Village outreach was a part of SAVE’s earliest activities in Sierra Leone, activated through our Adopt-A-Village program. After more than a decade in our original village, we updated our thinking and philosophies regarding engaging the many unreached people of Sierra Leone. We found that one of our long-time friends in Freetown has been growing impressively. So after prayer and multiple discussions and Board meetings we decided to partner with Bethel World Outreach in the area of church planting. To give you an idea of their effectiveness, see the following report of their activity in 2018 upon receiving initial grants from SAVE.

Report from Bethel World Outreach

We distributed the money to our regional overseers in the provinces with a mandate of each of them to plant at least one village church. Five of them took the money to plant a total of at least 5 churches in villages. But they ended up Planting 13 churches as follows:

  1. Rogballan Village – Port Loko District
  2. Rochain Village – Karene District
  3. Royella Village – Port Loko District
  4. Mabetty Village – Bombali District
  5. Monday Village – Kono District
  6. Wangay village – Bombali District
  7. Manogeiya – Kenema District
  8. Bayama – Kenema District
  9. Tongo – Kenema District
  10. Fonindu –  Bo District
  11. Turadu village – Kailahun District
  12. Kissy Kenema village – Kailahun District

I have attached just few of the pictures of the outreaches they did to plant the churches. More pictures will come later and I will forward them to you. 

For your information, most of these churches now need their own permanent places of worship. We found out that we can use the local materials to build some the structures and all we need to pay for is the roof. So with $1,500 we can build a church structure in any of these villages. 

So currently Bethel has over 90 Churches and we hope to round it up to 100 and above by the end of the year. 

Regarding short term mission trips from ZF, that would be highly welcomed and appreciated. We normally have our long-distance Pastors’ Training to provide theological training for our rural pastors every six months through our Bible School. That is an area we need some support because it is very expensive to bring Pastors from the provinces to the city and host them for two weeks, provide materials and pay their tuition and send them back. 

But let me know what you want us to do and we can always plan to have people come for a short term mission.   Thanks for your support. 

Bishop Julius Laggah
General Secretary BWOMI2nd Diocesan Bishop (Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria)

Future Directions

SAVE engaged with Bethel in their Medical Mission Outreach in 2020, combining SAVE’s funding and experience with medical missions, and Bethel’s reach into the furthest outposts of Sierra Leone, and their members’ significant commitment to expand Gospel penetration to up-country villages.

While follow-up is being re-scheduled due to the Covid Pandemic, there are plans to revisit the Magbety area where the outreach occurred, building up the local church started by Bethel, and then identify the best ways to leverage these learnings to other districts of Sierra Leone.