Liberia Education Update

LIBERIA EDUCATION UPDATE

OCTOBER 2011

Two very important women in Liberia share the birthday of October 29- Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and my godmother, Bishop Mai Roberts.

On the morning of October 29, 2011 I saw a line of hundreds of people including the blind, crippled and elderly leaving the President’s house after coming to wish her a happy 73rd birthday. That afternoon I went to my godmother’s house for her 90th birthday celebration.

Bishop Roberts’ living room and yard were filled with friends, relatives and church members who came to thank her for allowing herself to be used as an instrument of the love of Jesus Christ. Mai Roberts is the Bishop of Faith Healing Temple on Bushrod Island near Monrovia. During Liberia’s civil war she was at the church with about 1000 people from many tribes who sought refuge. Bishop Roberts told me that no one was hurt during the several months they stayed at the church. She continues to join Liberians in prayer for peace- political peace and the peace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

On October 11, 2011, Liberians went to the polls to vote for their representatives, senators and president. There were 16 presidential candidates. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of the Unity Party received the majority of the votes- 43.7%. The Congress for Democratic Change received 32.9% of the votes. In order to win the election, a candidate must have 50% plus 1 vote. Since this did not happen, Liberians returned to the polls for a presidential run-off election on November 8, 2011. On November 15th , after ballot boxes were collected from all over the Republic, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was announced the winner with over 90% of the votes. From my trips to visit rural schools, I can appreciate the challenge of reaching villages by canoe, on foot and on dirt roads to deliver and collect ballots.

Less than half of the population is literate, so the candidates’ photographs are on the ballots. Voters marked the candidates of their choice. The Liberia Annual Conference supports the Liberian Government’s efforts to reach Liberian children, youth and adults with education in order to create a literate society.

During the June 2011 dedication of the community school building in Boegeezay, Rivercess County, I thanked President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for her commitment to education in Liberia. I also reminded her of her quote, “You know, if we get the resources, the technology, the manpower, we can fix the streets in six months. But we have the problem of a value system that has been destroyed- where violence, the dishonesty, the dependency is what has characterized our nation over the past twenty years. That is the more difficult problem. We’re going to have to start at the elementary school level teaching the children ethics, morality, values.” (After the Warlords, by Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, March 27, 2006)

The school in Boegeezay is one of the schools built by our Community Development Program funded by the Central United Methodist Church of Oslo, Norway. In the photo, the President is seated next to her pastor, Rev. Erlene Thompson, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Monrovia. We are truly part of a connectional and caring church.

You can give to missionary support in my name by giving through The Advance to Advance # 3021129. Send checks to:

Advance GCFA
P.O. Box 9068, GPO
New York, NY 10087-9068

Please include the Advance # in the memo of the check. You can also give directly online at

Thank for your prayers and support.

Blessings,

Helen Roberts-Evans