Austintown church group helps in Africa

By Linda Linonis

Helping people of poverty-stricken Sierra Leone, Africa, is mission of church.

The cost was $2,200 for each member of the mission team at Highway Tabernacle Church, 3000 S. Raccoon Road, Austintown, to go to Sierra Leone, Africa. That’s about eight and one-half times the annual income — $260 — of the average person in the country of 5.5 million people, who endured a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.

Ordinary people of Sierra Leone, which is rich in natural resources, can’t fathom spending that amount of money when 75 percent of them live on less than $2 a day. Trade in “blood diamonds” perpetuated the devastating civil war, said the Rev. Jonathan Moore, senior pastor.

Though the country is mired in poverty and everything from infrastructure to basic school supplies is needed, three first-time mission team members, Chuck Swanson and Helen and Gene Helton, said they found a happy people.

“When we gave soccer balls to a school, they were so thrilled,” said Swanson, a detective sergeant with Youngstown Police Department. “One team member passed out yellow smiley face stickers and the kids wore them so proudly.”

Helen Helton added that basic school supplies were a huge hit with school children. “The simplest things made them so happy,” she said.

The Rev. Mr. Moore led the eight-member missionary team. The pastor, Swanson and the Heltons recently met to discuss the February trip, which took months of preparation and fund-raising. Team members got inoculations for such maladies as yellow fever, malaria and typhoid.

Mr. Moore, who had served as a missionary in West Africa, said the men’s group at Highway wanted to “make a difference” and that’s how the mission trips started in 2004. Mr. Moore said the church has spent a quarter of a million dollars on the effort, including travel costs, items they take and what they’ve built there.

“We’ve built 10 steel-structure tabernacles [churches], put roofs on various structures and done a lot of teaching and preaching,” Mr. Moore said. Tools and generators also have been gifts. Highway Tabernacle partners with the Assemblies of God on the project, which has involved 29 Highway members so far. Mr. Moore said the people have welcomed them warmly. About 60 percent of Sierra Leoneans are Muslim, and 30 percent are Christian.

“I’ve had a desire in my heart to do this,” said Gene Helton, who’s a two-time retiree — from GM and Eagle Heights Academy, where he met his wife, Helen, who was an educational assistant there.

His wife, Helen, added, “I felt that God said go, and we went.”

In Sierra Leone, Helen Helton drew on her background as a licensed practical nurse, in the health clinics offered by the team. “We talked about malaria prevention, cycle of contamination, birth spacing, hand washing and basic cleanliness,” she said. She said the group also visited a hospital, where they left materials for patient education.

Mr. Moore explained that this team had the opportunity to meet with the paramount chief (king of the village) in Kono. “To do anything substantial, you need his approval,” Mr. Moore said. “We were lucky enough to have an audience and that’s building a bridge.”

The team could communicate with the people of Sierra Leone because the official language is English, spoken on a limited basis, along with a derivative of English called Krio.

Swanson had the opportunity to meet with the police chief in Freetown. “Their biggest problems are theft, fraud, child abuse and rape,” he said. “Not every officer has a gun. Four-man squads carry guns,” he said, pointing out the lack of basic equipment. The police, he added, are stationed at various checkpoints, and they only had one vehicle to use.

Swanson led two devotional sessions with the police. “I never expected to do anything like that. It wasn’t planned but it was working through God,” he said.

Mr. Moore and the team members said one of the greatest joys of the trip was visiting schools. Attending school is not mandatory, and is reflected in a literary rate of 35 percent. With donations, the team was able to pay annual tuition of $40 for six children. “Parents really sacrifice to send their children to school,” Swanson said. “It’s a privilege for them.”

Mr. Moore said one school they visited had some 2,100 pupils, who greeted them in the courtyard. “They just pressed against us,” Helen Helton recalled. “They were elated to see Americans.”

linonis@vindy.com