ABWE - Association of Baptists for World Evangelism

The nation of Liberia has been through things that we as Americans cannot even imagine. The advances of the gospel have been significantly impeded by the devastation of the civil war. The country today, after a half century of Christian missionary work, is still battling many of the problems that were common decades ago. Traditional religion with its secret societies is still prevalent among many of the peoples. Language barriers hold multitudes in bondage as they are unable to hear the life-giving message of the gospel. The floodgates of humanitarian aid have opened and offer to be the savior of those in physical need; but they offer nothing for those in spiritual need. This is the nation of Liberia, where our ABWE team of missionaries began work in May of 2006.

Shortly after arriving on the field, missionary colleague Steve Trexler and I embarked on an evangelistic trip to Voe, a remote village far into the interior of Liberia. Several of our friends, national pastors in Liberia, requested that we go see this area of the country. Our purpose was to help Pastor Jonathan—a pastor from the Kpelle tribe—who was undertaking a cross-cultural mission to plant a village church in Grand Bassa among the Bassa people. Pastor Jonathan regularly walked for ten to twelve hours from his jungle village to attend workshops in the town where we reside, called Gbarnga.

We pulled out of Gbarnga in our vehicle enthusiastic about traveling to what our Liberian friends called “the real jungle.” The dirt road from our town, along with most other roads in the interior of the country, had not been graded for almost 20 years. Traveling was slow, and we spent the next six hours bouncing over ruts and hills at an average speed of less than fifteen miles per hour. We crossed multitudes of bridges along the way, some in fair condition, but many barely able to hold the weight of the vehicle. The most exciting bridge crossing was on the St. John River, where the bridge is approximately 200 yards long and over fifty feet above the surface of the water. Even though a section of the bridge had no side rails, we praised God that the base of the bridge was in good condition.

For the next hour of the journey, the road decreased from an average-size dirt road to what would appear to most Americans as a walking trail. We continued to go deeper into the jungle on the grass-covered trail until we reached an area of forest where the trail narrowed to a one-man footpath. It was here we unloaded the vehicle and began the remaining hour walk to the village. Residents of the village met us at this rendezvous point and carried our belongings on their heads to the destination of Voe. Steve, my son Kaleb, and I stayed in Grand Bassa for two days. Steve held a medical clinic during the first day, and each person seen at the clinic was spoken to individually through interpreters regarding their spiritual condition. In the evening we set up the generator and projector and showed the Jesus film in the Bassa language. On the final day of ministry we had a Sunday worship service and a fine meal of rice with “bush meat.” It was a wonderful experience for our national pastors who joined us and for us missionaries. Many people professed faith in Christ through this outreach.

There are literally thousands of villages in the country of Liberia. Most have no gospel witness. There are a total of thirty-four different tribal languages in this relatively small West African country. The opportunities for cross-cultural ministry are overwhelming to our small team of ABWE missionaries.

As we were leaving the village an elderly woman approached me and motioned for someone to interpret. She was eighty years old and had never seen an American before. She said, “Once, many years ago, a Liberian preacher came to our village and told us to “Come to the Lord.” When I heard that I came up at the end of the message. But it was only now when you came that I first heard about Jesus Christ.”

While evangelistic opportunities like this abound in Liberia, the more important and difficult task lies in the next step of ministry in these villages. Ongoing discipleship through consistent Bible teaching is what is needed in villages where the seed of the gospel message has been planted. Please pray that God would raise up a generation of leaders who will be willing to train and work in villages like Voe in the deep jungle of Liberia. Pray that God would use our Liberia ABWE team to work alongside pastors and lay people in Liberia to reach the next generation with the message of the gospel.

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