Newberg Graphic Online

Profound care for Liberia’s orphan children

Ministry — Founder of ABC Children’s Aid in Liberia, the Rev. Matthew Sakeuh, visits Newberg and meets with service clubs to raise funds

• By: Amanda Newman  
• Published: 9/25/2009 2:20:57 PM

Photo By: Gary AllenHelping his country’s children
The Rev. Matthew Sakeuh visited with the Newberg Rotary clubs and members of Dundee Covenant Church this month to raise support for All Because of Christ Children’s Aid, a school, dormitory and medical complex for the orphans.

   The Rev. Matthew Sakeuh has been in the United States for 12 years. He earned his college degrees here. This is the only country two of his children have ever known. But now he is trying to raise support for a project that will take his family “home” to Liberia, and help improve the lives of hundreds of orphans there.
   He visited with the Newberg Rotary clubs and members of Dundee Covenant Church this month to raise support for ABC (All Because of Christ) Children’s Aid, a school, dormitory and medical complex for the orphans.
   Sakeuh (pronounced sah-koe) was born in Liberia, a country rife with unrest since the 1800s. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the U.S. returned thousands of former slaves to Africa, dropping them off in Liberia. The former slaves, given arms by the U.S. to protect themselves, stayed in Liberia and oppressed the natives. A military coup and civil war in the 1980s decimated the country’s infrastructure and left hundreds of thousands of orphans with no one to care for them.
   Sakeuh knows about being left to one’s own devices. As the son of a district chief, he was better off than most in Liberia ... but his father had seven wives, several concubines and girlfriends in all the cities in his jurisdiction, and his 60-plus children were essentially left to fend for themselves.
In 1977, when Sakeuh was 12, a missionary came to town and he and his mother accepted Christ. They began rising at 4 a.m. every Sunday to walk to church in another village, and when the missionaries invited Sakeuh to stay with them and go to school, he did.
   He went on to attend high school and 18 months of Bible school in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. Then the war broke out and he found himself in a refugee camp in Côte d’Ivoire for seven years. He married there and had three children. Then the opportunity came to study in the United States.
   He promised God if he was educated in the U.S., he would return to Liberia. Sponsors covered his education and he attended Bethany College and Columbia International University, then earned a doctorate in theology. He could have stayed in the U.S. and made a good living, he said, but “I went back home and saw young girls at the age of 13 selling themselves so they can support their families.”
   So he founded African Indigenous Evangelical Ministries (now ABC) and planned his family’s return to Liberia. The ABC project includes dormitories and a school for the orphans, a medical clinic and hospital, pregnancy center, and Christian radio and television stations, based on a 73-acre campus.
   Terry Goodman of Newberg went with Engineering Ministries International to Liberia in 2005 to work on the master plan for the complex. The surveyor was a last-minute addition to the team, but the project resonated and he soon joined the ABC board of directors. This week, he helped Sakeuh connect with potential supporters in the Newberg community.
   About $800,000 has been invested to date, largely from Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Construction began in 2008 and the girls dormitory and the school are well on their way. School began this month for 112 orphans and Sakeuh expects 300 more in the spring. Construction on a mission house began in March; Sakeuh’s family will join him there when it is completed.
   Right now, they need prayer and money. It costs more than $70 a day to feed ABC’s children. The mission house needs $16,000 more. They also need to upgrade a mile-long road built two years ago, or it will be lost in the next rainy season. Sakeuh wants to buy a dump truck and cement mixer, which would generate hundreds of dollars a day for the children and teach them vocational skills, but that requires funding.
   “Our goal is to train and equip these future leaders in the country, so they will stay there,” he said. If he doesn’t, no one will. “The only daddy they know is me.”
   For more information, visit www.inabcchildrensaid.com or e-mail abcliberia@yahoo.com. Donations can be sent to ABC Children’s Aid-Indiana, P.O. Box 715, Anderson, IN 46015.

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