In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Deodatus Kyara (his name means “Gift from God”) is a friend who was a very successful gem/mineral exporter. Four years ago he walked away from that high-paying job because he felt called to reach the lost in his country. He has devoted much of his time to feeding street kids in Dar and sharing Christ with them. He and his family have lived on faith in God’s providence, living in a 15 X 15 apartment in the projects of Dar for which they pay $20/month. He is known and loved all over the city and is in love with Young Life and how it might help reach young people in Tanzania. He and his friend Irene Jackson (who ran in the 1980 Moscow Olympics) are spearheading our effort to begin there. Deo used to search for rare gems, now he is searching for pearls of a greater price. Irene ran for gold in Moscow, but now she is running another, bigger race for kids. They are heroes for the Kingdom... 

Liberia is a country that just ended 14-year civil war—there has not been power or running water in the capital of Monrovia for 12 years. The public schools in Monrovia have been closed for two years. But when the peace accords were signed in November 2003 and 20,000 UN peacekeepers arrived and the some schools re-opened, James Davis and his team of 20 leaders were ready. They began contact work in 14 high schools and four villages in the two largest cities in the country. Each volunteer pays dues each month to generate funds to support the work they are doing with kids (there is a 75% unemployment rate in Liberia, a few months ago a cup of rice cost $20). Most of the soldiers in the civil war were teenagers who had either been threatened into joining, kidnapped or lured into rebel groups by warlords offering drugs, women and the spoils of war. More than 300,000 Liberians were killed, thousands maimed and raped and hundreds of homes and villages were burned by these child soldiers. The UN is disarming these soldiers and placing them in re-entry camps to receive counseling and treatment, and “re-programming.” Guess who is there with them? James and his team go every day to four of these camps to do contact work and club. There were kids in the camp ranging from 10 to 19 years old. These kids had killed, raped and maimed—it is hard to imagine. They know James and Rancy and Joseph and the other Young Life leaders by name. And the leaders know them by name. These leaders go every day to see these kids. Their bus fare to get to those camps and to those high schools come out of their own pockets. They are our heroes…