looked up. “You dey like am?”, you asked in pidgin English. I said it was very nice but of course you were going to wear it and besides, I was already dressed up.You said you had another, similar one, and insisted I wore it. And with that,you went into your trunk and pulled out another pair!

I still remember that other time when one form five boy directly asked for your trainers. To my utter surprise, you simply bent over, removed those trainers and handed them over. I saw so much of that kind heart that acts like this soon stopped taking me by surprise! There were those nights when – whisper it quietly – we would go with a few friends to the Adisadel village kenkey base across the road, without exeats or permits. We would sit down to eat hot Ga kenkey and raw pepper plus shito – and almost invariably, the big, flat tin of sardines would be produced from your back pocket.

Who can forget that mischievous humour? There were those trips – on foot – to Holy Child School for those “unauthorised”, private English Literature classes. We’d often jog part of the way to be on time. Often, looking back and seeing me struggling for breath, you’d give me “advice” on how to improve my fitness levels (even though I played football and you didn’t) as only Jimmy could, with that mischievous smile. Apparently, it was all because I neither drank nor smoked that I was so “unfit” 😀

We were told to look for Eustace Palmer’s “An Introduction to the African Novel” as that would help us make sense of one of our set books, Camara Laye’s “The Radiance of the King” with those two enigmatic, confusing characters Nagoa and Noaga. You had a copy, amazingly. The only copy any of us had seen! It may sound strange today but some of us had to copy that book by hand! I needn’t have worried – you were done with it, you said when I returned it, and never took it back. That’s how that book came to be in my possession. I’ll treasure it even more now!

Fast forward many years and we met in London. Excitement. I still remember that “reunion” at Elephant and Castle Station, near my then London South Bank University office. We spent  hours talking about some serious stuff – family, work, a relationship with Jesus. And we kept in touch though we could have met more often. The last time I saw you in person was when our good friend George Sagoe, the “Grotesque” man, was in London. I came over to see you both and discovered that that sense of humour never went anywhere. In that inimical Jimmy style you accused me of having taken the A levels, all those years ago, “too seriously”!

Like the rest of us, you had your issues, and weren’t unwilling to talk about them. We talked for a long time and I left you and George after promising another visit “soon”.

“Soon” stretched into weeks and even months, and even though we exchanged text and other messages, that reunion never came until…until…until I got that message from George: Jimmy is gone! What a shock! How heart-breaking! Jimmy, my friend, my brother! Fare well, Jimmy! Sleep peacefully in your Maker’s arms, sweet soul. Rest in perfect peace, brother!