Pederson January 2025

Happy 2025! I pray that this finds you still celebrating the birth of our Lord and the joy of each new day.

On January 4, we celebrated RICE Liberia’s second graduation! It was a combined class from the past couple of years with fifteen graduates—among whom six graduated with honors. All except one have jobs already, and three were hired to teach at our Rafiki School. It was a great day celebrating the faithfulness of the Lord and the trust each of the graduates placed in Him to provide for and protect them through their years of study. A contingent of the graduates played a football game with our oldest boys on New Years Day and our resident boys defeated them! I am grateful for the strong affinity for Rafiki that many of our students leave with and the Lord’s faithfulness to see us this far.

New graduates!

He shoots! And scores…?

We just recently started our first term of the year (my third one as RICE Dean in Liberia!). The Lord graced us with three new students. It is always a steep learning curve for our new students as they become comfortable using computers, develop new ways of thinking and learning, and study topics they may have never experienced before—like psychology. Please pray that they will lean on the Lord to be their strength, and that all of our students will have integrity as they go about their studies. Our students learn that each subject in school should not be taught as an isolated unit but should be integrated, as indeed life is. During a discussion about Achilles and Agamemnon from The Iliad, one student remarked on the contrasts of leadership styles between Agamemnon and Nehemiah from the Bible, who we are currently studying in Bible Study. Please pray that God will give direction on how to grow the RICE Program while maintaining a standard of excellence. We had a visit from the National Commission for Higher Education (NCHE) at the end of last term. They seemed to appreciate our facilities and the program. We are praying that this translates into accreditation for the bachelor’s degree program without many more hoops to jump through. Please pray with us that we will receive accreditation within the next couple of months!

Our resident students stayed at the Village during the Christmas break. They enjoyed playing lots of football (soccer), braiding each other’s hair with long extensions, and, like most teenagers, catching up on sleep! They had the opportunity to visit another children’s home in our area. They came back very excited about the friends they had made and are eager to visit again. Please pray that God will use this connection to help the children build godly relationships with others who share similar experiences. The lounge area in the RICE building had some holes in it, so our boys helped the maintenance team break up the floor so that a new layer of concrete could be laid. I am so thankful for our 50 young people who are willing to help in many different areas!

Hard at work breaking concrete

As always, I am so grateful for the love and support that you all show me in various ways. Please let me know how I can pray for you!

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