Answers on Sierra Leone

Many of the people reading this blog are attenders of CrossPoint Church in Harrisburg and have probably heard a sermon from Pastor Dave addressing his recent trip to Sierra Leone (see the message from 2/1 found on: http://www.xpointumc.org/resources_sermon_multimedia.html). Many of you probably also have questions about how Pastor Serry can be starving if our congregation is sending him a monthly stipend. Is the money not getting to him? Are we being mislead? Is he wasting the funds? What's happening?


Well, as the Director of Missions, I wanted to give you some answers. First and foremost, you should know that Rev. Serry is making the most out of everything that he receives. There is almost nothing that goes to waste over there. So if that's true, what exactly is the problem?

The heart of the problem is that there isn't enough coming in. Our Conference Initiative provides monthly support to 80 United Methodist Churches throughout Sierra Leone. The goal is to give each of them $100, but because only about half of those churches have been partnered up with churches here in the states they only see about $30 per month. Between handling fees and pooling money for equal distribution, it really presents a powerful problem.

So what are we doing? What's the plan? We're coming at this from a few different directions. First, we have given Rev. Serry enough food and money to support him for three months--so he's good for now. Second, our mission team is going to try to work with the conference to promote the initiative to other churches in the area to encourage them to partner up. Thrid, we have also worked out plans to get resources and pastoral support directly to Rev. Serry so that this does not happen again. And finally, we have a list of projects that have been prioritized by the village and they have asked us to come back, so in January 2010 we will have another mission trip back to Sierra Leone to ensure that projects are underway and everything is moving smoothly.

With a lot of prayer, a lot of organization, and your support, we can lift up a Rev. Serry and his congregation and make a profound impact on the Kingdom!