First Secretary of the Sierra Leone Mission to the UN Visits Grace Church

On Sunday, December 3, 2006 the First Secretary of Sierra Leone’s UN delegation, Mr. Kpukumu, visited Grace Church and described the horrors of the war in Sierra Leone, especially those heaped upon women. Mr. Kpukumu also carried a message from Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to the UN offering to join us at our fund raising events.

Among the most compelling observations reported by Mr. Kpukumu was that, like those in post-apartheid South Africa, the people of Sierra Leone are genuinely seeking reconciliation with one another. Rebel soldiers who kidnapped and abused women and girls of Sierra Leone during the war are now actively seeking the forgiveness of their victims. And in the same generosity of spirit and of God’s love that Nelson Mandella and Desmond Tutu led in Johannesburg, the victims of Sierra Leone are forgiving. Our project is intended to support these remarkable people with prayers and funds.
This project also addresses four of the eight "Millennium Goals" defined by the United Nations and adopted by the Episcopal Church of the United States.

Grace Church Undertakes Sierra Leone School Project

Grace Church is raising funds to build-out and improve a school for girls and young women in Waterloo Village, on teh outskirts of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. The funds are being distributed by the Federation of African Women Educationalists - FAWE (http://www.fawe.org/), a group committed to helping the young women and girls who were brutally victimized in Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. FAWE has provided us with a "wish list" of items from the school that has helped us set goals and drive toward them.