Send a missionary to Sierra Leone during its Civil War? It made no sense. But it created a wave of church planting.

To many observers, it appeared foolhardy to send such a fruitful worker to such a hopeless nation. A lot of church planters in the Christian Fellowship Ministries, following prevailing wisdom, looked to plant churches in resource-rich England and South Africa.

But Pastor Harold Warner didn’t flinch when he launched firebrand preacher Alvin Smith into Sierra Leone in 1989. He had heard from God. And nearly three decades later, the results are dumbfounding.

The original church in Freetown has exploded to 80 churches. The nation that once was classified as the second poorest in the world now has planted churches in Liberia, Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Congo, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

Pastor Desmond Bell, from Sierra Leone, in Marseille France.

They have even sent three missionaries to Europe.

“To take people, to take young men and women from one of the poorest countries in the world and (for God to) say, ‘I’m going to shape and I’m going to fashion them because they are going to accomplish my purpose not only in their own nation but also beyond the boundaries,’ is one of the greatest privileges of life,” says Warner in a 2018 conference video. “I just sit back and chuckle because this has to be God.”

Not even the African pastors could believe how God would use them when, as young men, they converted to Christ in a ramshackle school building with no lights where they listened intently to Pastor Smith preach his heart.

Pastor Harold Warner from the Door Church in Tucson

“Pastor Smith was instilling into our spirit that we were going to all the world to preach the gospel. In the minds of many of us, we were like, ‘This is an impossible dream,’” says Edward Saffa, who took over the headquarter church in Freetown. “All of us were from nothing — nothing.”

Sierra Leone was a diamond rich nation racked by government corruption and successive civil wars. The average life expectancy was into the 30s, and people ate only one meal a day. The worst kind of malaria wreaked havoc on the population, and the guerrillas chopped off limbs of civilians to sow terror.

That’s the milieu into which Alvin Smith, a retired US Air Force helicopter pilot, injected himself with his wife Renee.

“We owe something to Pastor Smith who left America. He came in the time during the war. That was a lot of sacrifice,” says Aruna Bangura, now pastoring in Marseille, France. “When people are too educated, they become logical when it comes to serving God. But for us, we were just explosive. We want to go to church everyday. Whenever it is time to go to church, we were running to go to church. We were coming from distance.

“I can still remember that old rugged, dirty building. All the windows were battered. We were using candles. But there was a life coming out of that building. That’s how God works. God likes to do things the way man cannot do it.”

The young men who attended Smith’s sermons often lacked adequate clothes, but they didn’t lack zeal. Or maybe it was the absence of material distractions that helped them to center all their attention on God.

They had nothing, so they had nothing to lose when they put their faith in God. Pastor Smith challenged the youth to get married, regardless of their financial situation. Some of the leaders today set up cardboard partitions in their parents’ living rooms to consummate their wedding. Read the rest of the story of improbable revival from Sierra Leone.

After Africa, they chose a medical career

Cathy Kayne at her graduation, with her family.

After helping on two medical missions in Africa, Cathy Kayne decided to become a registered nurse – and that she did at 56 years of age.

The Culver City resident is part of a lesser touted statistic for Lighthouse Medical Missions: the number of volunteers who make medicine a profession.

To date, there are at least three doctors and half a dozen nurses who got their first taste of dispensing medicines in the hinterlands of West Africa where the word “acute” defines medical needs almost as much as “chronic.”

Kayne went to Sierra Leone in the spring of 2005 and to Burundi in the summer of 2008 to help in a logistics capacity

“It brought me a lot of joy to be out in the field and involved in helping people in a medical capacity,” Kayne said. “It caused an old childhood dream to resurface. I had wanted to be a nurse but didn’t get the chance to pursue it. When I went to Africa, I realized this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” Read the rest of the article.

Marathoning doctor raises funds for African medical missions

At the sprightly age of 61 years old, Santa Monica pediatrician Bob Hamilton is running the L.A. Marathon this month – and he’s subjecting himself to this grueling pain just to raise funds for medical missions in Africa.

“You just do it,” Hamilton said. “You have to keep moving or you become inert. It’s an opportunity to further the cause.”

Then, with a mere 10 days to recover, he’s leading his 23rd group of doctors, nurses and other volunteers into the most desolate corners of the earth. Twenty-two brave souls are heading to Mwanza, Tanzania, March 25 – Apirl 6 where they’ll diagnose patients and hand out free meds, toys and reading glasses.

At his age most doctors are thinking only about visiting the golf course, but Hamilton shows no signs of slowing. His Lighthouse Medical Missions has become a regular contributor to health in West Africa. A container of food and supplies recently arrived there from Hamilton and crew.

Read the rest of the article here. This is my article that originally posted in the Santa Monica Patch. Dr. Bob goes to my church.

Those people who are dying from Ebola… We know them.

Cheryl Tormey (behind) and Dal Basile, Lighthouse Medical Missions volunteers, with food to be shipped out to Sierra Leone.

With Ebola on the one hand and beheadings on the other, Santa Monica-based Lighthouse Medical Missions cancelled its Fall trip and instead is sending a container of food and medical supplies to West Africa this week.

Dr. Robert Hamilton – a Santa Monica pediatrician who’s braved dangers since 1998 to provide care to some of the neediest people on the planet – was originally eying a trip to Lebanon to care for Syrian refugees. But then jihadists began killing Westerners in retaliation for the U.S.-led air war against the Islamic State.

On the other hand, the usual Fall trip to West Africa was also ruled out because of rampaging Ebola infections.

So Dr. Bob, as locals affectionately call him, figured he could do the most good by simply sending supplies to Sierra Leone, where he has contact with 100s of pastors and church members who virtually work as permanent Lighthouse staff to help local needs 365 days a year. Lighthouse Medical Missions has realized 20 clinics, almost all in Africa, at a total cost of $1.5 million, Dr. Bob said.

Read the rest of the article and find out how to pitch in:  Help with Ebola.

Less than two and a half men

Pastor Ralph played Scrooge in the Lighthouse Church’s recent play

Prayer brings a sparkle of beauty to ugly surroundings — photo thanks to Ben Rogers Blog

Today there are more than 100 churches in West Africa from our mission. Twenty-five years ago, there were only two.

Two men sparked raging revival from Sierra Leone when it was the second-poorest nation in the world. Pastor Alvin Smith planted a church in Freetown. Pastor Ralph Bowen planted a church in Kabala.

Photo thanks to Barnstorming

Now their progeny are pastoring in nations scattered across Western Africa — one is even pastoring in France! What fired such unimaginable revival? Prayer did.

Part of the reason why they had such success was because they basically had no other resource outside of prayer.

I remember my own foray into missions. We lacked finances. So what could I do? I could pray — that is all. And so pray I did. And God bonfired revival for us!

Photo thanks to Candy Concourse

Nobody wants scarcity. But scarcity was a blessing. As a matter of fact, prayer brought in great resources!

Now, I live in the States. Inundated by resources, I struggle to break the lackadaisical attitude that chokeholds my mind.

Are you languishing in lack? Rejoice and pray! Is abundance suffocating you? Cry out to God that the blessing may never replace the Blesser.

Prayer drove all great revivals in the past. Prayer will drive them today.