Liberia: How a rural Christian Mission School here is benefiting from 1 boy’s misfortune thru U.S. philanthropists

By James Kokulo Fasuekoi|Editor-Publisher

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY AUTHOR

Vonzon, Cape Mount-It has been ten years now since 15-year-old Obediah Gaye returned to Liberia after he underwent a surgical operation in the U.S. during which doctors successfully removed a growth otherwise called, “mass muscle,” that had been gradually developing and spread around the teenager’s mouth area as he grew up.

He was only about 4-year-old at the time he was flown abroad so doctors could do the procedure and stayed in the U.S. for 5 years. He needed the operation in order to be able to live normal life, says Rev. Love Gibson, a staff working with Samaritan Purse-Liberia, who served as Obediah’s caseworker and did the paperwork for the boy’s trip.   

Meanwhile, something else happened while Obediah was in the USA; the teen’s visit forged a strong bond between himself and some kindhearted people, and one was a philanthropist named, Lisa Ellen St. John and her San Diego California-based social services group known as Liberian Perseverance Group. They are reported to have gone above and beyond, assisting the boy, at the time of his surgery.   

During his post-surgery era, after he got healed and returned home, cash and food assistance followed through to the Assembly of God’s Mission (AGM), located near Vonzon, a town situated along Liberia’s international western highway in Grand Cape Mount, where the boy together with five other siblings now live.

Rather than focus on Obediah alone, Lisa and her group now ship out things for everyone residing at this mission’s campus-aids that now touch lives of hundreds of kids living at AG Mission which sits along Liberia’s international western highway to Sierra Leone.

This AG Mission is a boarding school with a student population of 300. Of this total figure, 137 students, mostly adolescents, are orphans. This leaves Rev. Joseph Zubah and his wife who run the mission with no other choice but work harder to meet the kids’ needs-often picking from where philanthropic groups like Lisa’s stop.

To be able to smoothly run this boarding school the couple, in most cases, have had to engage in other business ventures such as pig farming, just to provide care for parentless children. It’s a choice both said, they reached a little more than a decade ago, after they built the school in this western coastal region and saw the growing needs for parentless kids in Liberia.

Suitably located less than a quarter mile west of Vonzon, alternatively spelled, “Vonzuon” or “Vonzula”, the campus occupies a small section of the 11 acres given to the AG Mission Church by ethnic Golas and Vais of this region whose dominant religion is Islam.  

As recently as February 16, 2925, Rev. Gibson, accompanied by this documentary writer-photographer, was again on the road, taking a pick-up loaded of food items to the mission which will help at least for a month. The items included rice, beans, flour, oil, can vegetables and fish cans. It was Gibson’s third such trip to the mission since December 1.  

Again in January, Rev. Gibson, a relief worker with Samaritan Purse for more than 19 years, and Lisa’s Liberia-relief-coordinator, dropped off a pick-up load of similar items to the campus as supplemental as support for the mission lately has trickled down thus forcing Pastor Zubah and his wife to turn to other sources such doing gardening and raising pigs for sale in order to meet the mission’s needs.  

Yet in early December 2024, Gibson dropped off 4 large U-Haul-square boxes containing nearly everything including toys for the kids. This batch contained pants, jackets, shoes, backpacks, toothpastes, stuffed animals, floor mats and blankets that kids need most in this forested region often cold at nighttime even in the summer. It made the kids’ Christmas brighter and joyful.  

Traveling on the convoy to drop off food items, cloths, and shoes for these kids at AG Mission near Vonzon can be emotional at times, especially for someone as this writer-photographer who has lived in a developed nation such as America where people enjoy plenty of everything, a country where even pets are enjoying things like health insurance which is still farfetched for these kids at AGM.

In fact, days before Rev. Gibson and team delivered the February gift from Lisa and her group, Rev. Zubah indicated he had checked their food warehouse and noticed they were closed to running out of food and therefore asked the children to join them and pray so food could come.

They all prayed that a benevolent individual or group could go in and help provide food or cash in time before their food could finish and fortunately, Pastor Gibson showed up with a pick-up load from Lisa and her group.

When the truck first pulled into the AG Mission compound, during the December 1st drop-off, close to 40 children (between 12-16) showed up quickly in the village square, ready to haul the food. This happened after the campus’s director Rev. Zubah called out for help! In less than 20 minutes the truck was emptied, and the goods parked under the palaver hut.

Until the December shipment, Lisa, according to Pastor Gibson, had been sending cash assistance to the center to help with the kids’ upkeep during the past three years. It appears Lisa wanted to surprise the kids as Christmas approached and that’s when she shipped clothes, shoes, pants, jackets and just about anything the children needed including blankets. 

Like most kids living at this mission, Obediah, now a 5th grader, comes from an impoverished family in Johnsonville, Monrovia. With no source of income his parents, accordingly, had been finding it difficult to care for him and the rest of his other siblings since he returned from the U.S.A. The parents, eventually agreed to let the kids move into a foster home and AG Mission, ideally located in western Liberia, was chosen.

The decision seems to have been the one made on the children’s behalf. During our multiple trips to the mission over a three-month period, we found Obadiah much lively, and his siblings, happier. He has even gotten his own vibe in the form of a rap music which he uses to entertain peers. He mimics his favorite rapper and makes some wild dance moves too which are posted by sponsors like Lisa and Liberia Perserverance group.  

Also, there’s something else that is quite noticeable here among campus’s staff and the children who live here for all appear to love and embrace Obadiah and the reason apparently could be because it is through him that the mission is getting this much support from the USA.

Quiet and reserved, Obadiah seems quite aware of this truth and occasionally puts up some attitude along the way especially when things aren’t done his way in the village.

Although he doesn’t voice this out, but as a child, he seems to want to be directly involved with the distribution of relief materials donated by Lisa and her California-based group, meaning, he wishes to decide what goes to who.

Rev. Gibson, a humble, intelligent and God-Fearing person, has noticed this attitude and tries, in a way to go along at times, mainly by extending preferential treatment not only to Obadiah Gaye, but also the rest of his siblings living at this mission. He does so by first letting Obadiah be the first to pick items of his choice from every new arrival, followed by his brothers and sisters.

At the Dec. 1st delivery, Rev. Gibson had Obadiah, and his junior sister (the only two present that day,) first pick their choice of pants, jackets, blankets, mats, shoes and stuffed animals, before allowing other kids to pick.

Moments before this distribution Obadiah looked crabby and could barely respond to conversation from people including his peers. He seems to hold an obsession for military stuff and by sheer coincidence Lisa had marked Obadiah’s name on a military jacket she had shipped just for him and it was the first item Bro. Gabion picked from the box and presented to him.

Obadiah shared a broad smile, took pictures displaying his gifts and thanking “Mother Lisa” and her group for helping him and other kids that are in need. After giving his short speech, Sis. Ruth Gaye (not related) with whom he appeared to have found favor, helped him find shoes and other items he wanted.

Obadiah gets preferential treatment too whenever their sponsors wired cash for the purchase of food and other ingredients for their campus. During Feb. 16th delivery, for example, Obediah’s face beamed with a broad smile the moment Father Joseph Zubah ordered that he alone be given a 25kg bag of clean rice, a tin of oil, plus some fish cans that he would use whenever he feels hungry; that’s before general meals are ready.  

Notwithstanding, Bro. Gibson sought to explain before the crowd under the palaver hut that although Lisa’s goodwill gesture may have started with “one man” who is “Obediah,” yet, this kindness, he maintained, isn’t intended to “benefit only one man and his siblings” but rather, everyone living at the boarding mission school. 

JESUS CHRIST IS COMING SOON! ARE YOU READY?