Kerdoe Dwanyen loved school. As the firstborn son of his father’s second wife, Kerdoe made his father proud with his early scholastic achievements. That all changed in 1985 at age 13 during seventh grade when Kerdoe’s father died.
“I nearly lost my mind,” Kerdoe recalled. “My father and I were very close, like Jacob and Joseph in the Bible. I moved to a rural village to live with my mother, and we struggled to survive. For three years, I did not attend school because we could not afford the yearly fee of $50.00. The only bright light in Kerdoe’s life was his attendance at the local Baptist church, where he was saved on July 28, 1985. Kerdoe learned that God was his Father and that he could ask God for help. Three years later, on February 17, 1988, Kerdoe poured out his heart to God: “Father, help me! I want to go to school!” he cried.
“What will you do with your life if I help you?” God asked.
“I will serve you!” sixteen-year-old Kerdoe promised. Miraculously, the next day, Kerdoe’s uncle appeared at Kerdoe’s house. “Get your things! You’re going back to Tappita! You’re going to school!” he announced.
Kerdoe, a diligent student, completed seventh and eighth grade in one year. Then disaster struck! A civil war rampaged across Liberia, dividing the country into armed terrorist camps. Seventy percent of the rebels were young boys under the age of eighteen. The brutality of their violence was unspeakable. Liberia lost an entire generation to boy soldiers who slaughtered entire villages with machine guns but could not write their own names.
Kerdoe’s family was not exempt from the carnage. “The rebels attacked my home and killed my uncle. The rest of the family ran into the bush and hid for days—starving—always afraid! We ate roots, leaves, rats, wild yam, cassava, or small animals, if I could catch one in the trap that I had made from a bent stick and a wire,” Kerdoe recalled. “Occasionally, a ceasefire would hold for a few weeks. Schools would cautiously reopen, and I would fervently study for the next government exam.”
After seven years of senseless murder and mayhem, during a short ceasefire, Kerdoe, now age twenty-five, was able to realize his educational dream. “I was one of very few young men in my country who earned a high school diploma during the war, so I was chosen to give the valedictory address at the ceremony. I had decided to study medicine in college because I liked biology, but God was unhappy. “You promised Me,” God reminded me. So, during my graduation speech, I publicly announced to all the people that I was giving my life to God and that I was willing to sacrifice my wants for His will. A few days later, my pastor, John Demey (the father of Liberty Radio station manager Dahn Demey), informed me that he had secured a scholarship for me at a Bible college in Ghana.”
During the three years that it took Kerdoe to earn his bachelor’s degree in Accra and graduate in 1999, Liberia descended into a bloody abyss. The stately downtown Monrovian buildings that had been symbols of Liberia’s prosperous timber, rubber, diamond, and iron ore industries were gutted shells inhabited by 300,000 displaced persons. The entire country had no electricity, no running water, no sewers, no banks, no government, and no hope. In frustration, families piled hundreds of dead bodies of their loved ones around the walls of the U.S. Embassy, so that all the world could see the agony of their plight.
In 2001, in the middle of all this woe, Kerdoe returned to his hometown and began assisting Pastor John Demey at Teppah Baptist Church in Tappita. In 2007, Pastor Demey died, and Pastor Kerdoe took the reins. Despite the 85 percent illiteracy and similar unemployment, the church has grown from 600 to 700 in attendance. A Christian school, established in 1972, enrolls approximately 700. The ministry has started more than 100 churches and has graduated 30 from their Bible college. The yearly VBS (pictured on front) attracts 1,500 from Tappita alone, and at least 550 attend in the surrounding villages. The church has a huge influence on area pastors, including neighboring Côte d’Ivoire. Six hundred pastors and workers attended a recent conference.
Pastor Kerdoe has visited the U.S. three times and has been offered lucrative, comfortable positions in ministries in the United States, but he has refused. “I believe God wants me in Liberia to help my people find Jesus.”
TAPPITA IS PRAYING FOR A RADIO STATION
1. Tappita District has only one political station and one community station (no competition).
2. Tappita District has six dialect-speaking groups with no one reaching them except village-to-village Muslim evangelists. Their languages include English, Dan, Mano, Bassa, Kpelle, Krahn, and French.
3. A local Christian radio station would help solidify church members, the illiterate, the youth, and the community with sound doctrine, thereby preventing rebels and Muslims from gaining a foothold in the region. The cost for a station in Tappita, Liberia, is $75,000. The monthly operating budget is $1,200 for staff, diesel fuel, and government fees.
INDIA GYPSIES DOUBLE VALUE
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God . . . .” — II Timothy 2:15
“. . . work with your own hands . . . .” — I Thessalonians 4:11
While gypsy women in India are learning to support themselves through sewing, they are also learning from the Bible, and they are fellowshipping with other Christians, which is becoming increasingly difficult in this Hindu-majority country.
PRAYER REQUEST
CRI is presently working with several missionaries and national pastors to establish radio stations in the following countries: Turkey, Ghana, Liberia, Uruguay, and Argentina. Please pray for open doors and for favor with government officials.
George Zarris
Christian Radio International
Picture courtesy of Walter Stevens and ROMA ministries