Dear Friends,

Am I dreaming? Could this really happen? Do I dare to believe? I am on my way back to Africa!

I wish I could’ve stayed longer in Cleveland, but I also wished I had gone back to Sierra Leone earlier.

The small group of students of the Baptist Bible Institute (BBI) in Freetown continued their studies even in my absence; with the help of our financial support. But the seven other church districts eagerly waited to start the work in their area as well. I was grieved when I heard that one of the best teachers of the BBI suddenly died because of  heart attack. He was a very dedicated young man. However, the Lord provided somebody else to step in his place.

Five months in the United States to raise support for two years of mission work in Sierra Leone was less than sufficient. However, God generously provided enough for me to see the beginning and trust Him for the ending.  It is His work, not mine and I have faith to believe that He will provide.

It was good to meet old friends in Cleveland and exciting to find new ones. Visiting churches, I realized that not too much is known about Sierra Leone, the small West African country where I work as the coordinator of the BBI.

For the sake of those who recently joined the group of my supporters and prayer warriors, I would like to write a few words about the country where I serve and the Christians who live there.

Its territory is 27,699 square miles with a population about 6 million. Guinea in the north and east and Liberia in the south are its neighbors.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world with $209 GDP per capita income. The life expectancy is 37 to 42 years, and about 25% of the children die before they are five years old. Illiteracy is about 73%. Most of the women cannot read or write.

The name: Sierra Leone(“Lion Mountains”) was given to the country by Portuguese sailors. Approaching land from the Atlantic Ocean, the mountains of the coast appeared to be like resting lions. The first slaves in North America were brought from Sierra Leone in 1652, but in the late 1700s many freed slaves from America and England found their way back to Africa. Those who returned to Sierra Leone built a settlement at the seashore and named it Freetown. In 1792 Freetown became British colony.

 The whole country is divided to four parts. Freetown, the capital of the Western Area has almost one million inhabitants. The interior is divided into the Southern, Eastern and Northern provinces. In the beginning of the 19th Century the interior became British protectorate.

The official language is English but Krio, the language of the freed slaves, is spoken almost all over the country. There are nearly 20 tribal languages as well. The most important ones are the Themne and the Mende.

In  the 17th Century  the Portuguese and the Spanish sent Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries to Sierra Leon; with the British merchants the Anglicans arrived but by the end of 18^th century there were many Baptists and Methodists and members of the Huntingdon connection (a group of evangelicals that separated themselves from the Church of England) among the resettled slaves. They formed the first evangelical churches in Africa.

Later, different missionary societies arrived in the country. Until the Western Area was greatly Christianized, Islam gained more and more ground in the provinces. However, many of the inhabitants remained followers of traditional, indigenous beliefs.

I was still a teenager when I felt the irresistible desire to share the Good News with those who had never heard it. But I didn’t know anything about Sierra Leone. When I sent my application to the first mission organization about 20 years ago, I was assigned to go to Sierra Leone. I was surprised to find myself in a place where there was no electricity and the “running water” came from the roof of our house when it was raining. But the people were kind and very receptive to the Gospel.

After two years of working with children and women, I was suddenly assigned to be coordinator of the Baptist Bible Institute. My job was to train people who were not able to study in the college but loved the Lord and the Bible enough to be able to minister to their own people.

At the admission to the two-year BBI course I didn’t required great academic knowledge, only that the applicant would able to read the English Bible and translate it to his or her tribal language. I was looking for people who were able to take the Bible to their people by being living Bible translations helping those learn the Gospel who had never gone to school.

Meanwhile, dark clouds appeared in the skies of peaceful Salon (Sierra Leone) from neighboring Liberia. A former corporal, Foday Sankoh, supported by the Liberian rebel leader and Baptist preacher, Charles Taylor, formed his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and started to attack villages near to the Liberian border.

We could not believe the accounts of the horrible atrocities they did. Women were raped, civilians mutilated, children abducted, drugged and trained to be soldiers.

Thousands and hundred thousands had to run from their homes, leaving everything behind them. One day I was among them. The rebels burned down the house where I had lived but I was saved. Afterward I came to the United States where I was naturalized and waited impatiently to return to Sierra Leone. However, the civil war in Sierra Leone lasted more than ten years.

God made the way in the end. Last September I was able to return to Freetown and start the BBI again. It was wonderful to see that in spite of the enormous sufferings the people went through the churches and the former BBI students were greatly protected and spiritually blessed by God during the time of war. “When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.”

And the dream repeated itself again and again. The first week in August I leave Cleveland and after a short fundraising tour in Hungary I return to Sierra Leone. I will settle down in Makeni, the capital of the Northern Province. Traveling from there I am planning to start the BBI in several towns of the Interior as well.