Source: God Reports, June 29, 2018
To many observers, it appeared foolhardy to send such a fruitful worker to such a hopeless nation. But Pastor Harold Warner didn’t flinch when he launched firebrand African-American preacher Alvin Smith into Sierra Leone in 1989. He had heard from God. And nearly three decades later, the results are dumbfounding.
The original church in Freetown has exploded to 80 churches. The nation that once was classified as the second poorest in the world now has planted churches in Liberia, Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Congo, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. Pastor Desmond Bell, from Sierra Leone, is now a missionary in Marseille, France. They have even sent three missionaries to Europe.
“To take people, to take young men and women from one of the poorest countries in the world and (for God to) say, ‘I’m going to shape and I’m going to fashion them because they are going to accomplish my purpose not only in their own nation but also beyond the boundaries,’ is one of the greatest privileges of life,” says Warner in a 2018 conference video. “I just sit back and chuckle because this has to be God.”