At the Legos Christian Academy in Rutile, Sierra Leone, there are hundreds of students who today have stepped into the digital age thanks to the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa® and through our partnership with Computer Ministry in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

It all began last fall while our longtime partner in Sierra Leone, Rev. Francis Mambu, executive director of Faith Healing Development Organization (FHDO) which operates the school, visited the United States to meet with Bread and Water for Africa® Executive Director Bethelhem.

While in the U.S., Beth took Rev. Mambu to meet with representatives of Computer Ministry to tell them about the need for computers in schools in Sierra Leone.

When asked how many computers the school needed, Beth told them that school has 300 students.

With that, they informed her they could provide 297 desktop computers which had been refurbished by their ministry and the partnership was formed.

Thanks to the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa®, we were able to pay a nominal service fee to Computer Ministry which enables them to keep their electronics recycling operation going, as well as the cost of shipping the computers to Sierra Leone.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling we got when we received this short video from Pastor Rogers the school administrator showing the Legos students using their “new” computers.

While students in the United States could not imagine attempting to do their schoolwork without a computer, for many years these secondary school students in Sierra Leone could only dream of being able to search the internet for research for their studies.

The supporters of Bread and Water for Africa® made this all possible, as part of a joint mission together with Computer Ministry and Rev. Mambu and FHDO to bridge the digital divide literally across the ocean and we could not wait to share this success with you.

As Pastor Rogers says in the video, “We are very much grateful to Bread and Water for Africa® for helping us. This is the first type of school here with such a system ever in the history of this place.”

And vowing: “We promise to make the best use of it.”