MONROVIA – Research has revealed that children who experience hunger face numerous dangers that can have long-lasting effects on their physical and mental health, academic achievement, and future economic prospects.
Latest reports state that Liberia struggles with high levels of child hunger and malnutrition, with the 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI) scoring the country 32.2, indicating a serious level of hunger.
But one man, who has vowed to help feed hungry children in Liberia, is Bishop John Allan Klayee, the Founder and Overseer of the Jubilee Praise and Worship Center – Liberty Ministry, headquartered in Sinkor, Old Road, in the capital Monrovia.
Juggling between overseeing close to 50 churches, 43 in Liberia alone, with others in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast; and serving as proprietor of a church-owned radio station, The Voice of Jubilee; to operating an evangelistic ministry by being the founder of a soccer team, the Jubilee FC; Bishop Klayee also runs “Every Day, Every Child”, a humanitarian feeding program that caters for dozens of orphans and abandoned children.
Grief-stricken by what he experienced as Liberia was yet at war against itself when gun-toting men belonging to multiple factions rained terror on the land, as he watched from inside his headquarters church building on a fateful day in 2021, as the lifeless bodies of several ladies, three of whom still had three innocent infants strapped to their backs were dumped along the dusty road, it occurred to him the time to help was right there and then, or never.
The incident of that day, although heart-wrenching, inspired the preacher man to lend a helping hand to the children who were now motherless, and their fathers’ whereabouts unknown as well – so, with the help of his church members, he took the lads in and began to provide care and feeding from proceeds of the church and through the benevolence of some of his members.
It was not long before words got out that Bishop Klayee, the pastor with the passion to feed abandoned kids and orphans, was giving care to three infants inside of his church edifice that was at the time far below what the elegant building of the mega-church looks like today, when three more children were brought in, increasing the number to six, of the kids he had to attend to.
From six, as if it was a pattern of three, before long, Klayee and members of his congregation now had nine kids, to feed and care for, as three other abandoned children were added; thanks to church members and other community dwellers, who began to spread the good news, prompting the scouting of additional kids in dire need of food and care.
As the number grew to 19,000 by 2006, Bishop Klayee, still self-supported at the time, made a conscious decision to leave the full wall of his church to expand his feeding ministry to other parts of the country including Klay, Bomi County, and Owen’s Groove, Margibi County, as he established several feeding centers for orphans and abandoned kids.
To date, now partnering with the LeSEA Global Feed The Hungry, a Dr. Lester Sumrall-founded humanitarian group that has since 2009 donated food items including rice, corn meal, and beans to the Liberian clergyman’s initiative, Bishop Klayee’s “Every Day Every Child” feeding program or Feed The Hungry-Liberia (West Africa) has 19 feeding centers that cater for approximately 19,300 children, and he also regularly distributes food to some 19 schools, several churches across the country, old folks, and a hospital in Liberia’s north-western Nimba County.
Before help could come from the LeSEA Global Feed The Hungry, which is the humanitarian arm of fallen American Pentecostal pastor, evangelist, teacher, and missionary, the late Lester Sumrall Evangelistic Association (LeSEA), Bishop Klayee got support from the Liberty Church, in Fairfield, California, the United States, through his spiritual parents, Bishop Richard, and Pastor Joan West, who co-pastor Liberty Church. The pastor couple is credited with linking Bishop Klayee with the LeSEA Global Feed The Hungry, which is now the Liberian pastor’s biggest donor and major partner.
Through the “Every Day, Every Child” feeding program, Bishop Klayee and his partners feed at least one child daily in Liberia.
“I feel so fulfilled because I feel that mounting the pulpit is just 10 percent of my responsibility as a pastor. The love for God has to do with meeting needs. If I can help somebody to change their life, to make them live, I believe my preaching will not be in vain,” said Bishop Klayee when he was asked how feeding orphans and abandoned children make him feel during a recent interview.
He recalled one occasion on which his team had gone to do food distribution outside of Monrovia, when one of the beneficiaries, a kid cleaved unto him in an intense hug and when he asked why, the kid responded that he did not have anyone to hug him, a response Bishop Klayee said was an emotional event for him, reiterating; “If I can help somebody to change their life, to make them to live, I feel fulfilled.”
