Country Updates
Zambia
Pure Nard Preschool
The school year in Zambia started late on February 1st instead of January 4th because of a rise in COVID 19 cases. However, school has been going very well so far.
What’s new?
- Increased number of students since 2020
- Added second baby class for a total of 4 classes: 2 baby, 1 middle, 1 reception (kindergarten)
- We thank God that Reception teacher Felistus and her new baby Evalyn are doing great!
- We met with parents to encourage them to continue being active participants in the school activities to continue promoting quality education.
Sustainable Pig Farming Project
Progress is happening! Pure Nard Ministries plans to complete the first half of the pig pen very soon. Then they will start adding pigs to the pen while finishing construction.
Why pig farming?
- Provide sustainability, food security and life skills training
- Provide job training in livestock husbandry skills for Teen Challenge participants
- Provide several jobs for people in the community
This self-sustainability approach to ministry has a long-lasting impact and will continue to give those we serve in Zambia opportunities for income generation to fund ministry operations and development.
Prayer Requests
Pray for this year’s new staff and students as they transition, for Felistus and her new baby, the sustainability pig farming project and for the health of all the staff, students, and the young men in Teen Challenge.
Liberia
Action Faith Institute
AFI is grateful to God for the support from STC! The entire school was out of water recently and water had to be fetched outside of the school grounds, holding up the school schedule. STC’s donation helped AFI purchase a hand pump for water, as well as COVID supplies such as water barrels, sanitizer, soap, and masks.
Romeo’s Success Story, by an AFI Staff Member
Romeo Ballah is a 10-year-old 4th grader with a unique servant heart. He lives right beside the school in an unfinished building with his unemployed father. Romeo comes on campus often to help clean up the school in appreciation of his sponsorship from Serve the Children. Romeo does this voluntarily, which means a lot to us because it fulfills the motto of the school, “Learn to Serve” and speaks volumes about a grateful heart. We believe Romeo will be a great leader with a servant heart.
Prayer Requests
For the growth of the computer lab, for sponsors for many other students in need of sponsorship, and for all of the students’ and staff members’ health.
India
The Lasina School and Emmanuel Education Center
Despite pandemic challenges, the staff in India have continued to persevere by the Lord’s grace. The school in Lasina is still closed, but the teachers travel to the students’ homes to teach them and provide homework.
Emmanuel Education Center in Mumbai reopened in September! We thank God for the dedicated teachers who educate children well in the Mumbai slum in such difficult times.
- All the children and teachers there are well
- The Center runs 6 days a week for about 40 children.
- We provide one nutritious meal and education per government curriculum.
Vocational Training
Classes for Mumbai slum youth who have dropped out of school are going very well. 20 boys and girls are completing basic computer courses and 20 girls are in basic tailoring classes. Completing these courses will give students a marketable skill and the needed confidence to learn more and get jobs or start their own small businesses.
Prayer Requests
Pray for the safety and health of our staff and children. A second wave of COVID has hit India and the new strain is spreading across the country. Please also pray we can continue to provide nutritious food to our children at Emmanuel Education Center.
What’s New at STC?
Meet our New Partner: Action Faith Institute
STC is passionate about serving the children and families of Liberia by partnering with local leaders who understand how to best serve their own communities. We are excited to introduce our newest partner, Action Faith Institute (AFI) in Paynesville Liberia! The school began in 2001 with elementary grades and now provides Nursery through 12th grade on two campuses, graduating 30 to 40 students every year. Our goal is to help AFI grow their small computer lab into a larger program.
AFI’s Objectives for the Computer Program
With STC’s partnership we believe can achieve these goals:
- Improve classroom learning for students and teachers
- Help our students learn how to use the Internet for research purposes
- Improve the overall learning program of the school to fit in the demands of the 21st century
- Help create jobs for students after graduation from high school
- Prepare a generation of young people skilled in information technology to help empower their own lives, families, communities, and the nation at large
- Help empower community members who are interested in computer education for self-sustainability
LITTLE KORMASSA’S STORY, Told by an AFI Staff Member
There are several children in the AFI school who have lost one or both parents and are no longer hopeful. Some children have not lost parents, but their parents cannot afford to send them to school or afford a daily meal for their kids. For them, survival is the order of the day with no plan to educate their children. Every year there are several children with very sad stories at the school. This is the reality unfolding in Liberia today.
Little Kormassa lost both her parents and lives with her aunt along with her two sisters and her brother. Her aunt cannot afford to send them to school. She sells fish in the market just to feed them every day. The aunt heard about Action Faith Institute and decided to take a step of faith to bring all of the kids to the school. She begged us to have them come to learn how to read and write. Since she has been enrolled at AFI, Little Kormassa has been lively and hopeful for a better tomorrow. This shows in her performance in her K-1 class and how she relates to her friends. We strongly believe that helping Little Kormassa and her siblings means bringing heaven down to them.
Thank you for partnering with STC to help make a difference for children like Little Kormassa across the world.
New Sponsorship Coordinator
A big thank you to Celina, for all her hard work on sponsorship! She was a joy to work with and a huge asset to the STC team. We wish her all the best.
Meet Our New Sponsorship Coordinator, Tina Sidorko
First and foremost, I’m a devoted disciple of Jesus committed to advancing the Kingdom of God through His love! I live in Tacoma with three fabulous roommates. We love community and providing a safe place for people to be seen, known and loved in our home. Serving as Hospitality Director at my church and caring for others there also brings me great joy. My passion and care for children and families started early. I was born in Belarus and moved to America as a small child with my family when we immigrated on refugee status because of religious persecution in Belarus.
I enjoy a great cup of coffee with a good book when it’s raining and a great cup of coffee and being out in nature when the weather permits. My life is full of the Lord’s goodness and grace! I am excited to work with Serve the Children because I believe in their mission to offer hope and a future through God’s love to underserved children and families. Before the pandemic, I was preparing to go to India with Doug Collier and a team in August of 2020. I have gone on mission trips with other organizations to Mexico and Uganda. Every time I’ve gone, I’ve been incredibly blessed to see God at work in those countries, telling His people they matter deeply. I’m also passionate about sponsorship because I know it is life changing for a child. I am thrilled to be part of the incredible work that God is doing through STC! If you have any questions about sponsorship, please email me at tina@servethechildren.com.
Serve the Children Update
Thank you for all your concern, prayers and donations to help us through the terrible loss by fire of our newly opened computer lab at the Liberia Sinkor School. We appreciate your help through this crisis. Our goal is to raise at least $30,000 to replace the computer lab, and we are almost there!
We decided to sell the damaged building for several reasons, including the cost to rebuild, the location on the ocean and the condition of the building after so many years of heavy use. We purchased this building in 2004 for $45,000 and spent thousands more on improvements and repairs over the years. We sold it for $100,000, including closing costs. The Board decided to rent a building close to our current site in the Sinkor District of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, and we plan to sign a 3-year rental agreement soon.
We wanted to stay in the Sinkor District to continue to meet the needs of the children here. We will use some of the funds raised to remodel one of the classrooms to use as a computer lab and we will purchase around 40 laptops to replace what we lost in the fire. Our server was in the shop when the fire hit so we still have that and all of the Kahn Academy software we use. We are thankful for that.
Our next project will be to raise $350,000 to purchase a new facility in the Sinkor District. We plan to make it a top of the line school in Liberia with modern classrooms, a fully operational computer lab, a science lab, a library and a vocational school. It would provide hope and a future to the children in the surrounding area and to parents seeking to improve their lives and be a place where our staff could accomplish great things for the community. Imagine how we could impact this country, one of the very poorest in the world. Providing these children a great education with computer skills can be a game changer for their families and Liberia.
Come dream with me for the future! Did you ever dream about having tons of money as a kid and think about what you would do with it? Do you still dream like this? Sometimes we get so distracted by day to day issues of life we forget to dream; to think about life from the eyes of our childhood. I don’t know about you, but I think my blood pressure would be lower if I did this more often.
If we had, let’s say, $3 million dollars today for Serve the Children, what would we do with it? Here is what I’d want to do:
Liberia: fund a top of the line school to replace the Sinkor School
Zambia: spend $500,000 to build a first-class school for children of all ages so they could achieve the full potential God has given them. The school would be able to teach the children every subject they would need to learn to attend college or vocational school and continue to help their country move forward.
India: can we make a difference in child trafficking in India? Yes, we can! We can give young boys and girls educational opportunities that could make an eternal difference in their lives as well as provide them the skills to move into successful careers. We would build schools and provide vocational training to children and young people who dream of these futures just like our kids dream of them.
Middle East: open centers and support full-time people to serve thousands of people impacted by war. We would provide comfort rooms where they could go to escape the horrors of war and have peace for a short while at least. A place where they could rest, eat a meal and not worry about life and about their families.
Expand the vocational training programs we have in India to other countries. I dream of empowering women to achieve their full potential by providing them a quality education and workplace skills that give them a well-paying job to support their families and keep them away from human trafficking.
Come dream with me, to give hope and a future to more children and families around the world.
Dr. Doug Collier
God’s Plan
Liberia, West Africa is a country that has become dear to my heart. Although it has only been in the last couple of years that I have had occasion to visit this country, it has been a focal point for my family since 1995. It was at that time, during a brutal civil war, that my aunts, uncles, and parents adopted 10 children from Liberia. These kids, all related as brothers, sisters and cousins, joined our family here in the States. These same kids, now adults, have become as close as my own sisters. Around the time these war-victim children were adopted to the States, my father Steve Jones, my uncle Nathan Jones, Doug Collier and Sackie Kwalalon started a school (All God’s Children) for child-soldiers, just like the children I now call family.
I waited over twenty years to see Liberia for the first time. We had learned the parents of these kids our family adopted had NOT died in the war as we had been told. This knowledge led to a trip that included three sisters, my Liberian cousins, to “meet” their parents for the first time in over 20 years. During that wonderful trip, I enjoyed watching reunions with family members, experiencing a culture I had heard so much about, seeing firsthand the places and people that have become part of my family history. But, as incredible as that story is, that is not the trip I want to talk about today.
Since my first mission trip to Liberia in the summer of 2017, I have returned to Liberia two additional times. That’s 41,622 miles of traveling if you’re keeping track. This last trip was nothing like the mission trips before. It’s actually a mission trip any right-minded mission leader would hush or keep to themselves because it may scare off others from traveling to serve in countries such as Liberia. So, if you’d like to hear about a mission trip that went side-ways and how God is still working, then please continue.
On February 17th, I was sitting in my own church, surprised to be the one asked to speak on behalf of our team’s trip to Liberia. We prayed for protection, direction and to touch the lives of people in need there. Almost as quickly as the pastor said amen, my phone started ringing. When I returned the call, I got word that the AGC School had caught fire, and that the computer-lab that was set up on our last trip only 4 months before was completely gone – literally every computer reduced to ash. It was devastating, but in all honesty, about 24 hours later, after praying, crying and fellowshipping we were okay and ready to continue working in God’s plan, whatever that was.
That would have been enough of a setback, but there’s more. On departure day, our very first flight was delayed an hour, making us miss ALL of our connecting flights. From Chicago on, every flight had to be rebooked with multiple airlines. Well this wasn’t our plan, but we wondered, “God is this yours?” We finally arrived in Liberia, after four flights and one 12 hour layover.
But wait, there’s more! Upon our arrival in Liberia, we realized all of our bags were missing. During this two-week mission trip most of the team got their belongings on day 7. I, however, finally received my luggage of personal belongings 3 days before I returned home. These were just a few of the challenges that arose during our trip to Liberia this year, and I have to tell you, I do believe all of this was in God’s plan.
Even though we arrived a day later, even though we received our clothes and supplies more than a week later, and even though the fire destroyed the computer lab, we were still able to meet with the children. We were still able to meet with faculty. We were still able to meet the goals set out months prior for this trip. Even though this fire had children on the streets crying even before we left the States, a week later I was able to bring art and emotional expression to their classroom. So, in a way we did do our plan. But what about God’s plan?
The day before I left Liberia, the principal of the AGC School asked to speak to me privately. To be honest, he is a man of few words and seems to prefer to watch from a distance rather than dive into the chaos. That said, his words stuck with me. He said to me, “I have to ask you. You know when the fire happened and the computers were burnt, we were all so upset.” I waited for the question. “I asked myself, why are they coming? Why are they coming just to see this mess, there is nothing here for them. And, when you came, you are here and you are smiling, how is that?” What I find so fascinating about his comments and questions is the perception he had of me, us or Americans in general. The question, “Why are they coming to see this mess?” tells me his school had wondered if they were going to be abandoned because of the fire. They wondered about the children’s education, their jobs and their families. What’s more, he noticed we came still smiling and engaging with them. This seemed to shock the faculty into hope. By just showing up, participating and working in the “mess,” everyone’s hope was revived.
This trip really was like no other. This trip had a lot of struggles from day one. But looking back, God answered our prayers even while the school was going up in flames. He provided protection, not one child or person was injured in the fire. He continues to provide All God’s Children and Serve the Children with direction on how to move forward. God is opening doors in miraculous ways. He is creating vision, excitement and hope for the country of Liberia and for those of us blessed to be involved in this next chapter of the Serve the Children/All God’s Children story. Our God created a connection to the Liberian people this time that I never saw there before, and it’s just because we showed up in crisis. So, in this trip where everything started off all wrong and not according to our plans, it WAS according to God’s plan.
The day I left Liberia, I received more hugs from the children, teachers and staff than ever before. And this time when I left, there were requests and expectations for me to return this year – AGAIN! That tells me God’s desire for me, and perhaps others, is to connect with our AGC family in Liberia. We are called to continue to support and nurture these relationships because we are all part of His family no matter how messy life gets.
– Brittany Jones
HEARTBREAKING FIRE – NEED EMERGENCY DONATIONS!
On February 17th the All God’s Children School in Monrovia, Liberia caught fire
- Entire 3rd floor, including the new computer lab, totally destroyed
- Water and smoke damage on 1st and 2nd floors in classrooms and offices
- Building is 4 classrooms short: not enough room for all students to continue classes
- Over 400 kids with no other school option need a safe place to finish the school year, including seniors studying for their state exams and hoping to graduate
“400 to 500 people from the community gathered and witnessed the fire. Many were crying as they watched a neighborhood fixture and one of the few beacons of hope go up in smoke. The neighborhood men began fighting the fire as they waited for the fire department. Many of the kids from the school were there and frightened about their future.” – Steve Jones, STC mission team member, on the ground in Monrovia, Liberia – 2/26/19
Five Ordinary Guys
I love the team I just took to Liberia in June 2018. Five ordinary guys: a warehouse manager, a saw blade sharpener, a cabinet maker, a software developer and a financial planner. Our career choices are important to us, our employers and our families, but they certainly do not fit what many people picture when they think of a mission team. Three of the team members did not even have passports when we started planning this trip.
At our first meeting in February I asked the team, “What do you want to do in Liberia?” Looking at our various qualifications, we thought we had very few skills that would translate to Liberia. But what we did have was five guys who said “Yes” to Jesus when He planted the thought of going on a mission trip in our minds.
The strangest plan developed- we decided to teach hygiene and first aid. Not exactly my first choice. I have very little desire to deal with blood and guts and all that stuff. I married a nurse; that’s Lu’s job. No one on the team was really qualified to teach classes in first aid, and personally, my hand washing skills were not the best (I am a guy, after all). But in Liberia, medical professionals are scarce, and children do not usually grow up learning about these things. Knowing them can save lives.
So naturally, we turned to YouTube and Google to help solve our training deficiencies. We met with a nurse who had been to Liberia many times, another nurse we know, and a Pierce County medic who had spent time in Africa, to help with our training. We copied articles from books and downloaded information from the internet. We watched YouTube videos. We learned and practiced together how to bandage various types of wounds, how to support a broken arm, how to do the Heimlich maneuver on adults and babies, and the proper way to wash hands.
We were rock stars in Liberia! We taught adults and the older kids how to save the life of someone who was choking on something stuck in their throat. We brought in a doll and demonstrated the maneuver so everyone could learn how to help save a baby’s life. We talked about hand washing, coughing into your elbow and covering your sneezes. We answered lots of questions about choking, germs, coughing and bleeding. The question I challenged my team with was, “How many lives do you think we will help save by teaching these things?”
What can five ordinary guys do? We made an impact in our own lives, in the lives of our teammates and in the lives of the people God placed in front of us in the classrooms. All we did was say yes to Jesus when He asked us to go.
What is holding you back from going on a mission trip? I hear many reasons: “It’s expensive; I’m going to be away from family and friends; I will not have social media at my fingertips; I will eat unfamiliar food.” All true, but you will also be serving a living God and helping people that only you can help.
We asked Alex, a former sponsored student from our Monrovia school, why he is so engaged in doing things for his community now that he’s an adult. His answer blew me away. He said he volunteers a lot because he saw Americans come to Liberia, taking time away from their families and spending their money to come and volunteer at the AGC school he attended. Every team has left this legacy of caring and volunteering.
We have many mission opportunities planned for 2018 and 2019. Now is the time to say yes and start planning your mission trip. Email me at doug@servethechildren.com to discuss the best fit for you and check out ourmission page on our website.
India – 2018 – November 23rd to December 8 – if you want to go, contact me immediately
Liberia – June 2019
Zambia – July 2019
India – August 2019 and November 2019
Dr. Doug Collier
President of the Board
Note from our Liberia Mission Team
Our Liberia Mission Team left on June 12th and they are having a great time teaching first aid, hygiene and leadership classes and playing with kids. They return on June 28th. Please keep them in your prayers and check out our Serve the Children Group on Facebook to stay connected with us and the team as they post updates about the trip and their experiences. Here are some thoughts from the team on their trip so far.
You would think that after going to Liberia 16 times since 1997, I would be used to the heat, humidity, wind, rain, epic storms at night, the unfamiliar smells and food, bucket showers, the joy of finding a flushing toilet, etc., but no. Every trip is like a new experience and I enjoy every one of them.
It’s all about the kids and the people. They are so appreciative of us being here. They treat us like royalty even though they have so little and we have so much at home. But we all have the same purpose; to give hope and a future to the future leaders of Liberia.
In Liberia, about twice as many males as females over age 15 can read and write. Today in one of the two classes I taught on leadership, I challenged the girls with the idea that they have the potential to be the next female president of Liberia, but to be successful in what they do, they need to use their minds, have a heart of passion for their country, and a strong relationship with Jesus.
-Doug
I am blown away by how loving and accepting the kids are of us. They just want to play and interact with us. They are very curious and they love to touch our skin. One kid even tried to rub off my tattoos. I have really enjoyed being in the 
classrooms, asking the kids questions and reading to the kindergarten kids, and teaching first aid and hygiene.
This trip has really opened my eyes to how imaginative these kids are. They do not have cell phones to stare at. They play soccer with a plastic bottle and are very satisfied that they have a plastic bottle to play with. They find ways to entertain themselves and they are smart. They pick up on stuff so quickly and they understand it. For me, to be here in Liberia with them means a lot because something that I may teach them will stick with them for a long time. I am grateful for my experience.
-Shaun
Our time in Liberia has been amazing and eye opening. Hearing their stories and building relationships with Christians that live in such an unforgiving environment and have so little yet are so willing to do anything to make us comfortable has been very humbling.
The kids in the school are incredible. Education means so much to them. Some of the kids walk long distances to come here every day, and others will go all day without eating just to be in school. What blows me away is they choose to do this in pursuit of a better future. How many kids in the US are so self-motivated at seven years old?
Overall, this trip has made me so grateful for the family and life that God has blessed me with. I will be sharing the stories of the beautiful people I feel blessed to have met here for a long time.
-Ricky
Today, June 18th, was exciting because the kids were really into learning about the first aid and hygiene concepts we were teaching. The 9th grade class asked lots of questions on bleeding and bandaging wounds. I feel blessed and humbled to be around such loving and caring people. Their faith is second to none. We talk a lot about faith in the US, but they live in faith every day. I have learned a lot being around these wonderful people. I plan and hope to come back many more times.
-Rondell
What hits me about this trip? In this part of the world, free, quality education is tough to come by. Serve the Children provides that. I love the opportunity to be in this environment with these people, both American and Liberian. And I’m always impressed with how little I really know when I come to spend time with children in developing countries.
On this trip, lots of water has been consumed, food has been enjoyed, many kids have been high-fived, hugged, and celebrated. The guys and I have had many interesting, enjoyable conversations between power outages, bathroom breaks, car rides, spider hunts, you name it. I think we have been successful in loving children practically by engaging them in and out of the classroom and by spending time with them and staff throughout the day.
Mission trips have changed my life radically. I’m amazed how much I can prepare for a trip like this but still feel overwhelmed with the cultural and language barriers between us and our hosts. This is my third trip to Liberia, chump-change compared to Mr. Collier’s 17 tours to the country. With all my travels with STC, I’ve seen lives transformed for the gospel, both American and in-country, I’ve seen friendships blossom, I’ve seen the word of God preached in the most practical way possible, I’ve seen the benefit of this sort of trip and I’m better because of it.
-John K
The Impact of Child Sponsorship
By: Heidi Otis
In 2005 I had the privilege of participating in a mission trip with Serve the Children to Liberia. Once there I fell in love with the people, especially the children at our All God’s Children Schools. They were so grateful and thankful to have the chance for an education in a country that was trying desperately to recover from a horrendous civil war. These children had known nothing about a peaceful world, yet they were filled with the joy of the Lord. While I was there, I met a young teenager named Obediah and began sponsoring him. He was a serious boy, and I was impressed by his hard-working attitude. He helped us unload heavy boxes of books to create the first school library at our school in Sinkor. He also laughed loudly every time I screamed at a mouse!
After returning home I could not stop thinking about the people I had met, so the next summer I went again. This time we were doing a creative writing workshop and we were each helping individual students. Alex began talking with me about the troubles his family had during the war. His father was a police officer and was sent far away to work. This left his unemployed mother to raise her six boys alone in a place where resources were scarce. My husband is a police officer so we had a lot of discussions about Liberian law and education. I began sponsoring him also.
Through Serve the Children our family was able to provide an education for these two boys through Junior High and on into High School, where they both graduated. Both Obediah and Alex have gone on to college and have received their bachelor’s degrees. Now they are young men working for non-profits that are making improvements in their country. Obediah has been volunteering with an organization raising money for wells and filters for clean water. Alex has been traveling around to villages in the bush, many of which are days away from Monrovia. There he takes water samples and brings them back for testing in a lab, to see what bacteria or diseases are in the water. Alex writes up reports on the results and locations of the areas that need clean water. These reports are then sent on to non-governmental organizations so they can prioritize well development in these rural villages.
Serve the Children has provided thousands of poor and underserved children with opportunities for an education. Now those children are adults working to improve their beautiful country. Sponsoring these boys has been such a rewarding and inspiring experience for me as well. You too can be a part of providing a future for a child in Liberia.
Liberia Computer Project
Hi, I’m John and I wanted to share a little about what the team and I will be doing this year in Liberia. We will be bringing in laptops to help kick-start a computer lab at our Sinkor School in Monrovia.
Our flagship school is in the Sinkor (pronounced ‘sin-core’) district, smack-dab on the beach, just outside the downtown district of Liberia’s capital. Nestled by the beach, Sinkor is truly a beautiful area. Every day, hot, sandy ocean air blows inland, swirling throughout the halls, into classrooms to tickle toes and to cool down the sweltering concrete rooms where class is held. This constant gale brings a refreshing cool as well as a salty glaze to the campus. Looking closer, everything seems to be passing through various stages of corrosion, from the engine of the Jeep that sits patiently nearby, to the concrete walls that sag near the shore; wear and tear are a part of life. This is not an ideal place to plant a computer classroom, but this is where our students are and this is where they will learn the ropes.
Salt and sand are fine if you’re a student but not if you’re a computer. The computers of Liberia have an interesting, unsung story, one that boils simply down to survival. If the conditions aren’t enough to corrode away the sensitive components, the chance of damage, theft, or worse, neglect, is all too real. This is partly why you won’t see too many fancy electronics in Liberian classrooms. And while corrosion is tough, it pales in comparison to the bottom-line reason you don’t see even mundane technology throughout the halls of most Liberian schools. The country is too poor.
These kids we teach are smart. We are providing an opportunity for computer-literacy with this project. What Liberia needs is Liberians at the helm, armed with knowledge to help shape their communities. Serve the Children is empowering the next generation of professionals. This year, we will be setting up roughly 40 laptop computers at this beach-front school. We will teach typing, how to use Microsoft’s productivity suite of applications, such as Word and PowerPoint, and we will even teach some introductory HTML. The teachers will receive this training, then they will build their lesson plans to teach our students computer skills.
It’s my hope and prayer that the training we provide will help advance these students’ careers and broaden their spheres of influence, helping bring hope back to their country. Our team is aware of the challenges surrounding a project like building a computer lab from scratch. With proper care and maintenance, the laptops should last a long time. With the right safety precautions, we shouldn’t lose any machines to would-be thieves. We will set up the teachers and students for success, then pass the baton off for them to run the show. I’m confident that our friends there won’t just like the new computers; they will fall in love and excel.
Sinkor is truly a special area and I hope you get a chance to visit our students and staff there, salt and all.
– John Keay
Steve Jones, one of the founders of Serve the Children, visited our Liberia schools in July 2017. The lack of any computer skills, access to computers or computer education for our students or staff shocked him, since we in America are so used to using electronics in every facet of our lives. He returned to the United States determined to change this. He spoke to businesses and individuals and personally raised over $12,000 to start the process of acquiring 40 laptops and software to ship to our schools in Liberia. We have purchased the computers, have almost finished updating their operating systems, and can ship them to Liberia soon. Our goal is to have the laptops in Liberia before the STC mission team arrives in June so the team can help set them up and start training the teachers. By the time our students return from summer vacation in September, the teachers will be ready to start teaching them computer skills. We also plan to open up a night school for adults in the neighborhood who would like to pursue a computer education. This will increase their chance of employment and provide a better source of income for their families.
Can you help? Our goal is to raise an additional $10,000 to pay for a generator, additional tables and chairs, training costs and upgrading a room to be a computer lab. 100% of the funds raised will go to Liberia and are tax deductible. You can send us a check, call in your credit card info to our office, or use the PayPal button on our website. Please mark all donations, “Computer Project.” Thank you for your continued support.
– Dr. Doug Collier
J. Kla Wisner
Building the Future – One Child at a Time
When I was little I used to walk a few blocks to school every day. The streets were paved and the neighborhood was safe. Upon arrival, I was greeted by my favorite teacher, Miss Hobbs. I remember one
time she even invited us over to her house-it meant so much to me!
In Liberia many of the children we serve through your support walk not blocks to get to school, but miles. They travel through dirt roads and even the jungle because they know the importance of a good education. And their teachers care for the students deeply too, dedicating their time to help change lives. Thanks to your generosity, we’re providing free education to children who have no other access to school. Without you, these children would never know the investment of a teacher like Mr. J. Kla Wisner who teaches biology.
“I’ve chosen to be a teacher because I believe in reciprocity; that is, giving back what others gave me when I was a student and I believe this is a noble cause.”
One of Mr. Wisner’s favorite memories is assisting his students in class elections-investing in Liberian children so they can grow up and invest in their country!
Mr. Wisner knows that his daily investment matters – for every child and for the transformation of the country of Liberia. You make it possible for Mr. Wisner to give life changing opportunities to his students!
Please join us to fund the last 100 DAYS of the school year in Liberia! Sponsorship provides for the needs of the children who are sponsored, but teachers and classes cost more than what sponsorship alone provides. Make a special gift this month and know that you are bringing hope and a future to children in Liberia – Every gift makes a difference!
CLICK HERE to give now.