Church Women United Plan World Day Of Prayer March 3

By Darlene Jackson

Newtown’s Calla Sellner will be guest speaker March 3 when the Newtown/Bethel Unit of the Church Women United sponsors its annual World Day of Prayer Celebration at Newtown United Methodist Church in Sandy Hook. The public is invited to this ecumenical event which is being celebrated worldwide.

The worship service, “Talitha Kumui” (Young Woman, Stand Up), was written by the women of Indonesia and will be interpreted by the local women at 11:30 am in the Methodist Sanctuary. Mrs Sellner’s presentation will follow this in the Fellowship Hall downstairs, where beverages and desserts will be served to accompany bag lunches that each attendant is asked to bring.

Mrs Sellner and her husband Harvey traveled to Ghana on the West Coast of Africa last summer to deliver water purifiers. Mrs Sellner is lead teacher at Middle Gate School and an active community volunteer; Mr Sellner is a retired engineer and also an active community volunteer.

Overhead projections of her many pictures and experiences in Ghana will be shown, accompanied by her enthusiastic narrative. A native orphanage for physically challenged children, sponsored by the Salvation Army, was the highlight of her trip and the impetus for her presentations, which help her raise funds to send back to those “wonderful children.”

“This orphanage was teaching life skills to these children whose parents could not afford their care. There was one little girl with spinal bifida, who had just learned to move herself on a board with wheels. She was showing her skill, laughing, and having such a good time even as she careened off the wall. Learning to stop would be the next lesson,” she said.

Children learned to use a sewing machine that operated by turning the wheel, older boys made coffins, younger children made funeral wreaths, and many were learning arc welding, even though many were lacking one or more of the four limbs, she said. The orphanage was totally self-sufficient. They raised their own vegetables, chickens, and goats. In the dry season they were able to use saved rain water that was recycled for washing and watering plants. Mrs Sellner noted that the place was immaculate.

The Culture

The country, once one of the major deportation points for the slave trade, is located just two degrees north of the equator, and though the temperature was only about 78 degrees it was extremely humid. It was originally a British colony, so English is spoken everywhere.

This was Mrs Sellner’s first trip to a third world country and she noted that her first instinct was to notice all the things that were different – women of all ages carrying things on their heads, signs, stores, roads – very poor – and few automobiles. Then she realized that the people were “just like us.” The Sellners were invited into homes there and dined on highly spiced native foods, lots of rice, and familiar vegetables and fruits. They were included in an annual memorial celebration that involved a feast for 75 people, the complete feast being prepared without a stove or running water. The society is matriarchal. The homes are much like ours, she said, but the furniture is heavy and covered in velour.

The minimum wage is $1.00 per day, schooling is free for the younger children, but high school costs $400 to $500 a month. Those who leave school at the eighth grade level are called “leavings” and they are often the ones who teach the younger children, in schools where there are 60 children in a classroom and where they meet only for half a day.

One-third of the Ghanaians are Christians, on-third Muslim, and the other third of various faiths, but all believe in animism (that inanimate things have souls), she said. The Sellners worshiped in a  Presbyterian church there and were taken to the front to face the other worshipers. The service was three hours long and in tre (twee), the native language of Accra, the capital. They were allowed to sing the hymns in English, while the natives sang in their language.

The Sellners were housed in a modern hotel in Accra that included air conditioning and a private bath. They depended on others to transport them. Shorts and slacks were not worn by the women, so Mrs Sellner wore loose fitting cotton dresses. These were in great contrast to the clothing seen on the Ghanian women, who wore fitted, long, puffed sleeved dresses in bright prints.

The European style hotels were within a compound, where there were also shops. Mrs Sellner was disappointed though to find that the shops carried only American and European articles and no native products.

The Sellners did research the country before they left. Nelson Tamaklo, an African friend here in Newtown, gave them some travel tips and told them some of the customs of the continent.

Water Purification

Mr Sellner, who was an original designer of the water purifiers, worked with a local group of retired engineers to modify and prepare the devices for use in the third world countries where there is often plenty of water, but where sanitation is poor. The local Rotarians Ed Osterman, Skip Roberts, Fred Parella, and the late Frank Miles were active in the project. Many of the devices were samples that were once used on a campaign to sell door-to-door in this country. These were donated to the cause and then the Rotarians financed the shipping.

All this was done through the World Help Through Technology program. The Rotary focused on Ghana, where they took six purifiers, installed four and trained natives to install two more.

Fifty more purifiers were recently sent to Venezula, where Mr Sellner has traveled to train more natives on how to install them. There he will work with an interpreter. This project is sponsored by AmeriCares.

The Sellners, who have known each other since high school in Michigan, came to Newtown 31 years ago, after a brief time in southern California, where Mr Sellner worked for Hughes Aircraft. He was employed here until retirement by Perkin Elmer.

They have one daughter, Cathleen, who graduated from Newtown High School, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins Medical School. She did her internship in North Carolina and is practicing medicine in Durham. She is married to a Methodist minister and the couple has two children, Nathaniel, 3, and Benjamin, a newborn.

Both Sellners are members of the Newtown United Methodist Church. Mrs Sellner has been teaching for about 15 years and has had a long-standing relationship with the Girl Scouts, with whom she has served as neighborhood chairman and is currently on the board of directors.

Reservations for the March 3 event can be made with Marge Osterman (426-0530), who is chairman of the celebration.