Trip to a prayer camp

Last week I went to a "prayer camp" with a colleague at the newspaper for a story. A prayer camp is somewhere people go to be healed by the power of God. There are many of them in Ghana, which is quite an ostentatiously religious country.

Here's what happened:

To get to the camp, we travel more than two hours east by trotro along a highway to the village of Kpodo Kope. In the village, we are met by a reporter from a local radio station. He helps us travel by taxi another half-hour down a weed-eaten dirt path until we arrive at the camp, stirring up dust and excitement among the goats, chickens and children in the main yard.


Camp entry sign

Adults scurry to find chairs for us to sit on, arranging them on the deck of the camp’s main building.

We are introduced to Prophetess Rebecca Tswasam and a man who I later learn is her husband. I am disappointed to learn the interview will be conducted almost entirely in the local language, which relegates me to the position of microphone-holder and smiler-at-children.


Prophetess Rebecca Tswasa

Rebecca tells the reporter, I later learn, that she opened the camp five years ago after a series of visions and incidents in which she healed people convinced her God was calling her to do His work.

In the past five years, Rebecca says, about 6,000 people have been healed of various illnesses, including epilepsy, stroke, mental illness, blindness, convulsions, and deliverance from witchcraft. Her healing tools include prayer and ritual use of olive oil, water and sand.

During our interview, a frail, ill-looking woman dressed in all white came to the main building. She appeared weak and wobbly. Rebecca rose from her chair, said some loud words over the woman, and then pushed her heavily with a few fingers to the forehead. The woman reeled away, then unsteadily walked over to grass mat, where she lay quietly for the rest of the time we were there. I was later told the woman was being healed of liver cancer.


Rebecca (left) with the woman said to have cancer.

After an hour-long interview, the reporter asks if I have any questions I’d like answered. I feel in a slightly awkward position, as they’ve been talking intently and I have little idea what they’ve already discussed. I ask a few general questions about how many people are at the camp, how it is funded, and how they know whether people have been actually healed. (Answers: about 150, donations, and because people don't come back after they've left)

Then we are taken on a tour of the camp grounds. Most of the 150 or so residents live in thatched-roof huts in a circle around the grounds. Some stone-walled buildings are under construction, but we later learn the camp has run out of money to complete the construction.


Main housing area for camp residents


Future camp housing, as yet unfinished, although I think inhabited.

In the background during the entire interview our voices are almost drowned out by loud singing and chanting coming from just behind the main building. The tour brings us to the main worship area, where Wednesday services have been going on all morning.


Camp dwellers sing and dance during the Wednesday morning service.


The camp band

During the tour, we are also brought to the birthing house, where Rebecca tells us she has delivered hundreds, possibly thousands of babies over the past three years, although she has had no formal or even informal training. She added birthing services to the camp’s offerings after a dream led her to believe it was also in God’s plan for her.

We are shown a tiny infant lying on a grass mat covered by mosquito netting. The girl, swaddled in blankets and even wearing a little tuque despite the searing heat, was born yesterday, we are told. Rebecca tells us she usually delivers 10 babies a day, although we see no evidence of any others.


The new baby sleeps

Finally, a number of people are brought out for us to see – one man who said he was healed at the camp, and several others who are still waiting for their healing to take place.

The person who was healed, a man in his 30s named Joshua, tells us he was treated for severe pains in his body. His treatment took five months. He has been living at the camp with his wife for more than a year since his healing, and says he has no plans to return to his former home.

I wished we could have had more time to speak to Joshua to find out how exactly he was healed. But Rebecca hovers over our shoulder the entire time, even appearing to finish sentences for him, and wants to hurry us off to the next stop on our tour.


Joshua told us he had been healed at the camp

We returned to the main worship area of the camp, where Rebecca arranged for several people to be brought out from the hall so we could see them. Relatives brought out several men for us to photograph. Most had difficulty walking and needed help. Most appeared to have some type of psychiatric or mental disorder. One woman appeared to be paralyzed below the waist; several members of her family carried her out to be photographed.


Rebecca (left) and a woman whose family brought her to the camp to be healed. This photo illustrated the prayer camp story in the newspaper.

One tall man who looked to be in his mid-20s had his feet chained together; when I asked why, I was told it was to prevent him from running about or running away, which he was apt to do.

The man later tried to hobble away, but his relatives grabbed him. He fell to the ground and began yelling or wailing, which resulted in a disturbing episode where Rebecca either punished or attempted to heal the man by switching him with a willow branch. He eventually quieted and was led away by his family.


Chains bind one man’s ankles

Shortly after this, we left the camp.

Prayer camps appear to be quite common in Ghana, especially in rural areas; we see signs for them whenever we’ve traveled outside the city.

A doctor interviewed for the newspaper story decried the camps, saying people use them instead of going to hospitals for proper medical treatment. Often, he said, people go to camps first, then try hospitals if their situation becomes dire. This means their treatment is more difficult and more costly, he said, or in some cases the delay can cost patients their lives.

The doctor also worried about the spread of untreated diseases at the camps, specifically tuberculosis.

The newspaper reporter I worked with on this story said she hoped the story would help educate people about the dangers of prayer camps. She said more public education on the matter was required, especially in rural areas, where people can’t read, don’t have television and are suspicious or afraid of medical technology.

In those areas, she said, people’s spiritual beliefs are strong, and they’re more likely to turn to prayer camps than hospitals in attempts to cure what ails them.



In several places in the camp there was a reference to Matthew 21:13. I just looked it up, and here's what it says: "And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

Any Biblical scholars out there to interpret?