February Update

Updates from Africa:

Clearing our field

Our mission is that every town and village in Liberia would have a healthy church.  Most of the towns and villages do not have churches.  We are working in 200 villages in 8 counties.  Last month, the team went on 79 mission / missionary trips, visited 121 villages and other locations.  We went into 42 new locations!  Praise the Lord!!!!  13,500 pages of teaching material was printed and distributed to people who are being discipled by our field leaders.  Hundreds of Bibles were distributed. There were 44 new baptisms and 7 people completed our extensive Bible study program.  The Jesus film was shown 6 times to over 2,000 people.  A new motorbike was bought.  We now own 9 bikes.  These bikes carry our field leaders into the bush to start churches and train leaders.  6-8 acres of land was cleared to start a farm that will help feed our team and field leaders.  This month the team will begin planting corn, rice and cassava.  

Update from our hearts:

When we initially talked about our stay in Liberia, we talked about making a 2 year commitment.  We believe God has shown us that this is a wrong way to look at it.  Rather, we need to jump in with both feet.  We don’t need a safety line strung across the ocean all the way to Liberia.  We believe that God is calling us to surrender all.  Liberia must be our home.  Their customs must be our customs.  We feel this can be the only way.  Our time spent in the States over the next few months is incredibly important.  During these few months, we will be treasuring every moment we get with our families and friends, and God will be putting together everything that is needed to support a longterm ministry in Liberia.  

House Updates:

Hub in Zwedru

Our home in Africa is being built!  We will build as we have money available.  We are adding one 12’X24’ room and a multipurpose room onto our missions hub in Zwedru where many people from our team live.  Our family will use the 12‘X24’ room as our home and the multipurpose room will double as a school room for our children and guest room for housing Liberians when they come for conferences.  The total cost of the addition will be between $8,000 and $10,000.  Currently, the floor plan has been established and 200 mud bricks have been formed.  Praise the Lord!  

Investment Property

Our house in America is still on the market.  Please pray that it will sell.  Last month, it showed a few times but there have been no offers.

Our investment house has been rented!  Praise the Lord!  Initially we planned on selling this house, but it made more sense to rent it and use the money from the rent to offset our family’s expenses in Liberia.  

Sharing at Churches:

We praise the Lord for opening the door for us to share at two churches.  We are praying that God would open many more doors. If you are interested in having us speak at your church, house church, gathering of friends, etc you can contact us by phone at 937-451-9809 or by e-mail at donriley4@gmail.com.  Last month, we created two videos to help communicate our ministry in Liberia.  Here are the addresses for these videos if you are interested in viewing them:  Our Vision - http://youtu.be/UNwbym7XLb4; Solo Town - http://youtu.be/oHp9eoPZoAo

Budget:

Last month, we established a budget for our family’s needs while in Liberia.  This budget has been updated a few times as our homeschooling expenses and airfare are more expensive than we had originally anticipated.  The only variable that we are aware of at this time, is our insurance cost.  We have preliminary quotes but are not functioning under a missions insurance as of yet.  Our budget is broken down into Liberia expenses, onetime expenses, and income.  The onetime expenses are what it cost to get our family to Liberia and established on the ground.  The Liberia budget is what it cost to maintain our family longterm once in Liberia for a year.  The income is the amount of money that has already been pledged toward our family and income from our investments.  This budget is what is needed for our family’s needs.  In addition to our personal budget, we are hoping that God will provide resources to start two new mission hubs.  Currently, leaders have been trained and are ready to open two new hubs in two new counties.  Did you know that $1,500 a month is all the money necessary to put a church in every town and every village of an entire county in Liberia?  To understand more about our strategy for planting churches view this short video http://youtu.be/UNwbym7XLb4.  

God Bless!

Don, Melanie, Christian, Grace, Thomas, and Prabhat Riley

Liberia Annual Budget
Food and Shelter		$8,760
Clothing		$200
Children’s College Education		$2,000
Retirement Savings		$2,000
Phone in Liberia		$430
Home Schooling		$1,500
Medical Insurance		$8,400
Airfare Savings per Year		$5,000
	Total:	$28,290

Onetime Expenses
Passport & Visa Fee		$2,280
Airline Tickets to Liberia		$8,712
Transport		$270
Setup Cost		$250
Construction of rooms to live in		$8,000
Home School to be purchased before we leave		1500
	Total:	$21,012

Income
Pledges		$16,500
Investments		4000
	Total:	20,500

Red are tasks which have been completed.  Yellow are tasks we are currently working on.