In a household where he was born a middle child, Anthony remembers becoming the oldest child overnight.

Anthony’s father, desiring his children to avoid the fate of a fisherman, set out to educate them. Without the proper funds to do so, he petitioned his children’s uncles and aunts to house and clothe as many of them as possible. In exchange, he would somehow raise and send them funds to help educate his children.

Aunts and uncles came at various times to adopt one of his 7 siblings as their own, until one day Anthony found himself the oldest of the remaining 4 children living at home.

The coastal village of Butre, Ghana, is where Anthony learned to help his father catch fish and hustle to sell them to visitors from neighboring villages.

Around the age of 6, his parents sent Anthony to the only primary school in his town – St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School. The town’s only school being Catholic suited Anthony’s father, who was Catholic.

Despite their home church being a mission church (without a priest assigned to their parish), Anthony’s father required daily Mass attendance. His motto was, “No Mass, no food.”

As a traveling priest could only come every 2 or 3 months to offer the sacraments, all parishioners knew by heart the prayers of spiritual communion.

St. Teresa of Avila school required all school children to attend Mass every Sunday, Catholic or not. Records were kept and non-Mass attending students, Catholic or not, got a caning in front of their peers while classmates chuckled at their expense.

Unsurprisingly, caned students never missed Mass again.

Anthony, who enjoyed cleaning the church and lighting candles, never worried about a caning. When he was old enough, he added altar server and lector to his list of volunteer jobs.

Speak Lord, for your servant is listening

After high school, Anthony worked as a mason to earn money to attend college. A handful of years yielded him enough funds to attend a training college to become an elementary school teacher.

In college, as the president of the Catholic Student Association, he sought a priest to come speak to his fellow students. When the guest came, the priest’s focus was less on speaking to the students, but on the way Anthony addressed and related to the other students.

Learning that Anthony was studying to become an elementary school teacher, the visiting priest suggested Anthony become a teacher of adults instead of children. He suggested Anthony attend seminary.

Anthony laughed off the man’s suggestion. Believing he would never see the priest again, Anthony thought, why bother to entertain his outlandish idea?

Upon graduation, Anthony taught at an elementary school. One day, a priest from a different Diocese than his own came to his classroom. Anthony was surprised to see this priest was the same one who had suggested he go to seminary. So much for never seeing this priest again.

It was as though this priest had sought him out. The priest’s admonition to Anthony were along the lines of, I told you to go to seminary. What are you doing here?

This priest brought St. Anthony to his rectory to ask a colleague to corroborate the talent he himself saw in Anthony.

What the priest’s colleague shared was a scripture reference from 1 Samuel 3: When young Samuel was a minister to the Lord under Eli, the Lord called Samuel and Samuel went to Eli and answered, “Here I am.”

Eli responded, “I did not call you. Go back to sleep.” When this happened twice more, Eli realized the Lord was calling Samuel. He advised the young man to respond with, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

It dawned on Anthony that he himself was the Samuel of this story and the Lord was indeed calling him.

In a flood of recall, Anthony remembered his grandmother (who was a priestess of the Twelve Apostles church) had told his mother about a vision where she saw saints and angels ascending and descending upon one of her grandchildren. His grandmother knew that this child visited by angels was a middle child and she surmised this vision meant this child would be great.

Anthony also recalled yet another encounter when he was 17 years old. A woman named Patrolina, who had the gift of charismatic prayer, had come to his town from America, and when praying with Anthony, declared, “You Anthony are a tongue of fire!”

Anthony enrolled in major seminary. Seven years later, in 1998, Father Anthony was ordained at the age of 36.

Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto Egyam

Within a few years in his first assignment, he was transferred to Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Egyam. The story of this Grotto, named so for its healing water, goes like this: In the year 1945 and before, the area had an unusually high child mortality and labor death rate. A holy man of the town felt convicted and directed to go to Our Lady of Lourdes in France to bring its healing water back to a specific location in Egyam.

The holy man did so and soon after, death and disease in the area came to an end. Since the time the healing water was transported to Egyam from Lourdes, their small water repository (where the water from Lourdes was deposited) has never run dry.

As director of the Grotto, Father Anthony describes his service to the pilgrims who come from all over the world as a great joy. Families bring their spiritually and physically afflicted loved ones, and through our Lady and Father’s intercessory prayers, captives are freed.

Pilgrims come from far away, yet have no place to stay and instead sleep on the ground, under a shed. Despite scorpions and snakes crawling about where pilgrims sleep, Father Anthony is grateful that no pilgrim has been bitten. To alleviate this concern, Father Anthony is raising funds to build a dormitory for pilgrims to rest.

His first trip abroad was to the U.S. to serve at St. Andrews parish in the Archdiocese of Atlanta in 2008. Nearly every year since then, Father has served as a visiting priest around many churches in the Archdiocese.

Bubbling over with the Holy Spirit, Father Anthony’s joy is contagious. Anyone who has attended one of his Masses is sure to recall the singing and dancing barefoot priest, smiling deep and wide, rhythmically waving a white handkerchief, and asking for an “amen” during a homily.

A heartwarming image is of the priest from Ghana greeting parishioners outside the church, wearing fleece jackets and sweatshirts that boldly display Atlanta Braves and Falcons team logos. The parishioners, seeing that the equator-living priest was cold, brought items to help Father during the colder months of winter.

Every year, he returns to the Grotto with gifts from parishioners of Atlanta to share with the locals who help operate the Grotto. In fact, the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Egyam was built by hand, one stone at a time, after Father Anthony procured wheelbarrows with donations from All Saints Parish in Dunwoody, Georgia, where he served annually as visiting priest.

Many parishioners across the Archdiocese of Atlanta parishes have firsthand accounts of Fr. Anthony’s joyful prayers. We can attest to the preaching of the man born on July 16 on Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Memorial. And to his tongue of fire as the gift that reaches to churches across the globe.