I feel obligated to share my thoughts with you today. I feel obligated to share, not to make it sound like "hey look at us," or anything on those lines. I share because if you read this, if you pray for me at all, you are a part of my ministry here in Liberia. And we need your help.
We are in the midst of a war.
As you know, Liberia recently came out of a 14 year civil war that destroyed every inch of this country. All infrastructure. All agricultural areas. 250,000 lives. But I'm not talking about a civil war.
This one is pure spiritual.
Our office prides ourselves in being the NGO (Non Government Organization) that will work where no one else is working. We are not a "blacktop" organization, staying only where the roads are nice. We spend the majority of our time on the worst roads in the country, accessing and bringing development, and more importantly, the Gospel, to the most remote areas of Liberia.
This year our water and sanitation team took on a project in the Belleh Forest. This district is composed of a dozen villages that have NO road access at all. Since we are the only organization in Liberia that has a helicopter, it has opened the door wide to our work in this region.
Along with water and sanitation, our ministry team has started to work in the same villages as our water program, and has recently been piggy-backed with a VBS (Vacation Bible School) program.
The people in this region are from the Kpelle tribe. I recently read that this particular tribe first immigrated to Liberia from 900-1100 A.D. Which explains why their traditional beliefs run so deep.
Traditional beliefs such as bush societies- where the women take all the girls into the bush for a full year, bringing them through "rights of passage" rituals. Rituals such as female circumcision and other body scarring techniques. Rituals such as witchcraft. Rituals such as human sacrifices and cannibalism.
This is real. These things really do happen.
And we are doing our best at bringing the freedom that Christ offers us to these people.
Last week I went in with the 6 person VBS team to a village called Gbarngay (Bongay). The team taught 120 children in a small church building for three days. They brought them through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and offered a time for the children to nail their sins on the cross and accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
Sounds perfect right? Not exactly.
Evil is prevelant here. And Satan does not want us there.
Never have I felt so "heavy" being around children.
Never have I seen a 14 year old girl kicked out of her house for becoming a Christian, especially from a non muslim setting.
Never have I seen girls as young as two years old filled with scars on their lower back and legs.
Never have I seen a 8 year old color Jesus' ascension to heaven with black squiggly lines, because she believed that it was nothing but witchcraft.
Never have I seen a 7 year old know all of the answers, yet fully admit she doesn't believe because she did not see it.
But I witnessed all of these things and more in four days.
But the good news is that of the 120 children in Gbarngay, eleven came to know the Lord last week.
I also know that TWENTY-FIVE adults joined our family the next evening after the Jesus Film showing!
God is battling for His souls in the Belleh Forest.
Please, pray for our staff who are living and working in these villages. It is one thing to be away from your family, with absolutely no communication with home. It is a whole different ball game when you are fighting a spiritual battle every moment of the day.
Like I said before, we pride ourselves in going where no one else will go. But it comes at a cost. Pray for spiritual strength and protection of all of our staff. Pray for perseverence in these communities where everything seems against them. Pray for emotional strength as we cope with situations we have never imagined.
Most of all, join us in praying that God will prevail.
