Rev. Dwamena of NY: He came to visit, but stayed to help

All he wanted to do when he arrived in New York in 1971 was to visit all the sights in the United States that he had grown up reading and hearing about. But fate intervened, and he wound up helping found the largest Ghanaian congregation in the city.

"Yes, I must say I did not plan it this way," said the Rev. Kumi Dwamena, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, which he has led since its founding 25 years ago.

The congregation now shares space with Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church in Harlem.

Dwamena, 69, leads a congregation of about 250 people who worship in Twi and Ga, two of the most widely spoken languages in Ghana. Church statisticians say it is the largest Ghanaian congregation in New York, and one of a handful in which Twi or Ga is spoken during services.

The church's story is one that many immigrant churches can relate - a dream that came true after years of struggling to survive, to establish its own identity, then to build its own sanctuary home.

"It really started earlier than that," Dwamena said. "But it really was not a church at first. It was just people getting together."

He was always involved with the group. "This is the reason I did not go on to see America," he said. He has since visited California but has not toured the U.S. extensively.

Dwamena arrived in New York after teaching physical education in his home country for seven years. Before that, he had studied in England, where he fulfilled a university requirement by taking a divinity course. "I was a gym teacher," he said, "but Nottingham [University] told me that I should take a nonrelated course, and so I chose divinity just because I was interested in the subject."

Once in New York, he looked up other Ghanaians, and word quickly spread through the tight-knit community that the newcomer was interested in religion. Soon, Dwamena was accepting invitations to lead prayer services in the living rooms of host families.

He became so interested that he enrolled in the Union Theological Seminary, the nondenominational graduate school in Morningside Heights. He earned a master's degree in theology in 1975. By then, he had agreed to organize a congregation and lead monthly services.

The congregation first convened at the Broadway Presbyterian Church, then moved a dozen years ago to Mount Morris Ascension and began meeting each Sunday afternoon. By then, Dwamena had added a Ph.D. to his name - his thesis was about the role of missionaries in religious education.

For that, he drew on his denomination's history in Ghana, where Presbyterian missionaries arrived in 1828 and were promised land for a mission in the hill state of Akwapim on the condition that they produce black converts. They did - by importing converts from Jamaica. Their descendants still live in the region.

Dwamena, who teaches at Public School 134 in the South Bronx, and his Ghanaian-born wife have six children, all named according to Twi tradition for the day they were delivered. "My name means She Who Was Born on Tuesday," said daughter Abena Dwamena.

By an against-all-odds coincidence, the children were born on every day of the week except Saturday. Outside the family and community, they have more conventional names. For example, the reverend's first name is Francis, which he rarely uses.

For years, the church has taken a second Sunday collection, and thereby hangs a last happy chapter to the story.

"We have bought our own church," Dwamena said. "It is on W. 123rd St., and it cost $1.5 million. Every dollar came from the people, and now they are giving to pay for the necessary renovations. Soon, we will achieve our great dream: to meet in a place that is ours alone."