In Lungi
with Pastor Fayia and Principal Ashley
Lungi is a town that sits across the water from Freetown, a forty-minute ferry ride on a boat packed to capacity with people, vehicles, and a few chickens.
When we first went there in 2011, the Door International Academy had no building. The school met in Pastor Fayia's church. African churches meet nearly every night, so every evening the school partitions came down, and the sanctuary went up, and every morning the reverse. Then we learned the government was preparing to shut the school down because of that.
We jumped into action and helped Pastor Fayia and his team break ground on a school building that same year. But soon after, Ebola came. Nearly four thousand people died in Sierra Leone. Pastor Fayia's congregation buried friends and family, and the country is still living with what it lost, in survivors and orphans who carry both the grief and the fear that attached itself to them.
For the better part of four years, we could not travel there. We sent what we could, funding medical and sanitation supplies and whatever else would help.
Through it all, Pastor Fayia and the people of Lungi pressed on and, with great determination, finished the school. When travel resumed in 2017, Jean and Steve returned for the dedication of the school’s new two-story L-shaped building.
It takes more than a building to make a school
Even before breaking ground in Lungi, we ran in-service training for teachers and funded government certification, without which the Academy would not be recognized. We brought school supplies and soccer balls and purchased a bus to transport students from places too far to walk.
More than sixty students attended the school before the new building was constructed. A hundred after the building went up. Today, more than 250 children attend the school, with little room to spare. Pastor Fayia and Principal Ashley are now planning an extension that would add a third story and another wing that would turn the building into a U-shape.
In Wilberforce
with Pastor Marvin
Wilberforce is a neighborhood that sits at the top of a hill in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Pastor Marvin's church in Wilberforce sits at the bottom of a slope, which means that every rainy season, floodwater comes down off the high ground and would go right into the sanctuary. During such seasons in Sierra Leone, a hundred inches of rain falls in just six months. Pastor Marvin's congregation, ankle-deep in muddy water, knew this all too well.
Pastor Marvin is one of those people you fall in love with. He is devoted to his congregation and community. His wife Lucy is a dear woman. We visit them whenever we are in the area.
In 2012, we came with a team, including pastors Enrique and his son Manuel from Mexico, and helped the local congregation dig out and build a retaining wall that turned the water away.
In Rokel
with Pastor Saffa and Rita
For most girls in Sierra Leone, education ends at secondary school. What comes after, for a young woman with no money and no way to earn any, is usually decided by other people. Some are married off. Some end up in the hands of men who know exactly how few options they have.
Rita Saffa was heartbroken having seen this happen again and again and was determined to do something about it.
During a visit in 2017, Rita, with us and her husband Pastor Saffa in tow, walked us out to an open field about twelve miles from Freetown and told us what they wanted to build there. A place where young women could come back, learn a trade, and create a future on their own terms.
We broke ground the next year.
Very soon the school will be offering senior high classes, which is important because secondary school is where many young women drop out and are left behind.
In Sierra Leone, like in much of the world, water is something a family walks for, often more than once a day, often for an hour or more each way, carrying back all one can hold.
With your help, they drilled a well on the property and hit water. Now, with plenty of water for students and staff, they are planning a tap at the edge of the property, out toward the road, so people in the village can draw from it too.
Our current project in Rokel
Thanks to the generosity of Signpost donors, the Godwin Vocational Training Center is now building a canteen on the property. In addition to giving students a place to eat, the new facility will give catering students a working kitchen to train in. The building will also house a security post and provide additional meeting space.
The Godwin Vocational Training Center provides training to women in catering, tailoring, gara tie-dying, hairdressing, computer studies, and business.
The first class graduated in May 2025. Each woman left with a certificate, a professional toolkit for her trade, and a microloan to start with. One graduate, Elizabeth, lives in Mile 91, a district named for its distance inland from Freetown. She left Godwin with an oven and a micro loan and now caters birthday parties and events and sells food throughout her community.
The vocational training center, originally an expansion of a school for children and middle school age kids, also teaches adult literacy, something much more than a good business skill. As an adult student at the center, imagine being able to read scripture for the first time or read to your children at night. Imagine a mom sharing the gift of reading with her kids, giving them a kind of life she’s never had.
