This letter from Shadrach was read at a gathering at Christ UMC of Westfield Indiana on August 11, 2013 to celebrate recent mission trips to Liberia and Appalachia.

“The story of what God is doing in Liberia today is an excellent example of the faithfulness of our God, and his awesome ability to give us beauty for our ashes when we trust in him. The writer of Hebrews fully captured this when he said in Hebrews 11:6 that “without faith, it is impossible to please God.” God often gives us a dream or places a calling on our life, and then challenges us to trust him to bring it to pass, come what may. As humans, we are often not interested in the process or the journey we must travel to get to the fulfillment of such calling. Instead, we prefer an instant realization of the calling. This was the case with me when God laid on my heart, as a little child, the desire to become a doctor in order to someday meet both the physical and spiritual needs of my people in Liberia. I completely mapped out how long it would take me to finish grade school, then college and finally enroll at the medical school in Liberia. Little did I know that the world of my childhood would violently collapse in a few years, taking with it more than 200,000 lives and destroying every institution of learning in the country. I soon found myself as a refugee in a foreign country, with a foreign language and custom. I must readily admit that there were many times during those difficult days of struggle for survival in the Ivory Coast when I was confused and had more questions than answers. I often wondered to myself if I had truly heard God in the first place about becoming a doctor. If yes, then why would he allow the schools, the teachers and even the country itself to be so utterly destroyed? How could I now afford to go to school when I couldn’t even afford my next loaf of bread? Yet in the midst of all these questions, darkness and despair, God gave me the grace to totally trust in him, and to lean not on my own understanding. It would have been a great and abundant miracle had I gotten the opportunity to go to a college in the Ivory Coast in those days; but our God who specializes in doing things exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think had other ideas. Through the generous sacrifice of his servants, Dr. Montgomery and her family as well as the works of numerous others in the United Methodist Church, he brought me to the University of Indianapolis to study. The same God would later lead me successfully through 4 years of dental school.
A little over 13 years ago, I along with a few other young Liberian students met in my dorm room at the University of Indianapolis to discuss ways we could pool together our limited resources to help our people back home. Liberia at the time was going through a major flare up in its civil war, and we knew we couldn’t wait until our schooling was over and we had well paying jobs or enough money in the bank to help. You see, each of us had seen what God can do with little or nothing if we just trust and surrender to him, and this experience propelled us to dare to dream big. We understood that rather than simply giving our countrymen and women fish to eat, we needed to teach them how to fish. Out of this understanding came the birth of a Christ-centered Christian college that would equip the next generation of Liberians. Today the Liberian International Christian College is well on its way towards fulfilling this mission, having already sent out two classes of graduates. We are very delighted to have recently come into partnership with Travis and Gina Sheets, who are helping to develop what, for a Liberian school, is essentially a first of its kind agriculture project on campus.
Yes, the task at hand remains very daunting, especially in a country that until a few years ago was a major war zone, and one that still bears all the scars of that recent carnage. But the mere fact that a dynamic Christian college now stands where echoes of gunfire were heard not very long ago is evidence of the awesome power and faithfulness of our God. If this is what he can do when a few sleep-deprived and cash-strapped college students commit themselves to him, imagine how much more he will do if the rest of his people say, like the prophet Isaiah: “Here I am Lord; send me.” I sincerely hope that this will be your prayer today as you listen to this presentation on Liberia.”