Crisis in Liberia
By Carolynn Sharp and S.G.D. 7/31/03
"Lydia, people are evacuating. Soon no one will be here. We must go too," Pastor Togba urged his wife.
Since early summer, Liberia has been in crisis. Rebel militias are swarming in the streets, men without uniforms or formal orders, their only authority the large machine guns they carry. They are determined to topple the autocratic leader of Liberia, Charles Taylor.
Taylor's own armies, ostensibly keeping the peace, are no less chaotic. The infrastructure of the city is in tatters. Water supplies have been destroyed, hospitals burned, buildings ransacked. Some 500,000 Liberians-displaced persons-have fled the country. Innocent citizens are being killed not only by the bullets of the anarchic rebel forces and armies, but by cholera, spread by the lack of drinkable water. Those who cannot escape huddle in dark warehouses, cellars, anywhere they can hide from the shells and bombs.
When Togba, a national pastor in Liberia, returned from an out-of-town conference several weeks ago, he found Monrovia in chaos.
As Pastor Togba bundled his wife, three teenage daughters and small son into their car, the soldiers were drawing nearer to his home on the outskirts of Monrovia. The rusted-out car with its borrowed engine coughed, but thankfully started.
After leaving the children at his wife's sister's house, Pastor Togba and his wife started back to their home, hoping to remove a generator from their church. Drawing from his store of precious dollars, Togba bought 100 pounds of rice and gave it to the local police, begging them to protect his home and church from being burned and ransacked by the soldiers. "Just don't cook the rice in our kitchen," he asked them.
The Stranger on the Bridge
There was nothing else Pastor Togba and Lydia could do now, but leave. Fleeing the town, they came to a bridge where a soldier menacingly approached with his AK-47.
"Identify yourself !" he screamed.
Calmly, Pastor Togba answered, "I am Pastor James Togba of Maranatha Baptist Church."
Throughout the city, soldiers were seizing the cars and homes of civilians. This soldier hoped to do the same, using the flimsy excuse that he suspected Togba of being an enemy.
Again the soldier screamed, brandishing the weapon in the car window, "I don't know you. Who are you?" He refused to accept Togba's explanation.
Then a stranger suddenly came running alongside the car, exclaiming, "I know this man in here. He is my pastor." Pastor Togba was stunned-he had never seen this man. Was he an angel? The angry soldier finally let the car move on, and the Togbas escaped to safety.
Loss of the Container
Four days later, rebels advanced, bringing terror, rape, murders and looting to the very area that the Togbas had evacuated. Their home, church, and school were completely ransacked. All their materials were lost, even the recently arrived ABWE container full of donated materials for their partners in the African Fundamental Baptist Mission (AFBM).
This container had arrived safely with no damage and entered the port of Liberia on May 21, 2003. God provided a Christian point man to oversee the customs process and get the container to the property of Maranatha Baptist Church, New Georgia, Monrovia. Within three days it was on location, customs inspection done. The people were rejoicing, "See what God has done for us!"
The AFBM team in Liberia was excited by all the donations from God's people across the land: school books for the Christian schools in Liberia where teachers teach without books; Bibles and study help materials for pastors; medical equipment for the interior clinic where nationals have labored for six and a half years, struggling with no resources.
The AFBM leaders planned to perform a complete inventory and distribution in the next two weeks. But God permitted this new crisis in Monrovia. The distribution never happened.
God Is in Control
To some, it may seem as if all the donations in the container were money poured into a black hole-the pockets of the marauding soldiers. Yet, Pastor Togba and the other national leaders are convinced of God's sovereignty, and are praying that the Bibles and Christian literature will be spread among the hands of rebels and strangers who will read them-whether soldiers or civilians.
Carolynn Sharp, an ABWE missionary evacuated from Liberia, said the loss of the container, though wrenching, made her ask, "When we give to God, do we give unreservedly because He has spoken or merely because there is a need? If we give to Him, our gifts are His to do with as He pleases. He has a right to use our possessions as He desires, and I believe He will use these supplies, even if they are lost to us."
Far worse than the loss of their possessions is the anarchy and violence. Pastor Togba has spent hours walking the streets of his city, searching for his people, trying to ascertain whether they are dead, hiding, or displaced. One of his church members, returning from keeping watch over the church building, which God has miraculously protected from burning thus far, was shot in the head by a soldier, for no reason except that he didn't answer swiftly enough the question, "Who are you?"
The medical clinic where Carolynn served alongside nationals is not currently functioning, though it too has been spared from destruction. Schools, hospitals, and businesses are all closed. There is no telecommunications. Everything is in ruins.
Yet Carolynn says, "The national believers are praising God to be alive. It is humbling to work with them, to see how they trust God even when they have nothing."
The Future of Liberia
Carolynn yearns to return, but will not be able to do so until political stability is established. She hopes that the U.S. will soon send in peace-keeping forces. Until then, she requests urgent prayer for Liberia: that an interim government would be put in place, that the killing and destruction would cease, that missionaries and relief workers might return, and that national believers would be protected.
ABWE is already packing another container full of Bibles-so that God's Word may be put into the hand of pastors like Togba who could not otherwise have complete Bibles. As the crisis continues, ABWE is relying on God's sovereignty to ensure the possibility of future missions in Liberia.
Read more about ABWE's ministry in Liberia.
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