By Bobbi-Sue Menard

THE FIRST TIME Karen Barkman went to Liberia, the Canadian Embassy recommended against going into the country.

If she had known then what she has since learned, she told BCCN, she would have heeded that warning without hesitation.

“The rebels still had guns,” recalled Barkman.  

Yet in 2003, when she saw more than 500 orphans in a single village, and the despair of Liberian refugees in camps in Ghana, she knew she had to do something.

The Kelowna resident’s first trip was with African Christian Fellowship International. After that experience, she made the decision to found Provision of Hope.  

The ministry’s primary focus is to work with widows and orphans; after decades of civil war, Liberia has a surfeit of both.

The amount of strife inflicted on the country, Barkman said, has been immense. “It is almost impossible for us to understand what has happened to people in Liberia, in even the recent past.”

But despite the enormity of the task, she is convinced that a higher power is guiding her steps.

“If God didn’t bless this work, I wouldn’t do it. People give generously of their time, treasure and talent – and time and again, God has provided.”

Provision of Hope has developed a variety of strategies and programs to meet the myriad needs of the people in Liberia.  

Education is extraordinarily expensive, and out of reach for almost all orphans. Provision of Hope has a university scholarship program for the orphans in their care.  

“We are raising up leaders who are going to impact the future of this nation,” said Barkman.

In an effort to cut dependency, Provision of Hope expects scholarship recipients to find work and fund a portion of their own schooling, despite the national unemployment rate being approximately 80 percent.  

“That is something that is important for our recipients to do,” said Barkman. “They need to know that it will not always be free.”

In Liberia, a single year of university – including room and board, at the best institutions – is around $3,000. To put that in perspective, a well-constructed family home in an outlying community is $8,000.  

To cope with the economic realities, Provision of Hope also helps high school students have access to skills training, to get good jobs directly out of high school.  

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To give younger orphans the best social prospects, Provision of Hope works with established Christian foster parents, to create new families through adoption. The Hope Home program provides nurturing to traumatized children.

The Empowerment program utilizes micro-loans to enable single mothers to learn a trade or create a small business.

“We have done more and more micro-loaning, and have all kinds of success stories,” said Barkman.

A new program, still in development, is an onsite nursing triage program – which will help ensure medical decisions are made in the most responsible manner possible.

While many of the programs operate without serious difficulty, one of Barkman’s toughest tasks is answering the daily stream of email requests for emergency medical funding.  

“People in Liberia die for a lack of $25, if I don’t pounce on that email right away,” said Barkman.  

“Yet I could exhaust our bank account every day. It is one of the hardest things for me to do.”

Accountability is a drumbeat running through Provision of Hope. Barkman explained that the dire misery of decades-long civil conflict has changed some people’s relationship toward money. All of the ministry’s transactions are handled by more than one person; fiscal redundancy is a necessity, to insure transparency.

In Canada, Provision of Hope works with Hope For The Nations, which provides tax receipts for donations.

Barkman is a decade or more away from retirement age in North America; yet in Liberia, she is considered a noteworthy anomaly for having survived past her 50th birthday.

Each year, she takes a team of volunteers with her to the country, to further the work of the mission. “Every time I go, I am more into God’s compassion and mercy.”

She added: “I so believe in Helen Keller’s quote: ‘I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.’”

For more information visit: provisionofhope.com. 

July 2010