Meeting Basic Needs - Another project!

We have a program that we call "Meeting Basic Needs". You can find more information on our website under "Projects". It is just what the name indicates! Meeting basic humanitarian needs as we are able and feel led. Our ministry focus is not to be giving handouts, but to help with providing sustainability and responsibility. Sometimes there is just a need to meet a basic need. There are many different opportunities for doing this.

Meet Annie Duwah. She is the recipient of something very special!


This is Annie's daughter Comfort. Comfort has Cerebral Palsy, and has had some children that she had to give up. She is not able to care for them with her physical condition.

Annie and Comfort have been living in terrible conditions, in housing that leaks and floods, and is just in deplorable condition.


This is one of the places that they have been living. It is a room that they were renting, but had to leave because they could not even afford the rent for a place like this.

Annie and Comfort were previously employed by an Orphanage in Liberia but in the last year lost their jobs due to the adoption issues going on in the country and the Orphanage having to lay-off most of their people. Even when they were employed, they could not afford decent living conditions.

A very generous family who knew of their situation donated the money and asked that Spirit Liberia build a house for them. We agreed! The house was originally planned to be built in a different area, but we ran into some issues there and we built the house on the site where the well was dug in Rock Hill. Here is the beginning stage of construction!

Now it is complete! The house turned out beautifully. It has 1 bedroom, an indoor bathroom and a sitting room. There are bars on the windows and wood shutters that close up completely.

Annie and Bestman and Pastor Richards praying and dedicating the house.


Welcome home Annie!!!! We are so happy for you :-)

The Container!!

The container has arrived at our office here in Phoenix and we are beginning to get it packed! Things are coming together on this end and the container should be on it's way to port in Louisiana within the next week. Things are running smoothly so far. Please pray with us that this shipment will arrive and we will be able to get it out of port in Liberia. That end can be difficult, but we have already begun filing the documentation. Thank you again for all of your help in getting this accomplished!

Meeting Basic Needs - Patience Family Market!

I was so happy to be able to meet with Patience again after last seeing her in November. For those of you who are new to this blog, you can look back at some older posts if you would like to learn the history we have with Patience and her twins. My joy in being able to see her quickly turned to frustration and sadness. The living conditions are deplorable and the situation with her family is not good. They live in a community called Rock Spring Valley, which is in Monrovia, way back from the road, down a hill and through long alleys. It's basically a sewer where people have built various shacks.

This is Me with Pastor Richards holding one of the babies, at our first meeting in March.

This is Patience with some of the kids in the room where they live.

These are the twins.

This is the dad.

This is the sewer that runs in front of the structure where they live.

This is a portion of the walk out of Rock Spring Valley back up to street level, which is Capital Bypass.

A few happy moments talking. I was able to bring some toys and clothes for the babies as well as the regular formula we have been providing.

We decided that we needed to help find a long term solution to helping Patience take care of the kids, and were hopeful we could see this family restored. The dad is living in the interior trying to earn a living through making coal. We were able to meet together with them and found that the situation does not have an easy fix. They need God. We were able to spend some time giving some biblical counseling to them as a couple. The place where Patience lives full time with the 7 kids was so hot and smelly and filled with flies that I had to excuse myself before the counseling was finished. Pastor Richards and Shad spent a good length of time talking and working with them to help them understand God's way for marriage and family. We determined that we would be able to help Patience set up a market for herself to sell goods there in front of the house and also take care of her children. Please keep this family in your prayers. We want to keep their personal details private. They just need prayer that God would do a mighty work in their lives, that they would repent and see reconciliation with God and in their marriage. We will be regularly checking up to see how she is doing.

Here is her beautiful market! The table was made special for her, and the goods are a variety of basic needs people in the community will be able to purchase.


Patience in front of her market table with the babies. She, like many Liberians, does not like to smile for pictures! We have a few pictures of her smiling, but they are hard to get :-)

White Dove Outreach Ministries

We would like to introduce you to a church we have been working with for about the last 5 months. It is called White Dove Outreach Ministries, located in the Paynesville, Red Light, Pipleline Community. This church is shepherded by Pastor Melvin Mappy. This photo is of the first delivery of tools for their initial agricultural project! For all of the churches that Spirit Liberia works with, there is an approval process. The church submits an application and we conduct an interview. The first phase is completed by our staff in Liberia, generally overseen by Pastor Joseph Richards who is our field coordinator responsible to be our "Church Liason". He is the one primarily responsible for developing the relationships with the churches and taking in applications. Once this step is completed and approval is given, phase 2 is an interview with Greg. This mostly consists of hearing the pastors testimony, vision for his congregation, basic doctrinal beliefs etc. Greg has been doing this interview by phone, but of course once we move there it will be in person! We are a non-denominational organization, but we do have strict requirements that all churches we work with are bible believing, bible preaching churches who's practices are in line with biblical principles and are in agreement with our statement of faith.
Pastor Mappy taking posession of the tools provided for their first farm project!

My first meeting with Pastor Mappy and others at the church. Pastor Mappy is directly across from me in the white shirt.

You will notice that this church has a wonderful roof, but is in need of walls! They had great hopes that their farm project would be able to provide for this need.

Walking out to see the farm project! It was about a 20 minute walk!
Still walking!

Pastor Mappy and Pastor Richards leading the way!

This is the farm. I think it is about 2 acres.

This is our general inspection, unfortunately the place that they planted did not have good fertile soil and the project has struggled.

Pastor Mappy showing us the farm.

Making the long trek back out! The guys take such good care of me when I am there! Bestman is on my left, and he carried my purse for me the whole time! They never let me leave it in the car :-) Pastor Richards was helping me walk the hill, you will notice the bricks in the back. Those are called "Dead Bricks" and they are made with a mixture of dirt, sand and I think a little cement. They are much less expensive than cement blocks to use for building. You build the walls with them and then cover it in cement (like plastering). It looks like regular cement block at that point and they are said to last about 20 years!
Pastor Mappy and the congregation at White Dove worked tirelessly on their project. Unfortunately, due to the location in which they planted, the project was not too successful. They were able to grow some potato greens and also some bitter ball. The other plants wilted shortly after sprouting. When they noticed that there was a problem, they immediately contacted us for help and advice. We tried some additional fertilizer and they were watering enough and it was determined that the soil was just not right. It actually looked all cracked and strange when I saw it. I felt so bad for Pastor Mappy and the congregation. They had high hopes for their project to be able to help them put walls up for their church. He was so ashamed of how the farm turned out that when I met him he actually had tears in his eyes because he didn't really know what I would say to him. I wanted to cry for him! I felt so bad for them because they had not been able to provide the income for their church that they had anticipated. I told him that we could see that they had made every effort and we would not give up on them. We want to see them succeed! They do a wonderful job maintaining their church facility and we could not have asked for more than the effort they made on their project. They did their best. Sometimes things just don't work, no matter how great an effort is made. I assured him that we would be very willing to help them with another ag project. We love them and will not be giving up on them! They found a new area and have submitted their new plan. We are excited for them and this new effort. We will post on their new project soon! Please remember this sweet congregation in your prayers.

Evangelism

Bestman in Peace Island evangelizing and handing out gospel tracts. Pastor Prince ministering with the support of Spirit Liberia ministry staff. Local women who received the tracts.

Pastor Prince evangelizing one on one.

Shad, Bestman and Pastor Prince preparing to do street evangelism with Pastor Prince. Peace Island, Jacob Town.

Pastor Prince Zeaway, pastor of End Times Pillar of Fire Apostolic Church in Peace Island, has a heart to reach out to his community. We are happy for God laying this need on his heart. He has expressed interest in the street evangelism that Spirit Liberia is doing. We thought that taking him out in his local area and doing this ministry with him, also providing tracts would be a wonderful blessing. The goal is to minister to people in that local area and be able to then direct them to Pastor Prince's church for continued discipleship. Please keep Pastor Prince, his family and the congregation in your prayers as they minister in this desperate community!

We were blessed to have Dan and Stacy Gjerstadt leave many ministry materials with us when they left Liberia, but those materials are almost gone. We will be putting more in our shipment and also have designed a "Liberian" english gospel tract that is in printing right now in Liberia and will be finished next week! We will post it here for your viewing very soon! We are so excited!

Thank You!!!

We want to say a big "Thank You!" to all of you who stepped beside us in support for this shipment. What an amazing blessing! God has done some real miracles and we are so thankful. As you can see by the thermometer we have met and exceeded our goal! What a testimony of what God can do. In the midst of these financially difficult times, to see this magnitude of support and generosity, has been truly humbling and has brought many tears in the Bogdan home! We will be ordering the container on Monday and it should be delivered this week to begin loading. We are still looking for a larger generator and musical equipment, so if you were still planning to give, please still do! It will help us be able to fill the container with much needed equipment. Also, we are still looking for bibles, tracts and other ministry related materials. If you have any of these or would like to give specifically towards the purchase of them that would be greatly appreciated!

Again we want to say "THANK YOU!" and you have been an integral part of the ministry that God is accomplishing in Liberia. May God bless you abundantly!!!

Prison Ministry Video

This video is from the weekly minstry that is being done in Kakata Central Prison. There are 3 large cells of men. The men are divided into the cells based upon the type of offense they are in prison for. The cell at the end of the corridor where Shad is teaching (he has the bag over his shoulder) is the cell for the murderers and the first cell (where Bestman is) has the juveniles. I am not sure about the middle cell. They are all preaching to the individual cells simultaneously. This ministry is really having an impact on these men and God is doing a work in their lives. We are so thankful that we get to be a part of this!

Mark does our video and photography. He did this with a small digital camera! Great job Mark!