Our Latest News from Sierra Leone

In November this year we will be opening our latest project aimed at reducing the extremely high death rate in both mothers and newborn babies in the remote villages we are aiming to reach with the full gospel of Jesus Christ.

• 1 in 6 babies don't survive birth
• 1 in 3.5 under 5's don't survive
• 1 in 50 mothers die giving birth

The grandmother and the orphaned girl triplets

We have been asked by the Department Welfare if we could take in triplets whos mother died giving birth in the Medicine Sans Frontier Hospital at Godama near Bo. They are all girls, one of which is not thriving. When all 3 are well enough we be taking them in. It has not been possible to find 3 mothers who are already breast feeding who could take on feeding these little girls.

• Health for the one poorly baby
• Regular financial support for the 2 carers
• Finance for the formula milk
  

At the end of May 2009 a severe storm swept through the city of Bo, taking one of our church plants with it. There was about 70 in the congregation. Thanks to the response to an Appeal in early June we are happy to tell you that the church is now partially rebuilt.

The new church partially rebuilt as of June 2009

The site of the orginal church blown away by a storm in May 2009

The original church was bursting at the seems and we have been wanting to have a larger more waterproof structure for some time although constrained by lack of funds and also the landlord was not sympathetic to a Christian church.

God seems to have had other plans as to how it was all going to happen!

On the night of 25th May 2009 a fierce storm swept the tarpaulin roof, stick structure and bamboo walls away leaving only the concrete base behind.

Soon after our appeal we had responses from Bangor Community Church here in our home town and the Oaks Community Church in North East Derbyshire, England. Together they provided the funds to start rebuilding the church on a new site. Barbara and I extend to you on behalf of Pastor Amos and his congregation their deepest thanks for your love and compassion.

The new site owners have indicated that we can use the site with the view to purchasing the land at some future date when more funds become available.

Potential congregation members!

The first service held in the new church had 90 people compared to the previous 70! Praise God.

That Sunday we attended we can testify to God's healing mercy to one old lady whose sight was restored. The look of joy on her face told it all. Thank you Jesus.

For a long time now we have been missing a large piece of the jigsaw of our heaven sought strategy for reaching the lost with the the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ - clean water. Recently we came across two lovely people Steve and Jennifer Lorch who run Hydromissions. They are missionaries so they understand the difficulty of providing wells in the remote African bush where, even if the machinery is available, it is impossible to get it to these far out villages. They came up with a what I believe is a heaven sent design for creating borehole wells by hand with equipment that is affordable, can be carried by hand, can be maintained in-country and above all is a low cost process.

Through Steve and Jen they were able to put us incontact with a local ministry who actually had one of these kits in Sierra Leone. Through Robert and Ruth Search of Living Water International we were able to borrow this kit from Pastor Samuel Menyonger of Hope Universal.

For a total cost of £75 GBP or $120 USD we put in a twenty foot borehole, complete with bucket, pully and concrete platform. This is 1/50th of the cost of getting a hand dug and pump head well installed by a contractor. All the labour was provided by the village itself, even the children were involved!

See it all in this 6 minute video.

David and I would like to thank everyone for their love in praying for us and for your financial support as none of this would happen without you.

In another article, David will be sharing about how we were able to provide a borehole well in one of the remote villages, giving cool, clean, virus and worm free water.

Mum and Baby - survivors

Since God called David and I to Sierra Leone eight years ago my heart has been so broken and troubled by the ratio of these precious women and children dying in childbirth. 1:8 are at lifetime risk of death and in the area we are working in it is even higher, also 1:4 children die under the age of five because of malnutrition, dirty water and poor hygiene.

We cannot change Sierra Leone overnight but over the years we have worked on building relationships with the local people and far out villages by getting to know them, building schools, planting churches and doing health care programmes like de-worming and vitamin programmes.

We have seen many people saved, healed and delivered and Gods light shine in these dark places of Africa and bring hope and salvation to a lost and desperate people. As we sit with these people and listen to their tragic stories of lost loved ones and children, I have held them, cried with them, and prayed with them, but only God can bring peace and heal their broken hearts. As I look around I often think, there, but for the grace of God go I.

Most people in Sierra Leone cannot afford medical care and pregnant women do not see a doctor or midwife throughout their pregnancy. There are traditional birth attendants (TBA's), local women with little or no training, who assist pregnant women for a small fee but most pregnant women don't seek help until they are in labour which is too late to detect complications and the distance to far to get to a hospital. Some women are in labour for days which often ends in a stillborn baby and for the woman a fistula which leaves her incontinent of urine which means she is a total outcast in her family and village, she has no future and no hope without God.

Two weeks ago we visited the fistula ward of the local hospital, there were 56 women there, only four of them had live babies the rest were stillborn, the youngest was 17 years old the oldest 29. We held a service in the ward, I spoke about the woman with the issue of blood touching the hem of Jesus garment and the way to God by the cross, 50 gave their lives to Jesus to who we give God all the glory, who gives these beautiful girls a hope and a future. We also prayed for all of them.

We went back to see them after a couple of days and one of the girls we prayed for who had a fistula, kidney stones and other complications had been in hospital since April was up and about, urinary catheter and IV infusion removed, totally healed, her whole countenance had changed, praise His wonderful name. Some of the girls were limping badly possibly because of nerve damage, God also healed them but the greatest miracle of all is their salvation.

Beulah Shields and Sharon Bryans from West Church, Bangor

Women and TBA Training

Bealah demonstrating how to listen to the heart beat of an unborn baby

We went to three villages in the bush, the farthest about a 7 mile walk (see it on Google Maps) from where we had to leave the 4x4. Cynthia our head of ministry shared the gospel with them and then we went into teaching. Then we prayed with all the people. It was received very well by the villager's and we saw several saved and healed. In Bandawa one of the villages, where we already have a primary school for 65 kids, we saw 5 people with eye problems healed and a 5 year old girl who couldn't speak, spoke for the first time.

On our way to one of the villages we met a girl with very bad conjunctivitis, she was in so much pain, we prayed for her and when we saw her two days later her eyes were much improved, what a privilege to be working with the poor, the orphans and the widows, and to be present when God shows up. God is such an awesome God and I give Him all the Glory and thanks for all that He has done and is going to do.

We are praying that we will be able to start building on our land very soon to bring in more orphans, street girls, offer health education, maternity care and a clean safe place for these women to give birth to live healthy babies.

Please continue to pray for us and for the precious people of Sierra Leone.

See more in this 4 minute video:

We are bring with us 2 midwives, Sharon Bryans and Beulah Shields from West Church here in Bangor. They will be joining with our local team in bringing the Fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to very poor remote villages, many miles into the bush, where for some villages it will be our first visit.

Specificially Barbara, Sharon and Beulah will be doing 'Pregnancy Awareness Training' with women and Traditional Birth Attendants in these and surrounding villages. Through lack of knowledge many women and their newborn babies in Sierra Leone die during or shortly after childbirth. It has the highest maternal death rate in the world, they have one in eight chance of dying in childbirth.

If that's not bad enough around 1 in 3 under fives don't survive. Two very vulnerable groups, where outreaching with Fullness of the Gospel of Jesus makes a difference - we pray for what is in heaven to be on earth for these precious people.

David will be piloting a low-technology method of drilling bore-hole wells to provide clean water in these villages. Around (£100 or $150) a well compared to several thousand. They drink slow moving swamp water, containing many worms and parasites where many of their problems come from.

• Safe Travel
• Health for everyone
• For David's health specifically - he is recovering from a chest infection and that his debilitating persistant cough will go
• Favour with government (Customs, Health and Welfare)
• See many healed, brought into the Kingdom and discipled
• See our new villages churches established
• Successful understanding of the Pregnancy Awareness Training and that lives are saved
• We strike water in our well drilling pilot
• That the rains hold off to allow us to get out to these villages
• Successful uptake of the de-worming programme
• That we identify more kids who do not go to school
• Pray that we get so many more kids enrolled that we need to extend our remote village Primary school
• That our prison visit will be marked by the fruit of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
• Ongoing projects: The 2 primary schools, the 4 church plants, the 2 orphan care centres, the Baby Rescue Centre, the vocational training of vulnerable women, the School of Ministries.
• That the new 10.5 acre site will be cleared and ready for building soon

The rebuilding of our church plant that was destroyed by a storm 2 weeks ago is underway and we should be able to bring you back pictures and footage of the progress.

Thank you all for your devotion in holding up this work in prayer. Without prayer we often wonder how little we could achieve for the Kingdom of God.

Richest blessings in Jesus precious name,
David and Barbara Craig

The structure was very light and hardly big enough for its growing congregation.

So that we don't lose members we need to try and get a more substantial structure in place very soon. The pastor, Amos, has worked so hard to build up his church it would be extremely sad to see his hard work fade, especially now with the onset of the rains

We received this email today from Cynthia, Fresh Hope's Head of Ministry Development in Sierra Leone today (27th May 2009) which best describes the situation.

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An urgent plea.

A violent storm that blew across our city of Bo yester night (Monday 25) left quite a number of houses blown away or partially destroyed. One of the badly affected building is the Bo Number 2 church plant building, a temporary structure build about a year ago to permit residents living in that area have access to a place for worship, especially on Sundays, was altogether blown away.

The collapse has happened at a very crucial moment, a time when increasing number of converts are being won for Christ and at a time when the raining season has begun with no certainty of meeting for fellowship without been disrupted by the rain.

We do hereby on behalf of this promising church plant appeal for assistance of zinc roofing, cement, sand and stone for foundation blocks, while in the meantime, the brethren could provide sticks and mats to give them a temporary wall against the rains. They have by faith begun fetching sticks already for the rebuilding.

A favourable term of lease on the piece of land has been reached that can permit us to build without fear of loosing the building in future.

Sticks and mats for a temporal wall and labour is said to be gladly undertaken by the church plant members in order to get their fellowship restored. The zinc for the roof and the cement foundation would be for permanent use.

Hoping to hear from you and to see you soon,

Yours sincerely,

Cynthia & Michael

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We ask you please to  prayerfully consider contributing to getting this church going again. we have divided the cost up into chunks hoping that it will be more achievable for small groups and churches to support.

Donation Methods

All the details of how to make a donation can be found at the following links

• Internet Transfer (UK only)
• International wired transfer
• UK Cheque
• Credit Card or Paypal from the Home page

We would appreciate your prayer support for 2 of our babies in care at Heaven's Garden Baby Rescue Centre in Bo, Sierra Leone.

Betty and Peace have both been admitted to the specialist Theraputic Feeding Unit at the Medicine Sans Frontiere Hospital. They have not been putting on weight need this pecial care. Bothe these babies are very small for their age and are at a very delicate time of their development.

Peace is also recovering from a hernia operation five weeks ago.

Betty - abandoned on our doorstep

Peace - one of 2 surviving triplets