Sierra Leone

Before the end of the year, the General Conference sent another American, David C. Babcock, to join the Hyatts. Babcock became the first public preacher of the SDA message. Through his lectures R. P. Dauphin was converted and became the first African worker. Babcock was also the first to introduce the process of making concrete block in Sierra Leone.

These were used for the erection of the first church building in West Africa. It was built in 1907 on Circular Road in Freetown. Mrs. Babcock began the first elementary school in Freetown, and her husband built the first mission house and office on Pandemba Road.

Pastor Babcock also started the first sanitarium, next to the mission house. It was under the supervision of Dr. E. W. Myers.
Professor T. M. French arrived from America in 1907. He organized the school at
Waterloo into a ministerial training center. Several young men received training for the ministry in this institution.

By 1911 an industrial workshop, fully equipped, was in operation along with the training school. In 1912 the arm of the work was extended into the interior when Pastor Dauphin was sent to Matotoka in the north and I. W. Harding to Gbangbama in the south. Shortly after, the mission headquarters was moved from Freetown to Waterloo, where it remained until the 1940s.

By 1914 Sierra Leone had become a personnel resource center for the work in West
Africa. Local pastors were sent as missionaries to help strengthen the work in Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria. When Elder Babcock left to start the work in Nigeria in 1914, he was accompanied by two Sierra Leone workers, Dauphin and Morgue.

World War II had a detrimental effect on the work in Sierra Leone. The ministerial training institution at Waterloo was converted into a military training camp. After the war the mission headquarters was moved to Bo.

In 1961 Peninsular Secondary School was opened in Waterloo. It grew into a large SDA day school. In order to develop a predominantly Seventh-day Adventist boarding facility where future workers could be better trained, the Yele Seventh-day Adventist Secondary School was opened in 1965.

In the same year, the government of Sierra Leone handed over the operation of the Masanga Leprosy Hospital to the church under special contract with the Ministry of Health. The 140-bed hospital catered to the needs of 15,000 lepers. Presently the prevalence of leprosy has been reduced considerably, and the hospital now treats 1,000 cases a year. Services have been widened to provide effective care for tuberculosis patients.

In 1973 permission was granted to the mission to set up a radio communication system between the mission office in Bo, Yele School, Masanga Hospital, and Freetown, the capital city.

Daily use of the system made communication easier and eliminated delay. About this time Walton Whaley succeeded in putting the Voice of Prophecy and Faith for Today on national radio and television.

In 1973 the work in Gambia was attached to Sierra Leone, and the two became the Sierra Leone and Gambia Mission. The first recognized work in Gambia was begun by Brother Cudjo, a Gambian literature evangelist. In 1976 Gambia became a mission station.

A new office complex is presently under construction at Waterloo. The spirit of progress and dynamism that marked the beginning of the work in Sierra Leone is still alive.