A scene during the prayer session yesterday
President Akufo-Addo was honoured with a visit by Bishops of the Anglican Church across the country yesterday.
Their mission to the Jubilee House (the Presidency) was to offer prayers (Eucharist) for the President and the government and people of Ghana for the gift of a new year.
They advised the President not to be distracted but to remain focused on the aims and objectives he has set for himself and his government for which Ghanaians voted for him.
Present was the Vice President and their respective families.
Over 20 Anglican clergymen led by the Anglican Archbishop of the Internal Province of Ghana (IPG) who doubles as Bishop of Asante Mampong, the Most Reverend Dr. Cyril Ben-Smith, attended the event.
Preaching under the theme: “It is written, launch into the deep”, Most Reverend Dr. Cyril Ben-Smith said “regardless of the failures, the challenges of the times, we must be willing to try again, trusting in God’s word and that is the way we should view things.”
“Regardless of the issues that confront us, regardless of how things might appear, we must launch out because the Lord has told us to do it,” Most Reverend Dr. Cyril Ben-Smith said in his sermon.
In a brief remark after the service, President Akufo-Addo acknowledged the fact that the office he holds as President of the Republic will attract all kinds of energies towards him and his family.
“It enables us to be able to be tolerant (let me put it that way) of many of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that are thrown at us in this house,” he said.
He, however, said he takes consolation in the fact that God is with him, his family and his government and to that end, their protection is guaranteed.
“We see it as part of the work that we have to do for the people of Ghana and we must be prepared to be opened to all kinds of statements, some malicious, some in good fate, but we take it all on-board,” was how he put it.
He further noted that his government’s quest to build an open society means that he and members of his administration must be willing to tolerate all views across the social and political divide.
“We are trying to build an open society, a nation which guarantees freedom of all sorts so those who are at the front of it must have the temperament and the spirit, the psyche to tolerant whatever is said,” the President added.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu