St. Matthew United Methodist School in Logan Town, Liberia
In 2006, just after the end of the Liberia Civil War, St Matthew’s UMC began to support the St. Matthew United Methodist School in Logan Town, Liberia. The school is on Bushrod Island, which is a suburb of Monrovia. The community is extremely poor. This school provides a solid Christian education and falls under the Department of General Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church in Liberia. The school needed much repair, generators, and scholarships for students returning to school after years of warfare. We quickly formed a bond working them to meet their needs and this relationship continues.
Since 2006, we have provided scholarships, have helped to build more classrooms, provided books for a library, and provided funds to buy lab equipment so they could offer approved science classes. In 2011, the need for a Medical Clinic was identified. We agreed to help with funding the building and sent mission teams in 2012 and 2014 to assist with the building of the clinic, run VBS for the younger students, and provide some career guidance and motivational opportunities for the high school students and encouragement for teachers. A fully functional clinic opened in 2016—the school received the needed medical approvals and local authorities are helping with staffing and pharmaceutical supplies. They have a plan in place that does not require St Matthew’s involvement in the running of the clinic.
The school has faced two pandemics Ebola in 2014 and COVID-19 in 2020. During these times, we continued to provide scholarship funds in order that their teachers and staff could be paid, and the school could be maintained. During Ebola, we provided funds so that specifically trained senior high students could teach neighborhood people in the sanitation procedures to prevent the spread of Ebola and provided them with the needed equipment for personal sanitation. During Covid-19, we provided funds so that food could be shared with the students’, teachers’, and clinic staff families and to members of the St Matthew’s UMC and surrounding community. These funds also provided the ability to buy the extra medical supplies needed.
Since 2020, St Matthew’s has continued to support the school and clinic by providing scholarship funding, which has kept children in school and helped pay teachers. We have also provided desks, food and medicine, and computers. Read more on our Impact in Liberia 2020-2023, Circuit Rider October 2023, page 8, and the principal’s thank you letter.
For further information or to volunteer or donate, contact worldwideoutreach@stmatthews-
