John Nolt Family

About Us
By way of introduction, we are John and Sara Nolt, formerly of Terre Hill, PA, now stationed in the village of Bagli. We were married in December of 2006 and together we prayed that God would open a door of service to us. It was an answered prayer, then, when we moved to Ghana in September 2007 on a two year commitment to join in His battle on the lines drawn up in Dagomba Land.

About Bagli
Bagli is located in what they call the “overseas” area. During rainy season, a river floods to about two miles wide, making it basically inaccessible by vehicle during those months. North of Bagli, there is a smaller tributary that also floods, though we were told you can carry your moto across as it isn’t as wide and only chest deep. Since our means of transportation will be a moto, even during dry season our restocking trips will be limited to what can be carried on the back of a moto that is already loaded with two people.

If you have a map of the village work in northern Ghana, you might notice that Bagli is marked as not interested. Since that map was made, there has been some renewed interest, though there is no church leader in Bagli or a functioning church. Bagli is a stronghold for Islamic as well as animistic powers and is well known in the northern region as the place to go for powers. We were also told that the spirit of the big chief of Dagomba Land, the Ya-Na, moved to Bagli when he died.

About our ministry
Partially because the chief told the village to do whatever we want them to in order to gain development, and partly because we want to learn some culture before stepping into ministry, we will be entering as pretty low-key. Our first months will be spent in language learning, learning the culture, etc. and one-on-one ministry will be the next step. Once there is a leader to be encouraged and trained in order that John does not become the pastor of the church, village ministry on a larger scale can begin, though we will still be focusing on Bagli. Until then, John will be teaching phonics in the school, and since Sara taught school as a GES worker in Katani, I’m sure the school will be seeing a lot of her as well. We also want to spend a lot of time with the people in making friends with the ultimate goal of one day leading them to the Lord Jesus.