A Century of Missions and Outreach
The staff and congregation of Glad Tidings are thrilled to be celebrating their centennial in 2026, and are equally excited to be enhancing their missions legacy with a trip to Ghana to help drill a water well and build a church in honor of this milestone birthday.
Their host pastor has long-standing ties with Glad Tidings. African pastor Godwin K. Ahlijah, 52, of Harvest Missions Chapel in Tema grew up as a friend of Glad Tidings deacon board chairman David E. Boabeng, 58.
On past trips to the U.S., Ahlijah had preached at Glad Tidings and stayed at the Boabangs’ home.
“I feel good about it,” Boabang says about returning to his homeland, where he lived until emigrating to the United States in 2004. “Jesus Christ said we should go into the world and preach the gospel—go to places like Africa or other countries.”
Originally brainstorming ways to highlight the missions DNA of the church in their 100th year, Glad Tidings pastor Renny K. Varughese and Boabang discussed a partnership with the Ghanan pastor.
In further discussions with the board, the pastor proposed drilling a well to provide residents with fresh water. Then secretary Richard Wakhweya suggested they also build a church.
“We’ve had a relationship with Pastor Godwin for a long time; I remember hearing him talk about living water,” says Varughese, 47.
“I later told him our thoughts and he got really excited. He said, ‘We’ve been praying about something like this. I have a rig and we can drill a well. That’s the purpose of what we do; we want to build a church where we drill a well.’”
While a specific date for the trip hasn’t been set, the church hopes to send a team of 10 to Ghana, a nation of more than 35 million in West Africa.
The drilling will be done by Meaningful Life International (MLI), a nonprofit missions agency whose work includes bringing fresh water to villages across northern Ghana.
“It’s worth knowing that providing clean water becomes a conduit through which the living water is preached,” says Godwin, a team leader for MLI. “We have planted 32 churches and work in 92 communities in this region.”
The trip accentuates Glad Tidings’ 2026 missions fund-raising goal, something they prioritize every year, with a large portion of their giving going to AG World Missions.
The church’s participation isn’t just financial, though. Over the years, numerous former pastors and attendees have gone to the mission field. Among them were missionaries to Haiti, El Salvador, Vanuatu, and the Far East.
One longtime member involved in the church’s missions outreach is Rosemarie Melegian, who served on the missions committee in the early 1990s. Her support has been both financial and spiritual.
“When people I knew personally were out and about in another country that wasn’t safe, I was on my knees,” says Melegian, 73. She joined the church on Easter Sunday of 1977, just two weeks after making the decision to follow Christ.
Melegian is a third-generation immigrant and granddaughter of natives of Armenia. Her interest in missions goes back to hearing stories about the Protestant missionaries who came to the region in the Ottoman Empire.
Not only did they spread the gospel, those missionaries wrote letters warning Americans about the genocide in 1915-16 that claimed approximately 1.5 million Armenian lives, Melegian says.
“They observed what these people were suffering,” she says. “I think how dangerous certain nations are today and the members of Glad Tidings who have been there. Their lives are in danger, but that’s Jesus’s commission, to preach the gospel. Missions excites me.”
Glad Tidings’ outreach includes its own community as well. Much of its emphasis is on Quincy’s Germantown section, named for the original immigrants who settled there (and now a multi-ethnic area).
The first weekend of December, the church hosted its annual Christmas party in the area’s school gymnasium.
After getting children’s sizes, the church gave away 200 pairs of pajamas. They also decorated cookies, presented a skit and caroling by the youth group, and did a short gospel presentation. Glad Tidings also presented family food boxes to everyone in attendance.
They will host a similar gathering on Palm Sunday, featuring kids’ games, Easter eggs, prize giveaways, and a youth group skit.
Varughese says their interest in Germantown goes back to the 1960s and ‘70s, when it started busing children from the area to Sunday school at Glad Tidings.
“Our vision comes out of Luke 10:27, to love God and our neighbor as ourselves,” the pastor says. “This is a way to love our neighbors well. Our church is full of generosity and the idea that we would do things for others, not ourselves.” And this vision is exactly what is driving excitement about the missions-oriented centennial celebration.