I recently returned from three weeks of photojournalism and documentary work in Ghana and Senegal, West Africa. I have posted my top 12 photos in my international portfolios. Here is a story illustrating some of the amazingly different world I experienced there.

Endemic in the culture of northern Ghana is the fear of supernatural reprisals and of the people who can manipulate the spirit realm to their own ends. The cultural spillover is the tendency to attribute such powers, usually falsely, to some of the most disadvantaged–and inconvenient–people in the communities: widows past childbearing age.

See my portfolio of 12 top photos from my time in West Africa

The process of witch allegation, trial, and punishment in one such area might go something like this: a child is bitten by a snake and becomes ill. The illness’ cause is immediately addressed–except that instead of asking what caused the sickness, family members want to know WHO caused it. The child may be denied medical attention until the fetish priest can issue a verdict on whether the snake was motivated by witchcraft or not. By the time he determines that it indeed was sent by a witch, the child is likely beyond help. During the night the child’s father has a dream in which one of the older women of the village appears, and when he awakes he brings the accusation of witchcraft against the woman. The fetish priest decrees a trial by ordeal, which basically amounts to extracting a confession by torture from the woman. Quite naturally, she is found guilty, because people will admit to just about anything under extreme duress. Finally, the “witch” is summarily banished from the community and finds her way to another town or village where she can scratch out an existence, branded and exiled from even her own family.

• Watch a short National Geographic video that describes almost exactly what our group encountered in northern Ghana.
• See my photos of the “witch camp” featured in an Animoto video from Partners International.

While it is certain that witchcraft and spiritism are practiced fairly widely in West Africa, to deal with that huge issue would probably be less productive and practical for the group I was with than to address human and women’s rights on the grassroots level in this specific village, which we see as a potential center of a ripple effect of positive change in the region. We envision thousands of human hearts set free as they comprehend Christ’s love and saving grace for them, and freedom from fear in combination with His equal value for all human beings.

One of the most heartbreaking things we saw in this village came when we asked for a show of hands of who among the women fear being cast out as a witch some day. Every last woman, from young mothers to late middle age, shared that fear.

We had the privilege of convening a village council to discuss whether a) the elders and opinion leaders thought this cycle was a problem and b) what they thought they could do about it. The very positive conclusion was that they do see a problem in how these women are treated and they think they can do something to improve the situation in the region. I’m impressed and grateful that the ideas were entirely theirs with only a little prompting from us outsiders. That means they are far more likely to effect lasting change, because the inspiration is from within.

We made some good new friends in that place, and would count it a great joy to return someday. In the meantime we will do our best to keep in contact with them and continue to support and build up the faithful Ghanaian workers who are there consistently throughout the year. We now have some wonderful memories and great hopes that we have become part of a process that will result, by God’s grace, in communities throughout northern Ghana being transformed for this life and the next.

See my portfolio of 12 top photos from my time in West Africa