It was about a year after my conversion that I felt the
call of God on my life to enter the ministry. I had just completed high school
and had been admitted to a Polytechnic Institute, so 1 struggled somewhat about
what to do. As the impression that this was definitely was what the Lord wanted
in my life grew, I decided to obey and enrolled in a Bible School at Port
Loko. After just one term the school was forced to close because local
authorities desired that job skills be taught rather than preparation for the
ministry. Port Loko is a Muslim town and this may have influenced the decision.After the short-term training, Brother Cover, founder of the school, decided to send students to start churches in various parts of the country. I was sent to Taiama. in the Southern part of the country, with a student from that town. I was still very young in the Lord, but delighted to serve the Lord.
We planted a church in Taiama, and used it as a base from which we traveled each week to preach in the surrounding villages and towns. This was a Mende area, and I was from the Kono tribe, but could speak Mende fluently. Through our outreach work we covered a very wide area of the Moyamba district.
During one of our trips to a remote area I was shocked to find the graves of some missionaries who had been in the area many years previously and were slaughtered by the people of the area. Their names were on the stone and how they were killed. I was greatly troubled in my spirit and sat on the grave a while. I asked myself the question, “What are we doing to reach our own people, considering that missionaries could come so far to preach and lose their lives in the process”? It was that day that I began having a burden for the un-reached towns and villages in Sierra Leone.
I worked in the Taiama region for a little over a year and later attended another Bible School operated by Free Gospel Missions in the town of Magburaka. Here I met their missionaries, including Royce and Kathy Roy and Ralph and Becky Heath. These missionaries were the instruments God used in bringing me up in the faith and making me what I am today, by the grace of God. I completed their training course, and pioneered and pastored churches in the Lungi area.
Later I was privileged to do further biblical studies in Nigeria and South Korea, and return to teach at the Bible Institute. When the. missionaries were forced to leave because of the fierce battles of the civil war, I was assigned to be the Field Superintendent.
As we continue to prayerfully look to the future and seek to reach our nation for Christ, we have recently concentrated our efforts in the area of recruiting and training workers to do missionary work among our own people. We have established training centers in the Southern and Eastern areas of our country and will soon reopen training centers in the Northern and Western areas, which were forced to close during the war.
Through these centers we train other church leaders and encourage and promote missionary interest, vision, and dedication, that will in turn result in those who will give themselves to missionary work among our own people and beyond the borders of Sierra Leone.
Our desire and prayer is that, as we train church leaders, they will return to challenge and mobilize their own congregations for missions. We see the mandate for missions and evangelism resting upon the local church. Thus the greatest task is to train leaders who can train and encourage others to join in the task of reaching the lost.
The Free Gospel Mission in Sierra Leone is also helping with education in rural areas, with five schools already in operation and others in the planning stage. (Most schools were destroyed in the brutal war.) We are also involved in agricultural projects, etc. to both aid in financing the mission and easing the deep poverty in which so many live. As the Lord provides, we hope to be able to provide some basic medical facilities, which are sorely needed. The love of Christ demands that we reach in love to the needs of people in compassionate service. Please pray for us.