Champion family planning now and after coronavirus - Dr Leticia Appiah advises churches

Church services are now online, and this means, listening to sermon may just be for the affluent who could afford data with Android phones, or for relatively well to do who have televisions at home or else, one cannot fellowship with fellow church members.

Dr. Leticia Adelaide Appiah, Executive Director of the National Population Council made this assertion while touching on the need for the church to champion the cause of family planning in Ghana.

According to her, Family Planning is a way of couple deciding on an ideal number of children to bear and determining to space the child birth so as to offer them the needed care.
According to her, many poor people and their children cannot worship God so to speak in the face of COVID-19, because they cannot sign onto various social media platforms to join fellowship.

COVID 19 is affecting everybody worldwide and in every aspect of our lives including the church. In our leaders' quest to stop the spread of the disease and backed by science, we are being advised to maintain physical/social distancing, avoid crowds and minimize the number of social gatherings among other protocols she said.

Stressing on the need for the church to promote family planning, Dr Appiah quoted Genesis Chapter 2 verse 5 which says "no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the land nor had yet sprung up for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there were no people to cultivate the soil”. In accordance with the interpretation of her bible quotation, the purpose of mankind on earth is to be stewards of God's creation. So she questioned, “how can ignorant people be good stewards of God’s creation”? She explained that, whiles God and His son are co-creators, man and his off springs are expected to be knowledgeable and wise stewards.
Bemoaning on the negligence of family planning, she quizzed, how parents and governments can adequately educate their children when the children are more than they can adequately cater for at any particular time ? Dr. Appiah said in her view, this is the wisdom in family planning.

She again said, the interesting thing about the Bible is while the old testament offer processes to follow the commandments including thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill among others, the new testament gives the outcome to be perfect as our Father in Heaven. We need to figure out the processes to being perfect she said.

Dr. Appiah emphasized on the biblical saying that, love God with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself, could be fulfilled when mankind harness God’s gifts to him and can be considered to express love towards his or her neighbour’s when those gifts benefit them.

Therefore for us to be true disciples, the church needs to advocate for family planning to enable us make adequate and timely investment in each of us to enable us live our purpose for His Glory, the Executive Director highlighted.

She stated that, worshiping God even in challenging times such as COVID-19 pandemic, having an improved life makes isolation more bearable because you can keep in touch virtually with fellow worshipers. Covid 19 points out that improving quality life is important, and it is indeed in sync with Christianity when the Bible talks about abundant life.

She informed that, family planning which offers so many benefits to parents and Nations is very biblical, and buttressed her point on Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 6 which states "there is a right time and a right way to do everything but we know so little." Surfers don't make waves, they wait for the right waves God created, start paddling faster and faster, catch the waves, ride the waves and get off at the right time skillfully.

She advised that, like the prodigal son who went back to his father’s house, it is time the church leaders and congregants initiate discussions on how to balance quantity with quality in all aspects of our lives including child bearing and care. This would help those who cannot access online services during these challenging times to make their future generation more endowed to afford online services including church programmes when necessary she stressed.
Dr. Appiah noted that, to enjoy quality life, it is imperative of the church to take teachings on transformation of human resource into human capital more serious.

She said, God gave the earth to mankind to transform the raw materials into finished goods for our common good. For example, wheat transformed it into bread, value added to cassava to get gari, fufu, banku, starch; crude oil altered into petrol, gas among others for human consumption.

The Executive Director explained that, in the same vein, God gives babies and it is our obligation as parents to unearth the hidden treasures in each of these babies for our common good. Unearthing these hidden treasures in our babies is only possible with timely and acceptable investment in them, the Executive Director reiterated.

She reminded the Church that, God created human beings in his own image (male Female), blessed and instructed them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. In this regard she said the image of God in mankind is the foundation of human dignity which must be taken into account when filling the earth.

In her concluding statement, Dr. Appiah said God gave couples the ability to have children, and the ability to reason in order to wisely plan the birth of these children in an orderly manner for them to be good stewards. She cautioned that, being fruitful and multiplying are not synonymous for chaos and disorder but rather, human beings must be conceived, born and nurtured in dignity for societal benefit and His kingdom's sake.

She is of the notion that, God is a God of order so, the people he created in his own image should plan to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth in an orderly manner to prevent destitute and abandoned children in the streets who suffer most even in normal times and most especially in times such as COVID 19 pandemic.