NORMAN — Mitch Randall, senior pastor of NorthHaven Church, knows that giving is better than receiving. And he traveled all the way to Africa to do just that — give.

Randall and other members of his congregation went to Ghana, Africa, in July armed with 2,000 nets to protect village members from malaria-infected mosquitoes. The group spent a week handing out the nets.

The trip was a partnership agreement between NorthHaven, the Ghana Baptist Convention and His Nets, a Norman-based operation founded by T Thomas, who is a member of the church.

The agreement, Randall said, was carved out last year when the general secretary for the Ghana Baptist Convention was in Norman.

“Part of the partnership agreement was that we would help fund a Ghanaian missionary over in the Northern Volta Region of Ghana. The Northern Volta Region is on the east side of Ghana between the Volta River and the Togo border,” Randall said.

“The Ghana Baptist Convention sent a missionary up there as an outpost to a city called HoHoe. That was going to be his base. He (Pastor Timothy Wilson) and his wife Fastina and their children live there. Part of the agreement was that we would send mission teams to partner with them and help them accomplish two things. One would be to distribute mosquito nets in that region,” he said.

According to Randall, each net saves a minimum of two lives.

“With that estimate, in a week, we helped save 4,000 lives,” Randall said.

The other side of the agreement the trio made was that the NorthHaven group would help start churches in the area.

“Every time we went to a village, we handed out nets and told them the reason we were wanting to do this was because we wanted to come back and start a church here in the village. They were very receptive to that message. We were able to make a lot of good contacts in that village,” Randall said. “Before we left Ghana, Timothy had already started two churches that we are aware of from that distribution.”

The nets, which cost $6, were purchased by His Nets from PermaNet. Randall said that the nets are not dipped in chemicals, but the prevention fabric is woven in, which helps the nets last longer, if they are taken care of properly.

“The greatest feeling in the world is to hand a mother a net because she knows that its going to save the life of her children. And the worst feeling is to walk away from a village where you have mothers asking for nets and you don’t have any left to give out. It is very rewarding to be helping people and saving lives. It is very discouraging to see that the need is so great,” Randall said.

Randall has been to Africa three times for this mission and each time is always different, he said.

“Take a section of poverty here in Oklahoma and you make an entire country out of it. Poverty is just so rampant there in Ghana, and with poverty comes disease,” Randall said. “We’ve gone to villages before and we’ve asked the community there how many of you have had an infant die of malaria, or at least known somebody who has died of malaria. Every time, every hand goes up because it is so rampant.”

During this last visit, Randall said, the mission to give nets became personal.

“While we were there, the final day we were in the Volta Region, we were preparing to do a couple of our last distributions when we received word that the pastor’s youngest son had been diagnosed with malaria,” Randall said.

The child, 3, has since received the proper medication to fight malaria and has recovered, Randall said. The ordeal was a reminder to the group how serious their mission was.

“That is probably one of the most distressing things, that not only is the disease itself terrible, the medications to treat it are fairly inexpensive. The problem in Ghana is many of the hospitals can’t get the meds, and even if they have the meds, the poverty is so bad that people can’t afford them,” Randall said.

Randall said that the congregation will send a team every year to Africa as part of the five-year commitment made to the Ghana Baptist Convention.

And the giving continues.

“We have committed ourselves to send $1,000 through Cooperating Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma on to the Baptist World Alliance to try and send several thousand nets to Pakistan because of all the flooding that is going on. Once the flooding begins to subside, the next thing is the mosquitos are going to breed,” Randall said.

Shana Adkisson 366-3544 sadkisson@normantranscript.com