I'm excited to share with you about a new opportunity that has come to us to leverage our ability to impact the lives of children in Liberia. From now until April 10, 2019 your gift can have a double impact. A friend of Liberia Renewal Ministry has promised to match up to $3000 USD every gift donated in the next two months. All gifts to LRM are tax deductible. To give online please go here https://www.christianliberty.com/liberia.html. Thank you for your gifts.
Over the next few weeks, I plan on sharing with you the stories of the kids at LRM. Each of the kids at LRM are children I have met prayed for and played with. I have seen their dreams and hopes, and I am inviting you to hear their stories and help us get the funding we need.
I will start with the story of two of the kids at LRM School System—the ones that could have been helped but were not.
Miatta and Gonwo walked beneath the scorching sun with a plastic bucket of stale donuts on their sweaty heads. "Buy the donut here, buy the donut here" their shrill voices echoed in the community. They were 8 and 6-year old cousins—the first and fifth children of poor parents who could not afford to send them to school. Gonwo’s father had left his mother and she had become an alcoholic. Miatta’s father was a day laborer working for $3 per day and had five children. Like many children from low income homes in Liberia, they were the breadwinners for their homes. They woke up early to sell for their parents so they could afford to eat for the day. Their story was not the exception. It was a harsh reality. No one asked them why they weren't in school: everyone knew why—their parents could not afford it. Then one day, a member of LRM’s board, and a kind neighbor got tired with the echoes of “buy your donut here” and arranged with the parents to bring Miatta and Gonwo to LRM School system to educate them at no cost. As the years went by, many children in the community who were selling bread gathered at LRM school system to learn how to read, to have food, and to hear about Jesus. But this school was not equipped to take care of their needs and neither could the parents pay for their children’s education.
During the Ebola crisis in Liberia, LRM could not afford to keep the children, so all those whose parents were still alive were told that for their children to stay on LRM’s campus they had to at least pay for their feeding. LRM was not equipped to cater to the kids ever-growing academic and feeding needs anymore. And neither could their parents. Despite pleas from their parents to keep them in school somehow, the money factor just could not be bridged and Gonwo and Miatta were returned home. Gonwo was in the 5th grade when he dropped out of school with his then 13-year-old cousin Melvina and they have not gone back since—the reason; no money.
Last year I saw Miatta. She is now 17 years old, a 7th grade drop-out and a single mother. She comes around the campus sometime to get food for her and her baby. Gonwo whose alcoholic mother passed away last year, lives with his uncle and cousins. He is now 15 years old and sells plastic dishes for a living—still out of school.
After we saw this, LRM made a decision that we would not send any of the kids out of school because of finances. $500 dollars would have provided housing, feeding, and an education for Miatta for a whole year. Today, I ask you on behalf of LRM help us to be able to keep our word. Help us not to put a child out because of resources. Support a child at LRM. From now until April 10, 2019 your gift can have a double impact since a friend of LRM has promised to match up to $3000 USD of every gift donated in the next two months. All gifts to LRM are tax deductible. To give online, please go here https://www.christianliberty.com/liberia.html. Thank you for your gifts.
