Young people affected by Ebola have found healing through Jesus Christ
For the past five years, Samaritan’s Purse has implemented a community sports program focusing on life, leadership skills, and evangelism for children in Liberia. It has been successful in transforming future generations to be leaders in their communities and churches. It has also given children the opportunity to be active and have fun.
Based on this success, we’re using active fellowship to counsel, teach Gospel messages, and encourage children and youth whose lives have been affected by Ebola.
A volunteer trained by Samaritan’s Purse watches as the children play a game.
Recently, we trained 126 youth to be leaders in the program. One of the youth named Marcus returned to his community to begin the sessions. But he had a problem. Children were accepting Christ during the sessions, but there was no church for them to attend.
He explained the problem to Francis Borwah, the active fellowship field monitor. As he told Francis that there was no church in his community, he also made a confession—although he was supposed to be teaching children about the Gospel, he had never accepted Christ. He told Francis that he wanted to but didn’t know how.
“If you want to accept Christ, you must know who He is,” Francis said. “Many people will acknowledge Jesus Christ as a good man, a great teacher, or even a prophet of God. These things are definitely true of Jesus, but they do not fully define who He truly is.
“The Bible tells us that Jesus is God in the flesh, God in human form. God came to earth to teach us, heal us, correct us, forgive us—and die for us! Jesus Christ is God, the Creator, the sovereign Lord.”
During their discussion, Marcus prayed for forgiveness and salvation and, one week later, started a praise and worship meeting for children in the town hall. One day, a man named John was passing through the village and heard the children singing; he stopped to listen.
“I have 23 children here who have accepted Christ in the past two months through active fellowship,” Marcus told him. “We sing in the town hall because there is no church.”
John was a preacher in the neighboring community but agreed to attend the next praise and worship meeting. He now volunteers his time to come every Sunday to have services with the children.
Some parents have seen the importance of what’s happening and have joined the Sunday services. I visited the service on October 18, and a total of 62 people were in attendance. One was a former Muslim who decided to accept Christ after attending the church. The oldest man in the village told me that people have tried to start a church in the village before, but its always failed because most people in the village worship the nearby creek.
“I am old now, but with the church near my house, I will be attending all the time,” he said.
