Calvin Birch looked from the muzzle of the rifle to the face of the angry man who pointed it at him. He stammered, “I can't just leave her here!” The dead woman in his arms had been hit by a rocket fired by Liberian rebels. Severely injured, she ran to Calvin pleading for help. He and another man transported her as speedily as humanly possible in a wheel barrow to the closest hospital several miles away, taking turns pushing. When they finally arrived, the hospital had been closed.
Not long afterward she asked Calvin to protect her body from being desecrated and she died.
The soldier holding the rifle had ordered him to leave the dead woman, but Birch replied, “I can't just leave her here!” Incensed that he resisted, the soldier retorted, “You will leave or you will be as dead as she is!” With great guilt and reluctance, he left.
Calvin A. Birch, pastor of the African Christian Community Church (ACCC), sat in his study, housed at Hatcher Memorial Baptist Church in Richmond, and remembered that day several years ago in Liberia. “I still feel guilty about leaving her body there, but there was nothing else I could do,” he muses. Billy Davis and I, the only other people in the room, voiced our support.
Davis, recently retired from the Richmond Baptist Association staff, remembers the first time he met Birch. In May of 2000, he traveled to Liberia as a member of a Virginia Baptist Mission Board partnership missions team. Birch had impressed the team as a young man who had great ministry potential.
A few months later, in October, they met again when Calvin came to the States to study at Richmond's Virginia Union University and School of Theology, where Davis served as his field work mentor.
It had always been Birch's intention to return to Liberia when he graduated. By this time, however, the civil war in Liberia made that impossible. Discouraged and confused about his ministry future, he talked with Davis and Hatcher Memorial pastor Michael Poole. Both suggested to him that he consider a ministry to African immigrants in Richmond. Hatcher Memorial offered their chapel for worship space and three years ago the church began.
The ACCC now has a membership of 160, with nearly 60 attending each Sunday. “One problem we have is that most of our people have low-paying jobs that require them to work at least every other weekend. That limits their attendance,” acknowledges Birch.
It also limits their giving. The African immigrants, who make up the majority of the members, have resettled in Richmond as refugees. Many are from war-ravaged countries where they experienced unimaginable atrocities. “Ninety percent of our congregants are low-income earners whose paychecks can barely take them to the next payday,” said Birch. Most members are from Christian backgrounds in their homelands. In addition to Liberia, members come from the Sudan, Sierra Leone and Ghana. “A Nigerian couple is visiting,” the pastor said hopefully.
Being blessed with space made available to them by the Hatcher Memorial Church, the ACCC has established a clothes closet and is preparing to begin a food pantry. Birch's dream, however, is to begin a multi-faceted program called the Barnabas Project designed to meet the unique needs of African immigrants.
“We offer after-school tutoring, but we need help bringing the rooms up to standard,” notes Birch. “The rooms have not been used for some time and some have water damage to the plaster and paint. Hatcher has repaired the places where the water was leaking, but we are hopeful that other churches will come as a mission project to help us restore the rooms to make them suitable for tutoring.”
Another essential in Birch's Barnabas Project is what he calls trauma healing. In Liberia, the civil war lasted more than seven years. During this time basic human services were disrupted and schools closed. An entire generation of children will never recover from their educational losses. Compounding the problems caused by their lack of education, however, is the post traumatic stress many of them experience.
“Some of these people have witnessed their fathers or other family members killed before their eyes,” explains Birch. Others saw babies ripped from pregnant women's abdomens merely to settle bets soldiers had made about the gender of the infant. Gangs of youths acquired guns and began to break into homes at will to steal and murder. There was no civil authority to prevent this nor court system to bring them to justice. “Agencies that brought refugees here helped them find work,” Birch points out, “but they did nothing to ease the post traumatic stress.” His pastor's heart yearns to bring healing to those members of the African refugee community who continue to be troubled by what they experienced.
Other features of the Barnabas Project include emergency assistance, educational counseling and guidance, English proficiency and statewide comprehensive family support.
Birch is hopeful that the Barnabas Project will be granted non-profit status and be eligible for grants to fund the initiatives outlined. But they are not holding their breath until government help arrives.
“We are issuing a Macedonian call to churches who will hear us and come to help,” Birch explains.
One has to wonder how many Virginia Baptists felt called to go to Africa as a missionary at some point in their lives, but for some reason they were not qualified to be appointed. Now Africa has come to them and willingness to serve is the only appointment necessary.