Our Trials:
Our trials started when we had to dismiss a trusted friend / co-laborer from his job. This man was one of our key leaders. Though he was dismissed for several good and justifiable reasons, it felt like he made it his goal to destroy our lives and ministry. The months that followed were some of our hardest months in Liberia. My friend attacked our medical ministry by telling people that our medicine would make their children sterile. Some parents have been reluctant to allow us to treat their sick children. This grieves me! He attacked our schools by telling parents that our schools would eventually take their children away from them, enslave them and promote homosexuality. Our enrollment in Denta Town went from 200 students to 188 students. He sent letters to our supporters and encouraged them to stop supporting us. He attacked my character by telling people that I used money to manipulate people and that I was an abusive leader. He physically threatened a staff member. His influence was felt in our group homes, in all our schools and in every other part of our mission. We were relentlessly hit in every way imaginable. We experienced injustice as a bribe was openly paid to a judge, right in front of us! Though we made it our goal to return blessings for every curse, the punches kept coming! In the middle of the trial, it felt like things would never get better. It felt like evil was winning. Our trial went beyond the actions of my friend as we experienced the loss of life, motorbike accidents, broken bones, explosions and much more. Perhaps a few pictures can better communicate our struggle.
This grave is too small and Baby Emanuel was too precious!
We love you Emanuel! Thank You Jesus for giving Emanuel to us! Thank You for the hope of heaven!
Prince, our artist, was run over by a car while coming to work. The car literally stopped on top of his leg. Prince has been off of work for more than a month. Lord, please help Prince have a full recovery!
Two of our staff members were badly burned by an explosion at our group homes. Someone put something explosive in our trash pit. When these staff members went to burn trash, the exposion shook the ground as they literally ran back into our village on fire. Lord, please help my friends!
Joseph, the director of education for our schools, had a bad motorbike accident while traveling to Denta Town. Thank You Jesus for protecting his life!
Look in these children! They are not in school, they do not eat every day and they will continue to live with chronic sicknesses! Due to my friend’s influence over a church that we sought to partner with, we were not able to open a school, medical clinic and feeding program in Folobli this year. This breaks my heart. We were ready! We were able! The door was slammed shut! I am beyond sorry, kids!!!
My friend, who was dismissed, is the pastor of the church in Denta Town. Due to this conflict, the school we built last year, the well that we dug and the land that we cleared are no longer available for our school. How do you run a school without a school building? I love the children in Denta Town so much! Countless hours were spent trying to figure out how to have classes this year.
My friend is related to our landlord. A threat was made that we would loose our home.
In addition to these trials, the clutch went out on our car 5 different times and we have had multiple cases of malaria, colds and other sicknesses in our family. I could go on but I will not. I think you get the picture. My days were long. My nights were short. My wisdom was insufficient. My strength was gone. When we thought things could not get worse, something else happened.
Lessons I have learned from our trial:
1. No matter how hard you try, it is not possible to go through intense trial without personal fault. I made it my goal to represent Jesus well during my trial. I tried so hard to return blessings for curses, while turning the other cheek after receiving many blows, but I did not go through my trial without sin. I spoke when I should have been quiet. I yelled at injustice!!! I lost my patience. Though I tried hard to do what was right, I sinned. Thank You Jesus for Your grace! God’s grace is sufficient for us. When we make a mistake, we must not justify our sins. We must be quick to confess our sins to God and apologize to the ones we offended even if we have to apologize to our persecutor.
2. Spiritual warfare is not just external and physical. The greatest war that is fought, during our trials, is the battle for our own hearts! When physical wars are fought, two opposing forces collide. The battle is external and physical. When engaged in spiritual warfare, the battle is both external and internal. I hope you understand what I am saying. The greatest battle I fought, during the past several months was the battle for my own heart. Would I allow bitterness and unforgiveness to reign? If I did, I would render myself useless to this mission field that I love so much. The enemy of my soul took the battle so close to me that it raged within me. My persecutor is not my enemy! He is my mission field and I WILL NOT STOP LOVING MY MISSION FIELD!
3. There is great fruit to be found during life’s most painful trials. Imagine you approach an accident on the highway. One man is laying on the ground in pain while everyone else is standing around. Who is everyone looking at? They are looking at the one who is hurting. Our painful moments are often our most influential moments. God does not put us on the shelf during our trials, He uses our trials to put God’s glory on display. During our trials we must trust that there is a bigger picture, we must walk in His strength and wisdom, and we must be faithful witnesses. In the end, we will look back and realize that God produced a lot of fruit during our most painful moments.
4. Trials are temporary. In the middle of the trial, it feels like it will never end, but it ends. The hottest point of the battle is often right before the victory! Do not loose heart. God is with you. When it seems too much to bear, God is there and victory is at hand.
5. God uses trials for our good. Only God can take our weakest, most vulnerable times and produce something great from them. If you are in trial right now, by faith say, “This is for my good and for the good of others.” Say it! It is true! Our lives will soon be over. We are almost home! We must not waste a moment! Fix your eyes on Christ, in heaven. Press on! Complete the race! Win the prize! Don’t loose heart! Stay on mission!
God’s Blessings:
After seeing these pictures, you may ask yourself, what is left to the mission? Here is the honest truth, by God’s grace, we are stronger than we were before the conflict started! Only God can take our pain and produce fruit from it! Thank You Jesus! Here are a few pictures of God’s gracious blessings!
We know that our schools will never be stronger than our teachers. As our schools grow, we have to hire new teachers. It is very difficult to find good teachers in Liberia. Our philosophy has been, “good teachers are not found, good teachers are made.” We invest a lot of time in teacher training. I am excited to say that God gave us several new teachers this year who are doing an incredible job! While these teachers are still in “on the job training,” they show great promise for being able to carry our schools to higher levels. Our teachers have caught the vision that they are more than a teacher! They are a disciple maker! Thank You Jesus for all our teachers!
No building, no school? No way! Fairview Missionary School has never been stronger! When our mission lost access to the temporary school buildings that we built last year, Denta Town rallied behind our mission by giving us alternative places to meet until we are able to build our own school house.
We are literally hosting classes in every available room and storage shed in Denta Town. During the school day, classes can be heard throughout the town. This has created excitement among parents as they frequently stand in the windows and watch their children learn. The unity between our mission and the community is very strong!
While it is true, this year’s enrollment went from 200 students to 188 in Denta Town, it is also true that our school added 88 new students and a new grade level. Our school is moving forward!
Praise God! We were able to hire a full-time Bible teacher in Denta Town! Everyday, our children are being saturated with the Word of God! Lord Jesus, please reign in our children’s hearts!
Before our mission entered Denta Town, the town, for the most part, was a wordless / colorless town. What do I mean by that? Since nearly everyone was illiterate, many homes were void of any written words. Imagine mud walls with no pictures and no writing. Imagine homes with no books and no papers. That has all changed! Hello CRAYONS and coloring pages! Our new Bible teacher is leading our students through a chronological study of the Bible by teaching all the major Bible stories from Genesis to Revelations. His first goal, is to give our students the big picture of the Bible. Each Bible story has a coloring page. Students are encouraged to use their best art so they can take their pictures home and retell each story to their family. This is one way our mission seeks to saturate Denta Town with the Gospel. Father, please use these pictures and Bible stories to lead people to You!
We recently hired two full-time child mentors! These men are passionate about discipling our students. When school is not in session, you will find our mentors out fishing, playing football and studying the Bible with our students! Do you know the deep, inexpressible longing that godly parents feel in their hearts for their children as they pray that they will choose to follow Christ and make godly decisions? Our team feels that ache in our hearts for each of our students.
As you look at this picture, you probably just see a little boy writing the letter “a”. This picture communicates much more to our team. Did you notice Jeremiah is holding his pencil correctly. Today, was the first time he successfully wrote an “a”. Do you see Rachael, his teacher’s assistant? She is a teacher in training. She has the potential to become one of our best teachers! She has gone through many hours of training. Do you see the curriculum Jeremiah is using? Our education team developed this curriculum. We cannot afford to buy handwriting curriculum for our students so we are creating our own culturally relevant, reproducible curriculum. Do you see the picture at the top of Jeremiah’s page? My daughter draws these pictures. There were literally hundreds of hours of work that went into Jeremiah learning to write the letter “a”. Our team is passionately fighting for our children’s futures. This letter “a” is a great victory for our team! Jeremiah, you have our hearts!
Our team has been creating curriculum to help children and illiterate people memorize the Bible. We praise God, the curriculum is working. Everyday, our teachers help our students memorize a new verse. Here is a short video of Bendu’s 1st grade class quoting part of Proverbs 1. Click HERE if you are having trouble viewing the video.
We hired a new head cook in Denta Town. Our medical clinic and feeding program are keeping Denta’s children healthy! Praise Jesus!
Denta Town is located deep in Liberia’s bush. Let me give you a little context of life in Denta Town. Imagine what your town would be like if it had no bathrooms. Denta’s citizens walk into the bush to use the toilet. Last year, our mission built one bathroom and dug the town’s second well. The town is now taking the initiative to build three additional bathrooms (outhouses). We are now digging a new well on our mission’s new land. Imagine what your town would be like if it had only three working wells for all it’s citizens. This well will provide clean drinking water for Denta’s citizens and water for our construction project. Thank You Jesus for this well!
God’s blessings went far beyond Denta Town! Our school in Gbarnga is growing! This year we have 300 students and we now offer grade levels preschool through the 5th grade. Every year we add a new grade level to each of our schools.
We built three classrooms to our school in Gbarnga! God is good!
His Safe Haven Village for Special Needs children is stronger than ever!
God gave us a new son at His Safe Have Village named Elijah.
We hired a life skill’s teacher for His Safe Haven named Lucy.
Mishack is our first child with Down Syndrome at His Safe Haven. Many of you know my brother has Down Syndrome. Children with Down Syndrome have a special place in my heart. I pray the Lord enables us to ministry to many more of them!
We praise God for completing another group home for our village. We now have 7 group homes for special needs children!
Recently, we hired several new moms to care for our children.
Many of our special needs children were approved to receive free surgeries on the Mercy Ship next year! Praise God for this great blessing! These surgeries are not performed in any hospital in Liberia! God is so good to us!
Our agriculture department is growing rapidly! We are now growing a lot of our own food for the group homes.
Last month, we purchased 10 more acres of land at His Safe Haven village! This land will be used for missionary housing and for future expansion. Thank You Jesus for your many blessings!
Our medical clinics were officially registered with the Liberian Government. In the past, we were able to treat people under our Physician Assistants licenses.
Words cannot describe the need for good medical care in Liberia. Last year 16 of the women we sent to a local hospital died while giving birth. Last week, we referred 2 patients to a local hospital. They are all dead.
Children suffer the most! Many children die from preventable sicknesses. Our mission is exploring the possibility of opening a pediatric / special needs medical clinic in Gbarnga. Registering our medical clinics was the first step we had to take for this vision to become reality. Lord, please give us wisdom as we move forward!
While registering our clinics, several doctors, health workers and inspectors visited our village for special needs children. They gave us nothing but praises for the work that is being done. They are eager to work alongside of us to expand our medical ministry. They were so encouraged by what they saw that they want to bring important politicians to see our village and to help accelerate our growth. We praise God for the good work He is doing at His Safe Haven village! We pray that we will represent Him well to the medical community, to politicians and to each of our patients!
Praise the Lord, our mission was able to purchase a vehicle for our missionary partner Suzie McLay. Finding good used cars is difficult in Liberia. Thank You Jesus for giving our mission this truck!
Our mobile medical clinics have been busy treating patients in remote parts of Liberia. These clinics are free for our patients. We treated more than 360 patients in these clinics, last month. Many of our patients made decisions to follow Jesus while being treated.
Conclusion:
I believe the majority of this trial is behind us. God carried us through. By His grace our mission is stronger than it was before the trial. We give Him all the glory! I cannot express with words how grateful I am for your steadfast partnership in the Gospel. I truly believe the work we are doing will result in the salvation of many! Our team is more dedicated and passionate than ever to complete the work that God has called us to! I will send more pictures and videos soon.
