Virginia Baptists are continuing years of assistance to Liberia through “Seeds of Renewed Hope,” which will provide sustenance to people in that West African nation.
Virginia Baptists are being encouraged to donate vegetable seeds of all kinds, as well as school supplies.
Liberia is now considered the poorest country in the world. Twenty-five years of civil war, beginning with the assassination of its president, William Tolbert Jr., who was a former president of the Baptist World Alliance, has left the country with virtually no sustainable infrastructure.
Almost half of the country's three million inhabitants live in or near the capital city of Monrovia. The high unemployment rate (85 percent), high infant mortality rate (156/
1,000), life expectancy under 40 years and small amount of arable land (4 percent), all speak of the dire situation in Liberia.
“But there is hope—renewed hope,” says Murphy Terry, director of missions for the Augusta Baptist Association and coordinator of Seeds of Hope.
The civil war ended with the resignation of President Charles Taylor. United Nations peace keepers now occupy Liberia, enabling the country to elect its first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Order is slowly replacing the chaos of civil war.
“But normalcy is a long way off,” says Terry. “Let's bring renewed hope through Liberian Baptists to the larger community through ‘Seeds of Renewed Hope,' while bearing witness to the hope we have in Jesus.”
Virginia Baptists have a long history of assisting the needy in Liberia. The executive director of the Liberia Baptist Convention, Emile Sam-Peal, serves as a Virginia Baptist Kingdom Advance Ambassador. He is also a vice president of the Baptist World Alliance's Baptist World Aid. Sam-Peal will help coordinate the seed distribution in Liberia.
For more information, contact Terry at (540) 223-0071 or at [email protected].
Send school supplies and seeds by April 1 to the Augusta Baptist Association, ATTN: Murphy Terry, 406 W. Frederick St., Staunton, VA 24401.