Village Update - Gospel Recordings Liberia

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Our country Liberia has been struggling for peace for the past 14 years. This has greatly increased the opportunity for the Gospel to spread throughout the country without hindrance. Though Islam is also growing faster, Christianity is standing a better chance among the young people that will be the nation’s future leaders and citizens.

But we thank God for the short bloody war that brought over 300,000 people close to the city and put them into camps until the fighting is over. Before, Christians spent thousands of dollars or walked many days to reach the village people. And other towns could not allow Christianity in their areas. But praise God today that they do not have any choice. Any religion can enter the camps and spread their beliefs. That is why we making sure that no one leaves the camps without hearing about Jesus or seeing the Jesus film once in his/her life time.

On December 5-20, 2003, we conducted outreach programs in seven displaced people camps just outside the city.

VOA-1 Dec. 5-6, 2003

VOA-1 is the old Voice of America transmitter site for Africa. It is now a displaced camp that hosts over 58,000 people from Sierra Leone and Liberians from the west and northern Liberia. We spent two nights showing the Jesus film and some evangelistic films. The respond was poor at first but later we had over three thousands people watching the Jesus films. That night 6 persons were delivered from night men and other demonic power that was given by grandmothers as inheritance.

We had over 976 people given their lives to Christ. Two families from a Muslims group renounced their faith also. Three hundreds of these people were counseled and are being accepted into the churches. Report reaching us that 15 of these people were baptized on January 4, 2004.

RISK INSTITUTE DISPLACED CAMP Dec. 7-8, 2003

Risk Institute is a mission school owned by the Baptist Church. In this camp we have the Kpelle Tribe from north west Liberia. Most of these people believe strongly in traditional society. This camp has the population of 31,410 people and highest religion is Islam. Our first night in this camp, most of the Muslim youth broke into the people home and store food and other items. After giving complaint to the UN Peacekeepers, they deployed more troops in the areas. The first night was poor and we had over 2500 people on the field watching the films. The second night we went to the camp center to let everyone watch film. Our counselors counted over 4,724 persons beside smaller children that gave their lives to Christ. In this camp the churches camp out with their own praise team and sang in the dialects. In the morning we spent the whole day doing counseling and delivering services. Eleven persons were also delivered from strong night men and spiritual poison in their stomachs.

PLUMKOR DISPLACED CAMPS, Dec. 9-10, 2003

This camp is close to a strong Muslim town call Plumkor. The population in this camp is 24,913 people. There is only one church in this camp. When we got there, I was surprised to see an Imam pleading with a Christian to delay the Jesus film to 8:30 PM for them to finished their prayer because they want to watch the Jesus film since it was in English. We waited for them since we were there for them.

During this we had over 8500 people watching the film. The second night we had more than we could count. During the counseling time we had 31 Muslim leaders asking questions to understand the deity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. As we led them through the teaching, they promised to respect the church and not stop their children from attending church services. We are expecting to carry the film again in January.

SARYEGBEH DISPLACED CAMP, Dec. 11-13, 2003

This camp is also located in a Muslim town owned by Vai Tribe. The Vai people are the strongest Muslim tribe in Liberia. The population is 64,000. In this camp, they do not allow the Jesus film in Vai Language. Most of the people accused the Vai people for killing Jesus whenever they watch the film in Vai. We were told that if we show the Vai film they'd drive us out of the camp. But fortunately for us we had the English edition. There are also three churches in this camp. This camp has the Mosques.

During the first night we had over 10,000 people and even our counselors could not count everyone that watched the films. We counted 814 people giving their lives to Christ. During the counseling time we counseled 326 people and helped them to understand the whole Christian life. Sunday, Dec. 14th, the three churches were filled with many of the converts and decided to be part of the church of Jesus Christ. 4 former rebels confessed drinking human blood and swallowing dog intestine for protection.

BLAMASEE TOWN DISPLACED CAMP, Dec. 14, 2003

This is the most beautiful camp with good layout. Blamasee is also a Muslim Town. The camp has a population of 47,420. We have mixed tribes in this camp. On the Day we were showing, groups of former rebels came in cars to destabilize the crowd. When the people saw them coming they thought that these rebels have come with arms. Everyone fled while other attempted taking our equipment. But our staff were fast to protect them. Because of this some of the staff got wounded. But praise God that they are fine now.

During the film showing we had over 12,000 that our counselors could not count all the people. And the people that gave their lives to Christ were so many that we could only count 6,430. Most of them were young people. Since the Imam was hosting me, we set a counseling center in his place. I shared the Gospel to 317 people in two days of counseling. Most of them promised to visit the churches for more understanding.

JAHTONDO TOWN DISPLACED CAMP, Dec. 15, 2003

This camp has a population of 17,000 people with mixed tribes from north and west Liberia. This camp has 4 churches and 9 mosques. As this was our last Day of showing, we spent 5 hours showing and praying for the nation and for the peace process. We had over 8 thousands people watching the film. 1032 people made public confession to follow Christ. Because of the time we spent praying, we had over 400 people attending the closing seminar we had on prayer and Evangelism. Many people rededicated their lives to pray and carry on visitation to encourage other new converts to go to church and get involve in praying and reading the Bible. On Sunday when we went to visit the churches, on December 17th, We saw 261 people attending church the first time in their lives. It was amazing to them as they saw people dancing in the presence of God in the church.

CASSETTE DISTRIBUTION

We could not do much Door-to-Door program because we had only two Messenger (hand-operated) players. We were able to reach 319 families of 1590 persons that heard clearly the Gospel through cassettes. We distributed 425 cassettes in eight languages.

CITY WIDE FILM CRUSADE, Dec. 16-20, 2003

We also worked along with the Campus Crusade team in Liberia to show the Jesus film in many communities. The Gospel Recordings team showed in four communities the Kpelle and English films. People that watch the Kpelle Film were surprised to hear that Jesus speaking Liberian languages. Those that could understand the language clearly understood the film and we have over 3000 in all that received the Lord as their Saviour. Most of them were adults from the Muslim Mandingo Kpelle.

Praises

We are grateful to God that we could have such group of people that responded to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. We were recognized by UN Peacekeepers with all the curfew that was imposed by the president. They allowed us to show and we were not stop.

John S. B. Deguah

Director