Christmas Letter from Bishop Philip Naameh of Ghana, West Africa

May this coming New Year 2009 bring us closer to the Lord and closer together as we look forward to our new vision. May the glory of God fill you through and through.

LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - Catholic Online is an international integrated media netork read and viewed by people throughout the entire world. Bishop Philip Naameh, the Bishop of Damongo, Ghana, is a wonderful Servant of the Lord and his Diocese is growing. He sent us the following letter which we share with all of our friends as some "good news" during our Octave of Christmas.

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Christmas 2008

Dear Friends,

Greetings and best wishes from me and all my people during this blessed Christmas Season. With the end of the year I find it very appropriate to write and thank you for all your support, both material and spiritual, which has seen us through this past year and especially these first 13 years of our existence as a Diocese.

This year the Diocese has again been specially blessed by the Good Lord with a lot of activities and celebrations.

In October this year, we got the results of the third batch of St. Anne's Girl's Secondary School the School that we established some years ago to address the situation of the Girl-child education in the diocese. Like the previous years, majority of them qualified to study in the university whilst the rest can study in other higher institutions like Teacher and Nursing training colleges Polytechnics etc.

Our Minor Seminary in Sawla is also still in progress. We admitted in October this year again the third batch.

Work is also progressing steadily at our Cathedral site where we laid the foundation stone for the construction last year. It is at the roofing level and when completed, it will have the capacity of 2500 thus bringing to an end having diocesan celebrations under trees.

In September this year, two young indigenous responded to the call of God to serve their people and the Universal Church. I ordained them in Bole Parish on the 20th of September.

As the respond to the faith is increasing, I found it necessary to create a new parish out of the Good Shepherd Parish Tuna with the Centre in Kalba. I officially created the Rectorate on the 1st of November 2008 in a context of the Eucharistic celebration.

At both Provincial and National all the bishops of Ghana, large numbers of priests religious and the lay faithful the President of the Republic of Ghana and other dignitaries gathered together in Tamale from 31st March to 1st April to mourn and lay to rest the mortal remains of the Grandfather of the Province His Eminence Peter Cardinal Porekuu Dery who passed to eternity on the 6th day of March 2008.

On the 7th December, we as a Nation again went to the polls and elected a President and Parliamentarians for the firth successive time in the fourth Republic successfully. With your prayers for us it went on peacefully but none of the presidential candidates could get more than 50% of the votes counted so we have to go for a run-off on 28th December. We are hopeful that the Almighty God will bless our country with peace and success of this exercise.

Sr. Elizabeth Biela, a German Missionary Sister of Our Lady Africa (MSOLA) was here in Damongo on 9th December to help us organise the Star Singers Action in some of our parishes. This makes concrete a way in which we learn from the Church in Germany.

If we have been able to achieve any thing worth mentioning in these thirteen years of our existence as a diocese it is thanks to the generosity of people like you who have supported us in many diverse ways. We see in this help, physical and spiritual as a manifestation of our oneness. We are as children of God brothers and sisters in Christ. We see in this relationship a concrete manifestation of the "Emmanuel" (God with us) which we are celebrating in this season.

Let me therefore take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. May this coming New Year 2009 bring us closer to the Lord and closer together as we look forward to our new vision. May the glory of God fill you through and through.

With every best wish and God's blessing

+Most Rev. Philip Naameh
Bishop of Damongo

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