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The International Church of Monrovia (ICM) building project is well underway on ELWA Campus. ELWA Ministries has been donating funds over the last two years. The roof's steel beams, each weighing over one thousand pounds, have been erected-all without a crane! That is an amazing achievement. We continue to raise funds for the church building project. Please consider a donation to this project. Praise God! All of you donated $150,000 to purchase a new radio tower and the equipment needed nearly two years ago. We were literally in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic when we placed the order to build it. The company we hired built it and sent it to Florida where it sat for a long time before we could ship it out last month. The tower was packed into two shipping containers (see pictures below) and loaded on a cargo ship. It has just arrived at the port in Monrovia, Liberia and will soon be on its way to ELWA! The old tower still stands, bullet holes and all, waiting patiently for the new tower to be erected after the coming rainy season. By God's grace, it will be up and operational before Thanksgiving this year! Thanks so much for your patience during this long term project. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" was the opening line of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. That book was probably required reading for most of us in our adolescences. The phrase suggests extreme opposites taking place at the same time.
This is the current state of affairs on the ELWA Campus in Liberia today. Progress and Decline simultaneously. On the Progress side, we are pleased to announce that the main roof girders are up on the new International Church of Monrovia (ICM) on the ELWA campus. In addition, the new radio tower has arrived in Liberia! On the Decline side, the ELWA compound is in a dire situation with frequent power outages due to old generators, leaving the campus in occasional darkness. ELWA Ministries could use your help in completing the ICM Church and purchasing a new generator. We have provided more information below on the Tower, the generator and the church. Thank you for your continued support and prayers. ELWA Ministries Association USA ELWA Ministries Liberia is a group of ministries and services located on a 132-acre campus in Paynesville, Liberia, outside the capital city of Monrovia. From this campus, Liberians are served by the first gospel radio station in Africa, healthcare at the ELWA Hospital, education for 825 Liberian children at the ELWA Academy, and dental services at Trinity Dental Clinic. Today, the campus is home to over 75 families of ELWA Ministries staff and expatriate missionaries from several organizations. Reliable, cost-effective electricity is essential to the work of ELWA Ministries. Since the 1990’s, ELWA’s diesel generators provided the exclusive source for electricity, running for months at a time without the maintenance they needed. A year ago, in March 2021, the ELWA campus connected to the Liberian Electric Company (LEC) power system for the first time in nearly 40 years. For some months, LEC provided as much as 85% of the power for ELWA, and generators were only needed 15% of the time, which we hoped would extend their lifespan. In recent months, LEC has only been able to provide electricity to the campus to supply about 35% of ELWA's needs, or about 4 to 6 hours per day. December through April are dry season months, meaning that the flow of water through Liberia’s only hydroelectric plant is reduced significantly. In addition, increased demand of newly-added customers has taxed the lower production capacity. This has stressed the ELWA generators and Technical Services staff to the breaking point. Power must be maintained at the hospital so power is often shut off in other areas, like the missionaries homes and guest house which makes it difficult to eat and sleep. ELWA urgently needs to purchase a new, larger generator with the capacity to provide electricity to the campus within the next few weeks. A new generator is available now if we can come up with the remaining funds quickly. We are asking you to consider joining with others to raise the needed funds to make this urgent purchase. This purchase is part of the continuing development plan for building and equipping a new powerhouse at ELWA. ELWA now has the chance to purchase a new 400kVA diesel generator for the ELWA campus for a cost of $64,300. The offer of this generator is time sensitive and we don't want to lose this opportunity. We were informed that ELWA has $24,000 on hand for the purchase of the generator and so the net funding gap is $40,300. One donor has offered to match every dollar raised and so the funding gap is reduced to half leaving $20,150 still urgently needed.  |
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ELWA Ministries Association USA