"I have a need for another dose of your unique brand of black femdom, that's my favorite kink," Cain Kweku said with a smile. The big and tall, dark-skinned Ghanaian man looked at his mentor and awaited her response. Malinda Owusu-Amponsah, Pastor of the mostly Ghanaian Church of Abundant Light smiled and nodded at her mentee. Cain Kweku, a twenty-year-old student at Carleton University has grown up in Ottawa's largest black church. In fact, Cain was once mentored by Pastor Yaphet Amponsah, Malinda's late husband.
"I can help you with that, but after church," Pastor Malinda Amponsah said with a curt nod, and Cain seemed pleased with that. The Pastor and her favorite Deacon went out to meet the members of the Abundant Light Church, located on Merivale Road in the Nepean sector of Ottawa, Ontario. Founded almost three decades ago, the church welcomes all. The membership is mostly West Africans, as in folks from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Congo, along with a few Haitians, Jamaicans, French Canadians and others.
"Welcome to the Abundant Light Church, brothers and sisters, I am blessed and highly favored today, how about you?" Cain said as he stood at the pulpit. The big and tall young black man looked sharp in a dark gray business suit, white silk shirt and red tie. It was nine forty five on that fateful Sunday morning and the church officially began at ten. There were perhaps one hundred and sixty members in attendance. At the height of its popularity, the church had four hundred members. Something must be done about dwindling membership in the church.
Pastor Malinda Amponsah sat back and watched as Cain addressed the flock. For the tall, curvy and sexy, fifty-something black woman, life wasn't easy. Pastor Malinda Amponsah runs a black church at a time when most of the black community of Canada is becoming secular. She heard as much from her good friend Imam Hussein, a black Muslim preacher originally from Somalia. Apparently, attendance was at an all-time low in mosques as well. The Pastor has her work cut out for her.
The black church has undergone many changes in America and Canada. In Ontario, Canada, most black churches are full of Afro-Caribbean or continental African immigrants. Malinda Owusu was but a young woman, a student at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, when she met Yaphet Amponsah. She felt drawn to the tall, enigmatic and handsome young black man from the City of Accra, Ghana. Malinda hailed from the Ghanaian countryside, from a small town called Cape Coast. Ghanaians are fond of their own regardless of where they hailed from, and the two of them bonded over their shared origins.