We bring you this update on the partnership with the Maranatha Pentecostal Mission (MPM) full of praise to God for His grace and favour. Restoring a relationship which had been so strong and encompassed so many amazing people and projects in the past could have been a really difficult challenge – expectations can be misunderstood, emphases and contexts change, relationships need rebuilt or begun and funding resources can be different. But we are grateful to God that He has guided us through those early months with His grace and for the support from churches and individuals which has been truly amazing. And a big, big thanks to William Curle for his unwavering perseverance and hard work!
When William and Callum were in Sierra Leone they were repeatedly faced with the needs of MPM teachers on minimal wages. Some were even resorting to panning for gold in their spare time in an effort to find other sources of income, although that produced scant reward! So the first funding we have started to send has been to supplement the income of 90 teachers. This has been sent to cover 6 months teaching and will continue to be sent each quarter of the year. We will continue to review both the amount per teacher and number of teachers supported to work with MPM to provide help in the best way regarding the schools and teachers. MPM sent the following message, “Thank you very much and we are very happy for this support. We pray that God will continue to do all He can to give you what it takes to move this mission to where both you and we want it to go.”
Historically MPM have had land for farming. Support was given for this in the form of tractors many years ago. However, the recurrent problem with farming machinery is how to manage its upkeep and to replace parts and the machinery fell into disrepair and the farm was left unused. We want to ensure any farming programme and support is done in a way that is sustainable agriculturally, economically and environmentally. We are therefore working with Just Earth, a Christian organisation whose mission is to ‘partner with local churches as community hubs and founded on God’s Kingdom principles of life in all its fulness: spiritual, economic, social and environmental.’ There is quite a bit to work through if we are to see this as the best way forward. We have recently met with Just Earth online to introduce them and MPM to each other and are in the process of arranging for the 2 organisations to meet in Sierra Leone. We will keep you informed of how this goes but are hopeful that this will result not just in the renewed use of the farm but as an evangelistic outreach to the community and a model of good stewardship of God’s earth in a country which is losing its natural resources at an alarming rate.
We have sent some interim funding to enable MPM to make use of some of the land for the next planting season until the Just Earth project gets off the ground and they are very happy to be able, once again, to start to use this resource to grow crops.
The third main area of work presently underway is looking at church leaders’ training. Prior to the civil war there was a bible training centre located at Makump. This involved residential students as well as the upkeep of the building and the funding of the staff. When the funding stopped the bible training centre was unable to continue and we want to develop a partnership model that continues the desire, before the civil war began, for there to be less reliance on external inputs and more partnership where both external support via Comfort International but also investment of time and resources from the MPM churches occur. Discussions are now at an advanced stage and we hope that a sustainable programme of teaching Comfort International have been using in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and DRC may be implemented soon. We are also looking at leaders of supporting churches of MPM in Scotland becoming involved in this training.
We want to thank you for your interest and support. If you have any queries about the work with MPM please do get in touch and if you would like to be more involved just let us know.