|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
Daughters of Abraham
“Our mission is to reach the unreached with the gospel message of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he says. “As our country is now 80 percent Muslim, we are training church leaders in the area of Muslim evangelism. The Church needs to be fully informed, trained and equipped. Pastors and evangelists are encouraged to go out to unreached areas and present Christ. Praise God many are cooperating and the gospel is reaching many.”
Reaching the Youngest
Children who are illiterate and uneducated are condemned to a life of poverty here. But there are no public schools in Sierra Leone.
To fill that void, Emmanuel mobilized his neighborhood into building a school several years ago. The two-room concrete block structure stands just a few feet away from the entrance to his home. Inside, rough wooden benches stand along the walls on a packed dirt floor.
Students learn reading, writing, mathc and English. They also learn about the love of Christ. Muslim parents don’t care about the emphasis on Christ, as long as their children are taught.
Emmanuel’s often uses the “Jesus” film to show students how other children followed Jesus.
“It has been a great encouragement for the children to live their faith,” he says. “Through them, many of their parents have come to know Christ and accept Him as their Lord and personal savior.”
To address the overwhelming physical need, Emmanuel and his team also run a feeding programs in several communities, preparing food and giving out other basic necessities such as clothes and school supplies. As they show love by meeting needs, hearts are softened toward the gospel.
They have also organized a group of needy teenage boys into a soccer team to provide a positive outlet for them and to form meaningful relationships with the boys. They are working on a similar initiative to help girls.
“All of this has been as a result of the Lord's working, and not us,” Emmanuel says.” Thus we all can join hands together in giving Him thanks and praise for His wonderful works. Let me borrow the words of Jesus in John 9:4-5, ’As long as it is day, we will do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.’
“This has been my conviction-- that I have a limited time on earth, of which time I have to use for Him who sent me,” he says. “Even if I live a hundred [years] or more on earth, this time is still limited and needs to be spent wisely to the glory of the great King.”
Hope in a hopeless place
Pastor’s many ministries fight poverty, illiteracy among Muslims
By Kimberly Jordan PHOTOS
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- A woman moves wearily along the dusty road. Lorries and buses crammed with humanity rumble past her bent figure. The bulge of child tied to her back further disfigures her shape.
On her head she balances a worn, blue plastic bucket of water on her printed headscarf. Her left hand grips the edge of the bucket, but her right arm trails into a strange sock covering, abruptly ending just below her elbow.
Along with 80 percent of her countrywomen, she is illiterate. Like many African women, she spends nearly two hours each day hauling water. The only relief is that her walk to the community tap in her Kolatown neighborhood is shorter than the several miles women in the bush walk to salvage water from dirty puddles.
As she rounds the corner, she skirts a football-sized stone that threatens callused feet shod in thin, plastic sandals. She steps over a small sewage canal shiny with unknown matter. She is accustomed to its stench.
Her room is not visible from the street, but she knows it’s there, behind a small shack of corrugated roofing and salvaged plywood. There’s no joy in homecoming: she has four small, hungry children in ragged clothing, no food and a landlord threatening eviction on past-due rent.
Bloody Memories
No husband waits, either. His memory is tucked away in a corner she does not enter, even in her darkest moments. She cannot bear the image of him kneeling in front of their simple hut as rebel militiamen plunge their machetes into his body again and again.
She remembers the rebels forcing the whole family to watch his murder and the shrieks of her children in the background.
More images: A young commando stretching out her right arm, as another brings his machete down, severing her arm just below the elbow.
The memories fade, but her reality does not. There is no help in Sierra Leone for her: no man to take her as his wife and provide for her children. No man wants a disfiguredwoman, let alone the responsibility of feeding children not his own.
There are few jobs for women, fewer still for those who are disabled. The NGOs offer no help. Neighbors and friends are overwhelmed by their own scraping poverty, struggling on in a country devastated by civil war.
Daughters of Abraham
Pastor Emmanuel Conteh is one person offering a message of hope to women like this.
Inside his living room, hundreds of colorful articles of clothing hang against the walls. Three nights a week, women from the largely Muslim community come here to learn to sew on three manual sewing machines. In the dark, the ‘Daughters of Abraham’ (a reference to Muslims’ and Christians’ shared lineage to Abraham) sew by the light of a donated generator, machines humming as foot pedals pump up and down.
After spending time in a refugee camp during the civil war that wracked Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002, Pastor Emmanuel saw how much his wife benefited from sewing, a skill that helped her to be a productive member of the family. At home near Freetown, the couple now teaches other women to sew, too. Women want to supplement their families’ incomes, and this interaction allows the Contehs to build relationships with their Muslim neighbors.
“By training Muslim women and single parent mothers to become self-supportive through tailoring and soap-making, we believe we will have the opportunity to tell them about Christ and pave the platform for their salvation,” Emmanuel says. Through the Daughters of Abraham ministry, the women have learned to make dresses, pants and children’s clothing. Women whose lives seemed meaningless have found worth in their work and contributions to their families.
“Besides this, many have come to find Christ as their Lord and personal savior and are doing well in the Lord,” Emmanuel says. “Today, 90 percent of the women who come for sewing classes are now in Christ.”
Equipping Others
From his Freetown office, Emmanuel also runs Send the Light Ministries. The rented space overlooking a Freetown street teeming with street vendors, buses and scampering children is the hub for a ministry that reaches beyond urban borders into the often-forgotten interior.
Send the Light helps provide training, discipleship and mobilization to the rest of Sierra Leone as churches work together as a body.
Pastor’s many ministries fight poverty, illiteracy among Muslims
This father and daughter both lost limbs and spouses during
the civil war. Together they care for the daughter's now fatherless son.
(Photo by Anina Vorster, Logos II) | |
|
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- A woman moves wearily along the dusty road. Lorries and buses crammed with humanity rumble past her bent figure. The bulge of child tied to her back further disfigures her shape.
On her head she balances a worn, blue plastic bucket of water on her printed headscarf. Her left hand grips the edge of the bucket, but her right arm trails into a strange sock covering, abruptly ending just below her elbow.
Along with 80 percent of her countrywomen, she is illiterate. Like many African women, she spends nearly two hours each day hauling water. The only relief is that her walk to the community tap in her Kolatown neighborhood is shorter than the several miles women in the bush walk to salvage water from dirty puddles.
As she rounds the corner, she skirts a football-sized stone that threatens callused feet shod in thin, plastic sandals. She steps over a small sewage canal shiny with unknown matter. She is accustomed to its stench.
Her room is not visible from the street, but she knows it’s there, behind a small shack of corrugated roofing and salvaged plywood. There’s no joy in homecoming: she has four small, hungry children in ragged clothing, no food and a landlord threatening eviction on past-due rent.
Bloody Memories
No husband waits, either. His memory is tucked away in a corner she does not enter, even in her darkest moments. She cannot bear the image of him kneeling in front of their simple hut as rebel militiamen plunge their machetes into his body again and again.
She remembers the rebels forcing the whole family to watch his murder and the shrieks of her children in the background.
More images: A young commando stretching out her right arm, as another brings his machete down, severing her arm just below the elbow.
The memories fade, but her reality does not. There is no help in Sierra Leone for her: no man to take her as his wife and provide for her children. No man wants a disfiguredwoman, let alone the responsibility of feeding children not his own.
There are few jobs for women, fewer still for those who are disabled. The NGOs offer no help. Neighbors and friends are overwhelmed by their own scraping poverty, struggling on in a country devastated by civil war.
Daughters of Abraham
Pastor Emmanuel Conteh is one person offering a message of hope to women like this.
Inside his living room, hundreds of colorful articles of clothing hang against the walls. Three nights a week, women from the largely Muslim community come here to learn to sew on three manual sewing machines. In the dark, the ‘Daughters of Abraham’ (a reference to Muslims’ and Christians’ shared lineage to Abraham) sew by the light of a donated generator, machines humming as foot pedals pump up and down.
After spending time in a refugee camp during the civil war that wracked Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002, Pastor Emmanuel saw how much his wife benefited from sewing, a skill that helped her to be a productive member of the family. At home near Freetown, the couple now teaches other women to sew, too. Women want to supplement their families’ incomes, and this interaction allows the Contehs to build relationships with their Muslim neighbors.
“By training Muslim women and single parent mothers to become self-supportive through tailoring and soap-making, we believe we will have the opportunity to tell them about Christ and pave the platform for their salvation,” Emmanuel says. Through the Daughters of Abraham ministry, the women have learned to make dresses, pants and children’s clothing. Women whose lives seemed meaningless have found worth in their work and contributions to their families.
“Besides this, many have come to find Christ as their Lord and personal savior and are doing well in the Lord,” Emmanuel says. “Today, 90 percent of the women who come for sewing classes are now in Christ.”
Equipping Others
From his Freetown office, Emmanuel also runs Send the Light Ministries. The rented space overlooking a Freetown street teeming with street vendors, buses and scampering children is the hub for a ministry that reaches beyond urban borders into the often-forgotten interior.
Send the Light helps provide training, discipleship and mobilization to the rest of Sierra Leone as churches work together as a body.
“Our mission is to reach the unreached with the gospel message of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he says. “As our country is now 80 percent Muslim, we are training church leaders in the area of Muslim evangelism. The Church needs to be fully informed, trained and equipped. Pastors and evangelists are encouraged to go out to unreached areas and present Christ. Praise God many are cooperating and the gospel is reaching many.”
Reaching the Youngest
Children who are illiterate and uneducated are condemned to a life of poverty here. But there are no public schools in Sierra Leone.
To fill that void, Emmanuel mobilized his neighborhood into building a school several years ago. The two-room concrete block structure stands just a few feet away from the entrance to his home. Inside, rough wooden benches stand along the walls on a packed dirt floor.
Students learn reading, writing, mathc and English. They also learn about the love of Christ. Muslim parents don’t care about the emphasis on Christ, as long as their children are taught.
Emmanuel’s often uses the “Jesus” film to show students how other children followed Jesus.
“It has been a great encouragement for the children to live their faith,” he says. “Through them, many of their parents have come to know Christ and accept Him as their Lord and personal savior.”
To address the overwhelming physical need, Emmanuel and his team also run a feeding programs in several communities, preparing food and giving out other basic necessities such as clothes and school supplies. As they show love by meeting needs, hearts are softened toward the gospel.
They have also organized a group of needy teenage boys into a soccer team to provide a positive outlet for them and to form meaningful relationships with the boys. They are working on a similar initiative to help girls.
“All of this has been as a result of the Lord's working, and not us,” Emmanuel says.” Thus we all can join hands together in giving Him thanks and praise for His wonderful works. Let me borrow the words of Jesus in John 9:4-5, ’As long as it is day, we will do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.’
“This has been my conviction-- that I have a limited time on earth, of which time I have to use for Him who sent me,” he says. “Even if I live a hundred [years] or more on earth, this time is still limited and needs to be spent wisely to the glory of the great King.”
© 2007 Called and Sent Magazine. All international rights reserved.