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Solomon Islandsby Sirajin Kamara, National Director of GR Sierra Leone
Every time I think of what we went through these past years, I feel a cold chill running down my spine. One hardly sees anything good in wars, but God used the war in Sierra Leone to make a difference in our work. Before the war, we had been doing a small amount of recording work in our local communities. But when the war broke out, we were forced to leave our country and sojourned in foreign lands.
We first had a taste of the war in 1990. By 1994, rebels occupied many towns. In 1996 our distribution coordinator survived two rebel ambushes. One of them almost led to his abduction but God intervened and he was freed.
In 1997, the military in collaboration with the rebels seized power and many people who feared for their lives fled the country. There were massive killings and unlawful detentions carried out. I was arrested and detained for four days.
A western African recording team at work on another language
It was at this point that our team moved to neighboring Guinea. As a result we started a Gospel Recordings work there. We recorded 21 languages and carried out nine outreaches. A full time worker now continues the ministry. A few months later, we recorded 22 languages in Burkina Faso.
In August of 1998, we returned home after the democratically elected government had been restored. Our city of Freetown had a lot of displaced persons. With them in mind, we carried out 14 outreaches around the city and thousands responded to the gospel. Four churches were born out of these outreaches.
In January 1999, the rebels attacked Freetown again and burned down 800 houses and killed over 2000 people. Our office was miraculously saved from getting burned. The two buildings next to ours were not spared by the inferno set by the rebels. But God spared our building, we believe, because we had over 140 precious reels of recorded material stored there. We moved yet again, this time to Senegal where we recorded 11 languages and carried out distributions in about 13 language groups. A distribution base was also established there.
In January 2000, our recording team traveled to Cameroon and recorded in 80 languages. We were able to do all this because we were tormented by a senseless war. A device meant by the devil to disturb the Lord's work actually ended up spreading it. If it were not for the war, we would not have done as much as we did. To Him be the glory!
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