Woman fights red tape to attend son's ordination

AURORA — Kweku Noonoo stood at the front of Westminster Presbyterian Church on Sunday, held his mother's hand and became a priest.

Over 12 years, he had come a long way — from Ghana to Jamestown, N.D., to Chicago to Princeton, N.J. — to graduate from seminary and be ordained. His mother had come a long way, too, to witness the events, having trudged through a visa-application process so bureaucratic that it took persuasion from a congressman and the U.S. Embassy in Ghana just to get her here.

"We were cutting it so close," his wife, Anna, said of their efforts to bring his mother, Alberta, to his graduation from Princeton Theological Seminary in May.

She had been rejected in her first attempt to get permission to visit the United States.

"In layman's terms, she was not wealthy enough," Kweku Noonoo said.

The country feared she would abandon whatever belongings she had in Ghana and stay in the United States for good.

Princeton Theological Seminary President Thomas Gillespie learned of the family's problems and wrote to U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., whose office contacted the U.S. Embassy in Ghana.

Only then was she able to come here and represent his extensive family, including his father, four siblings and aunts and uncles.

She was just as much the guest of honor as he was Sunday. She took part in the ceremony, placing a red vestment over his black robe, and was mentioned throughout.

"You didn't have to make Mom so welcome and warm, like Africa," the Rev. Brenda Harcourt of First Presbyterian Church in Oregon, Ill., said of Sunday's scorching temperatures.

The ceremony marked the end of a journey that started in 1990, when he came to Jamestown College in North Dakota to study accounting, computers and business. He worked his way through college, graduated, moved to Chicago, found temporary work, married his college sweetheart, and began studying to become a Certified Public Accountant.

"It was precisely then that something that was supposed to be my dream turned out to be not fulfilling at all," he said.

He took a job at Mooseheart in 1997, about the same time as his family made Westminster its home church. At first, he worried that his family would view his career change as a sign of disrespect; after all, he was sent here to become an accountant, not a priest.

He revealed his intentions little by little in letters to home, and found nothing but support from his deeply religious family. He enrolled at Princeton in the fall of 1999.

"And here we are," he said Sunday after the reception cleared out from the church basement. Many who attended his ordination were characters from his past who had helped him in one way or another.

"That is key. Many, many people stepped up and helped and made a huge difference," he said. "I would not have guessed that I would have made it this far."

He did make it this far, though, and he already has begun the ministry at a church in Alliance, Ohio.

"It is my pleasure," his 5-year-old daughter, Betty, said at the end of the ceremony, "to introduce to you the Reverend Kweku Otu Noonoo."

Contact John Zaremba at (630) 801-5414 or jzaremba@scn1.com.