First off we want to say thank you all for your support. Both your monetary support and emotional/prayer support is what keeps us doing what we do! So again, thank you so so much! We are blessed by your wisdom and drive for Liberia. We pray that God will continue to bless you as you bless others and that His presence and peace will never leave you.
-With much love
Jess & Jess
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Personal Update
- Jessica has been battling some stomach issues for some weeks now. She has gone a while now with no issues but from past experience it can be a reoccurring thing. Please pray that this will be the end of it completely!
- Jesse has been doing a great job balancing ministry, business, family, friends, being a husband, and life in general. Would you pray for continued strength and endurance as rainy season continues.
- Our wonderful friend Brittany has traveled back to the states to prepare and deliver her baby. Her Husband, Jeremy, will remain in Liberia a little longer to help balance the work for their colleagues here. Would you pray for a safe delivery of their baby boy. Also pray for them as they will be separated and that can be an uncomfortable, stressful, and exciting time in anticipation for baby to come.
- We got a puppy! We named her Eve! The community refer to her as "the first lady."
- Both of us have committed to help start a boys and girls club in Kabeh's school, Kids of Peace. We hope to target issues that aren't often talked about in the normal Liberian family including: puberty, sex, who we are in Christ, and other personal struggles like corruption, drug use, and drinking, etc. Would you pray for openness and the opportunity to impact their friends outside of class.
We both will be traveling to the states in August 26- September 26.
Jess will be visiting her sister who will be delivering her first child. (A baby girl!) Jesse has to renew his electrical license by attending a couple of classes, otherwise he would completely lose it. We will carry back machine spare parts and tools that are necessary for our BAM (business as mission.) We do not plan on traveling quite as much as we have in the past once reaching the US. It's very hectic on both of us. We want to see all of you but we also understand that for our mental health and stress level need to be managed above all else. If you would like to travel to us we would love that! We ask that you would contact us this trip if you would like to visit with us in person. It can feel stressful for us to try and contact every single person that may want to see us, we never want to offend anyone by forgetting to meet them. So it would be a great help to us if you would be the one to initiate the conversation. I hope no one takes this the wrong way, if you have questions please feel free to contact us.
Thanks all!
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Jesse and his helper Micheal working to wire up the girls dorm at Elwou Orphanage. It was one long sweaty day but to see the girls and women dancing and shouting that they now have light in their rooms and plugs-ins to charge their phones makes it worth it.
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Thank you Lord
We recently had our home broken into. Well it's not exactly breaking in when you have a key. We realized that someone has a key to our home and entered while we were gone. We know this because when we returned home from an orphanage Jesse was helping to wire up, we found the door was unlocked. We have never given one of our keys out so we aren't sure how someone came to get a key. Maybe at one time before we were living here or while we were gone it's possible someone made a copy of the key and was waiting for the opportune moment to use it. By God's grace nothing was stolen. We believe the robber was scared away by our landlord who heard the noise of our door open and went to investigate. He didn't see anything suspicious but it must have been enough to scare the person off. Our room was thrown around in a rushed attempt to find some money but to our knowledge nothing is missing. The mattress was up, the closet doors were wide open, drawers ripped out, and suitcases rummaged through. No other room was touched.
We have a big pad lock that we are using in the time being until we can replace the old locks. We are not sure how much this will cost due to the way they secure the locks by welding them to the iron doors. We will also buy another pad lock just in case.
Overall We are in good spirits. It's laughable when you walk with God through situations like this. God has revealed that someone has a key and their desire was to steal money from us while we were away. We thank God that nothing was stolen but also that the person did not have time to lock the door behind him which exposed that he had a key. Also the person did not have time to put things back into order after looking. This way we knew exactly what they were going for. All of that work and nervousness just to end up with nothing. It's laughable really. How great it is to have a God who protects us from every ill-intention and how great it is to have a God who allows us to laugh at our enemies who rise against us.
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This is Julie who came with us on our very first trip to Liberia! She is now staying at the Elwou Orphanage and as a missionary using every opportunity to point people to our Father in Heaven.
In this picture she is giving the little girl a malaria test which requires a finger prick.
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Wiring the buildings together using the tree as a pole. The little boys staying at the Elwou love to help especially when they get to climb up the tree.
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Due to donation money we receive we were able to hire a drilling rig that could drill a proper well at the top of this hill we live on! The well will benefit the Kid's of Peace School, the Bryant family (our landlords), Jesse and I, and the community. Thank you all who donated! They drilled 110 feet through solid rock all the way down! The drillers said we should start a water company because the water is perfect mineral water. Wow! God is good.
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Jesse working hard on the Kingdom Earth Builders possible projects next dry season.
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Mcgill
We are so excited to see how God has been working in Mcgill. At 20 years old he has understood what it means to be a missionary. It all started after he graduated last year, he wants to become a medical doctor but without any funding he found himself stuck at home with no job. (Which is very common in the youth here.) He became very involved in a young church plant and helped with worship. At that time we were preparing to leave for Grand Bassa County to start construction for a ministry there, Mcgill said he wanted to come along to volunteer and gain some life experience. We agreed and for 2 weeks he lived with us in a small rented house within the village. After the 2 weeks we were preparing to leave to start the next project while the guys on ground would continue to rest of the work there. Mcgill wanted to stay behind and continue on the work he had started there. We got reports of him doing voluntary grass cutting, even though in Liberia there is no free volunteering, but Mcgill did. He attempted to start a Bible study and when no one came he found out that no one was able to tell time very well. So he went to them, he and a friend would go door to door to gather them all together at one house so they could discuss and read together. He hit another road block when he found out no one could read. So on top of him teaching them about the Bible and who God is he was asked to teach them to read. What a weight for a 20 year old. He personally experienced evil spirits and dreams for the first time in his life. (which for those of you who know me know that that's my area!) He was very frightened and called us. We traveled back to Grand Bassa to discuss it with him to encourage and reassure him. He no longer wanted to stay in that same house alone but he did not leave the area. God is really developing his skills and building him up. We are so excited to see how God will continue to use Mcgill in the future.
We have a friend from YWAM here in Liberia who does DTS (discipleship training school) and when we explained it to Mcgill he said he would like to go there for training. The schooling is 3 months and costs $300 USD. Would anyone be willing to sponsor him? The $300 is mostly for feeding and housing but may exclude travel costs. If you would like to help Mcgill send us a message or email. Thanks!
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Morris
Morris is a friend of ours who is a teacher at a school near our home. Morris is 24 and this past year was his first year of teaching. He attends our Bible study often and for the first time he came with a prayer request. He asked that we would pray for him as he was struggling with the corrupt ways that schools run here. He was very discouraged and even wanted to never go back to the school again. This school has been failing more and more each year and before he took a job there we warned him it would not be easy but it was the only school hiring at that time. Some of the problems he was seeing were students bribing teachers for grades, improper uniform, bold defiance, unjust punishments, and a student even came to school with a machete threatening to kill his teacher. He feels he has no authority in his classroom and the people in charge do nothing to change the condition in the school. One of the people in charge was seen beating teachers and staff with a switch. It's understandable that one may feel the need to not just walk away but run! We all prayed over Morris and asked that God would use him as the light in a dark place. We prayed for he and his students safety as well.
Please join us in praying for Morris in this trying time.
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Joseph
Joseph has been with us since the beginning of For the Lamb and he's still here working with us. He can run the block machine, meet with potential customers, run after materials, maintain the peace between worker spats, and can be the go between in communication issues. He also goes with us to different schools and business' who ask us for better self-sustainability and fighting against corruption. Joseph speaks Jesse's heart language, hard work and deep critical thinking. These two work so well together and sharpen each other on a daily basis.
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Bible study AH-HA's!
-Speaking out against (See-Sayers or diviners, and witchcraft)
-Speaking out against wrong doing and injustice
-Understanding women's role in the body of Christ and marriage
-What the gospel is
-Understanding other religions
This is one of our favorite parts about Bible study. When someone experiences an AH-HA moment about the Bible or God. It's when you see all the dots connecting. Or you see or realize something new that makes sense. We are blessed to be walking through life with this group!
Please pray for deeper understanding and for God's gentle hand to guide us through trials.
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Our Bible study group prayed over a young man from Joseph's village who came into Monrovia for medical treatment. He is not a Christian, he cannot read, and from our understanding his liver is failing which is associated to a drinking problem. I cannot pronounce his name let alone to spell it but he could use your prayers for physical healing and that he would come to know who the true Healer is.
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Could you help with these items?
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Tools
(Donations or monetary)
We try to purchase what we can in Liberia in order to support the local market, but there are also things that we need from the states
- Masonry Saw
- We need one or two good masonry saws and blades that we can use for our earth block construction work. This allows us to cut the blocks to the correct dimensions
- Trommel Screen/Sieve
- In order to be more effective in sifting our dirt for block production we are in need of a trommel screen/sieve. If anyone reading this has ideas to build one or would like to help purchase one that would be wonderful!
- For additional Block production needs you can check out our website https://forthelamb-liberia.org/specific-needs
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Other
-Reading / typing apps
-Most of our Bible study group have a need to learn to type well. We have one computer they could use but we are looking for software or an app that we could download that could be a good guide. Reading and phonics are lacking so much in Liberia, everyone wants to be able to read better and understand clearly. Again any software/material/app that lays out a guide would be very useful!
-Teaching material
-We have schools and teachers that are willing and open to try new things and different methods of teaching but their are little to no resources here. Worksheets, very very simple books, simple games, or puzzles, anything that can help a teacher to help his/her students to better understand.
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