Missionaries in Our Midst, 

I am grateful to God for the gift of faith, family and my priesthood, and to all of you and your pastor, Rev. William Corcoran, for the generous opportunity to appeal here in your parish, St. Boniface & St. Lawrence, on behalf of my home diocese at this year's World Mission Appeal. I am Rev. Clement Amankwah Yeboah from the Diocese of Sunyani, Ghana. I am working in the Diocese of Scranton along with two classmates of mine, Fr. Philbert Takyi Nketiah at St. Jude's church, Mountain Top and Fr. Stephen Asomah Amponsah, Our Lady of Snows, Clarks Summit, as missionaries. In addition, there are two new arrivals, Frs. Sixtus Appiah Kyeremeh and Dominic Sabi who have been assigned to St. Faustina Kowalska Church, Nanticoke and St. John the Evangelist Church, Honesdale respectively.

We are here because it has become necessary to reciprocate the generosity of the many American missionaries who made generous sacrifices and brought the Catholic Faith to us in Ghana many years ago, and helped to nurture its growth to maturity; we are so glad to do same as a diocese and as individual priests. But to be able to continue to offer this needful help, we need more priests. We have more vocation but the high cost of priestly formation in a crumbly economy of a developing country like Ghana is so daunting on us as a diocese. That is why we need your financial support on this year's World Mission Appeal.

In total, the diocese of Sunyani spends about $84,000 (504,000 Ghana Cedis) on our 65 major seminarians annually (about $1,300.00 per seminarian). This expenditure highly strains the finances of the Diocese and painfully limits its efforts to provide other highly needed social services such as good Catholic education, quality healthcare and potable water to many poorer rural communities we serve.

Drawing inspiration from the statement: "World Mission Sunday joins all the Catholics of the world into one community of faith", I humbly invite you as a member of this one community of faith to consider making a generous donation to support this worthy course, or better still, be a benefactor to one seminarian. Who knows? The priest you help form today, may be serving this parish in some few years to come just as Frs. Stephen, Philbert, Dominic, Sixtus, and I are serving here now.

Please support this appeal by giving a cash donation or write a check in favor of the Catholic Diocese of Sunyani to the Pontifical Mission Society Office, Diocese of Scranton. May God bless you with His Peace and every good gift that comes from above.

A special collection in our parishes will be taken on January 15 & 16. 

Catholic Diocese of Sunyani to the Pontifical Mission Society Office     
Diocese of Scranton
300 Wyoming Avenue
Scranton, PA 18503-1279