Giving
Richard Cole and his wife thought they were just taking in another unwanted wanderer. This time it was a university graduate from Sierra Leone who arrived at their home in Liberia, after running out of both food and money. The man had already tried the missionaries around the corner, who had refused to help and could not accept him, pointing him instead in the direction of the Coles.

"The missionaries knew that I don’t turn people away, no matter what time of day or night it is, I don’t turn away the worst," explained the pastor, whose quiet demeanour reflects his deep well of calm faith. This time, however, after a few weeks of providing food and shelter the Coles said goodbye to their visitor… and a good proportion of Richard's wardrobe. Dressing for a meeting straight after sending their visitor in the direction of the bus garage Richard noticed his best trousers and shoes were missing.

"I looked at my clothes, and he had left two other pairs of trousers there," Richard recalled. "So I picked them up, thought of the Bible verse: ‘If someone takes the jacket from your back, give him your shirt also’ and walked out of my house with the remaining trousers. I knew that he would still be at the bus garage because you always have to wait after buying a ticket, so I found him, said ‘you forgot these’ and gave him the rest of my clothes."

"That," he continued" was the start of me giving up my comfort for other people. It is not easy but God will never change us unless we are willing to change."

Forgiveness
Richard smiles and looks straight into my eyes as he talks -- "Forgiveness has nothing to do with how we are feeling and goes a very long way," he says. And this coming from a man whose own grandfather was killed by an eight-year-old child soldier, and yet now runs the Nehemiah project to rehabilitate such children into the community.

"When they come to us at first they put up a front but you just have to be patient and give them another chance," Mr Cole comments. Together with his wife Richard has always taken in children -- for many years they worked in Liberia setting up schools, churches and clinics, but then the way struck in 1989. As it developed things came to a head when Richard when is in the UK and found himself unable to get to his wife and family (their own child and many more living with them), so they managed to all meet in Sierra Leone.

Child Soldiers
"I remembered a peaceful country from my childhood," Richard commented, "where you never saw anyone younger than 17 holding a gun." He found a totally different world.

"The military would come and attack villages, burning homes and killing people. Then other military would come in civilian clothes and take the children and start indoctrinating them that it had been Government soldiers who had killed their families. They would train the children to start killing without mercy, drugging them by cutting the sides of their faces and inserting cocaine before covering up the wound with a plaster. Opium and cannabis are cheaply available and so the smoke from these also filled the air."

This is the reason that Richard takes the sides of the children, commenting that: "The question is if a machine is used for killing you will take responsibility, the machine or the operator, who will face justice?"

The Future
He asked himself, "What is the future for this country [Sierra Leone], which once used to be embracing everyone?"

And so he set to work with the children, saying "God is our helper, and he has given us wisdom. It is not just a question of providing three meals a day and a bed -- that is not the answer. They need care, and touch -- we put them on our lap and come to the level of the child, so that they have a sense of belonging, they have a home.

"All of them call me Daddy, not Reverend or Mr Cole -- and they call the other men and women Uncles and Aunties because they care.

"Why I am so concentrating on the children? Because they are the future of our nation -- if a nation puts their resources into its children, it will have a future."

So far there appears to be hope on the horizon. One rebel leader has tried to kill Richard three times -- the pastor has been captured by rebel leaders six times in the past eight years -- but Richard just took in his children to his project.

"Then one day last October I was preaching and this man I recognised came forward and asked for forgiveness -- and it was him. He is now training with the British Army.

"Forgiveness has nothing to do with how I am feeling," says Richard, who said he himself was once a "one man army" with a grudge against everyone. He was converted after meeting a worker from Christian Literature Crusade who "spoke to me about love and the power of God."

"God found a way to help mankind -- he had to suffer for the sins of mankind. A man died for a sin he did not commit, a man became a sinner for something he did not do." Richard does his best to follow. "Forgiveness is not something you can sit and think about," he says, "it is something you have to do. You must start with your family and those who have bullied you and those who have disappointed you -- then you have something."

Richard indeed has something now. The Government of Sierra Leone has recognised the Nehemiah project…

Claire Shelley is news editor at the Church of England Newspaper and managing editor of CounterCulture.

email: claireshelley76@hotmail.com

Return to top