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.