For a number of years, Teach All Nations has been assisting the community development ministry of one of Delron’s former students, in the African nation of Liberia. In addition to pastors’ and leaders’ conferences and distribution of discipleship materials, we have financially assisted with the ongoing project of building a clinic and elementary school in a remote area where the villagers have to travel hours over unpaved roads to get medical treatment and the children have to walk miles along a dangerous path beside a river to attend classes at the nearest school. Our latest project was to fund the purchase of a reliable truck for the director and his staff so they can safely make the journey from Monrovia to the project site.
When we decided to fund the purchase of the truck, we allocated a certain amount for the project to cover the cost of a truck that was immediately available in the country. However, the bank accidentally sent the funds through Ghana where it was converted to British pounds and then back to US dollars before it reached Liberia – resulting in the loss of several hundred dollars. Because it took several days for the bank to acknowledge their error and reimburse the funds that were lost in the conversion, we lost the vehicle in Liberia because another customer bought it while we were waiting for the funds to arrive. In the meantime, our contact in Liberia was able to find another vehicle that was actually much better suited for the work there; however, it cost three thousand dollars more than we had budgeted. In a random conversation with one of our donors, we casually mentioned the story, and he reminded us that the vehicle that we had intended to buy was the same model that he had previously owned and that the new one we were looking at is the same model that he is presently considering purchasing for himself because it is a much better truck than the other one. He then totally surprised us by adding that he was going to send a donation to cover the difference so that we could go ahead with the purchase! Unfortunately, the second truck was also sold before we could get the additional funds to Liberia.
However, a sudden turn of events intervened. The director’s wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor (a pituitary adenoma) and urgently needed neurosurgery. Unfortunately, no hospital in the country is equipped for this kind of surgery, necessitating that she would have to travel to Kenya for the operation. Although she is a medical doctor serving at a Christian-based hospital, her salary is on a third-world standard, which barely covers her living expenses without savings for such emergency expenses. There is a miraculous part of the story in that, because all the funds were in the bank in Monrovia rather than having been spent on the truck, we were able to redirect the funds to cover the cost of the surgery and the additional travel expenses. The surgery was a success, and Billie is back home and back at work!
After her surgery, we determined to replace the funds to buy the truck but were reluctant to allocate so much for one country when the needs were so great all around the world. However, when several significant donations came in after we mentioned the need and Peggy and I received an unexpected pay-out from an investment that we could donate toward the truck we moved forward and made the purchase.
As soon as the truck was commissioned into service, we began to see the harvest from our seed. On the first mission back to the village in the new truck, five new converts committed their lives to the Lord, and six backslidden Christians rededicated their lives to the Lord.
