While Jessica Arnold and her classmates have been working toward the possibility of college scholarships, the 16-year-old Waterford junior has been finding ways to provide basic educational needs for deprived youth half a world away.
Arnold, who attends Waterford Central UMC and Waterford Mott High School, is the founder and leader of the C.W. Duncan Mission Project, which provides money for scholarships, supplies, teachers and textbooks at the C.W. Duncan School — a school for kindergarten through ninth-grade students in Monrovia, Liberia.
Liberia is a depressed West African country where more than 200,000 people were killed and one million more made into refugees due to a pair of civil wars that took place from 1989-2003. It was only through the courageous protests of groups of Christian and Muslim Liberian women that the bloody battle finally ended in the shattered country, and as Arnold opened up her mind to the possibilities of outreach it was a documentary on the women’s actions that actually enabled amazing progress.
This past summer Arnold said she felt guilty because she wasn’t doing enough for others and what has transpired since can truly be considered an act of venturesome faith.
Originally she thought about sponsoring a child in Africa, but Wendy Lyons Chrostek, Waterford Central’s associate pastor at the time, encouraged her to think beyond her already admirable goals and put in a call to colleague Rev. Charles Boayue Jr. of Second Grace United Methodist Church.
Boayue is a Liberian native whose wife Elizabeth was a member of the church that founded C.W. Duncan in 1980.
Jessica and her mother Nancy attended the screening and Jessica and Boayue both knew the movie was the perfect means to convince people to donate money to C.W. Duncan.
Arnold said she has always had an affinity for African culture and loved the people, but she knew very little about Liberia.
But after a little more than an hour of trying to grasp the realities of the horrific atrocities she was watching on the big screen she found plenty of room in her heart for the people of Liberia.
“(The movie) definitely cooberated what my original plans were. I didn’t know what to expect at first, because Pray The Devil Back to Hell was the name of it. The movie is very, very graphic but I’d almost rather have it be that way than try to shelter people from seeing what happens during the 14 years of civil war,” Arnold said. “So by seeing that, it definitely motivated me even more to go along with this project, but it just hurts so badly to see the devastation and everything going on. They showed some of the hospitals, and houses people are living in, and I just can’t imagine living in a condition like that and not being able to have education or anything like that.”
Arnold and Boayue decided the film was a great way to raise awareness and raise funds for a scholarship and they were dead on.
With the help of a board of directors and the aid of major press outlets like the Detroit Free Press and Oakland Press, Arnold organized three showings of the film in late November. Waterford Central covered the costs of the educational DVD, which was $295, the standard cost for organizations who want to have viewing parties.
Coupled with selling African crafts at events such as the “Compassionate Christmas Fair” at her church, Arnold has raised enough money to provide 52 children year-long scholarships, including supplies and adequate instruction.
It takes just $70 to sponsor a child and with the project still in its infancy Arnold is not holding back any of her excitement regarding the future.
“Our original goal was 100 students, and I think as of right now that’s still our goal, but if we get past 100 students we’ll keep raising money. But we also have to talk to the school and see how many students they can hold, and we have plans on going there and making more classrooms. We just have to talk with the school, but I don’t think we’ll be stopping any time soon,” she said.
She has received personal letters of gratitude from the Liberian Bishop, Dr. John G. Innis and in the Detroit Free Press Boayue said he has been truly inspired to see an 11th-grader commit to something in a land so far away in a “society where everyone is fighting for what they can get for themselves.”
But Arnold just blushes at the appreciation, saying she is just doing what we all should be doing — following God’s lead.
What she isn’t afraid to get excited about is how the mission continues to expand.
Text-book giants Houghton Mifflin and Prentice Hall are providing new classroom materials and textbooks and the Waterford School District is supporting her project by donating used textbooks to be shipped to C.W. Duncan.
They are storing them for her in the warehouse, and her high school principal plans to hold a literature book drive for the school.
In the meantime Arnold hopes more churches will consider showing screenings of the documentary and donating to the school. She has created a Facebook group titled “C.W. Duncan School Mission Project” and she can be contacted at duncanschool@att.net. A list of screenings nationwide can also be found, at www.praythedevilbacktohell.com, although proceeds do not necessarily go toward funding C.W. Duncan.
“I had no idea how big it would get or how much of a response people would give to the project. At first I was thinking I could just sponsor a hospital or something like that, but Wendy suggested a school because that has a longer-lasting effect than just sponsoring one child,” Arnold said. “This whole thing has just made me so happy. I don’t have that guilty feeling anymore because I know I am doing something and that guilty feeling was God telling me there was something I could do and I should be doing.”
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