Pastor John in Sierra Leone and his transforming community

Making a way (for motorbikes)

‘Another transformational story within this community is the road we have built. Before, it was only a very rough footpath. It was definitely not accessible by motorbike [which is the most common form of motorised transport]. Even bicycles couldn’t manage it. Trust me!

‘But when we worked together to decide what the important things were that our community needs, we made our vision to have a good road network. So, through partnering with the local council, we constructed a road network to access the main motorway.

‘We had to construct four bridges, and now even a vehicle can travel down to the river on the road.

‘That was a great achievement for us, and people were even surprised that we managed it because it had seemed like such a hard thing. People were surprised that a pastor with a programme called CCT – that is a powerful, transformative tool – has helped us to get access to a good road network in this community.’

Latrines for life-saving hygiene improvements and roads for access to markets, medical facilities and all kinds of other supplies that can suddenly be reached far more easily have just been the start.

Cultivating crops: growing young people’s education

‘The community is cultivating 4,000 yam seedlings which were provided by the church. Last season, we were able to sell some of the harvest and use part of the money to provide school uniforms for some of the more vulnerable children in the community, such as orphans and children whose parents are living with a disability or in extreme poverty. We decided to prepare school materials for these children – uniforms, books, textbooks and other things they need. This has had a great impact and the people were so happy about it!

‘Also, before, the school that our children used was made of thatch, but after the Transforming Communities programme, we built a good church building, so for now we decided to offer it to be used by the school temporarily and we are working towards constructing a permanent structure for the children to learn in.

‘And we had struggled to do this before because we were short of river sand [to make the bricks], but now that we’ve created a road, we can hire a vehicle to come and collect the sand. It will be so simple! The vehicles can go right down to the river and just top up the sand.

‘We’ve also sold some crops so we could construct benches and desks which the children are now using because we noticed they didn’t have anything decent to sit on in school.’

Personal transformation

Pastor John’s community really has been transformed, and so has Pastor John. He explains, ‘Through this process, my connection with other people has increased greatly. I have influence on other people now. Before I was so timid, but through the grace of God and CCT, I've trained three communities about village savings and loan groups. Because of these savings groups, parents who were struggling to support their children can now take easy-to-repay loans from these savings without any embarrassment.

‘That has been a great impact for our community!’

Decreasing infant mortality rates!

‘And I’ve also been able to facilitate a ten-week curriculum on infant maternal mortality rates. Before, we had so many pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and children under five dying due to certain cultural practices and traditional beliefs. Through the grace of God, we have seen that he has a vision for us. Despite our mistakes in the past, we’ve been able to bring down this maternal infant mortality rate that was seriously affecting us.

‘In the past, we lost the lives of our loved ones. Our children, our parents – we lost them because we lacked knowledge. To God be the glory, this training was well attended by community stakeholders, our town chiefs, young people, women, including pregnant and breastfeeding women and the frequent deaths that were happening in this community have come down to zero. I'm so happy about that.

‘We really appreciate what God is doing in our lives, and we believe in God that through this process we will achieve more and we will do more!

‘These are all impacts that have been achieved through the Transforming Communities programme.

‘Thank you so much for your efforts and your time. God bless you for giving me this wonderful opportunity to share my experience and story of transformation about myself and my community. God bless you all.’