Bishop Dr. Kortu Brown – Balancing the Art of Serving God & Promoting Good Governance

MONROVIA – Bad governance remains a challenge in countries worldwide. Most of the countries have issues with citizen participation in government, transparency, accountability, equitable distribution of the national cake and the rule of law.

While politicians would like the Church to ‘leave unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar’, it plays an important role in the promotion of good governance. Globally, religion still plays a big role in politics and governance.

While religious commitments sometimes come into conflict with the demands of politics, religious leaders have been influential in elections, public policy and human rights advocacy. In Liberia, Reverend Kortu Brown, former Chairman of the Liberia Council of Churches and current Pastor of the New Water in the Desert Assembly (NWIDA), remains actively in balancing his faith towards God by directly addressing the religious, educational and socioeconomic needs of society/Like in other parts of Liberia, the civil war which started in December 1989, and disrupted life in western Liberia, compelling more than 150,000 residents to flee that region in August 1992 when former warring factions battled for the “soul” of the Western region-Tubmanburg, the main provincial town of Bomi County. That was the second major fighting in two years.

The first was in July and August 1990, when the country was severely pillaged for the first time. The second round of fighting was even more devastating. It uprooted the whole region and forced people to run in all directions for safety; some towards central Liberia; others, the majority sought refuge in the nation’s capital, Monrovia.

Three months later, because of the most devastating exchange of gunfire across the capital, in the battle commonly referred to as ‘Octopus’, the displaced people sheltering within central Monrovia were relocated to the western suburbs of the city where they created makeshift huts referred to as ‘Displaced Shelters’.Amidst the prevailing confusion and destruction, some Christians displaced within one of the largest shelters, the VOA 1 (which hosts displaced and refugees) organized a couple of fellowship and prayer services amongst the displaced to meet their spiritual needs. Out of this great fellowship sprung out of many local congregations, one of which was the ‘Water in the Desert’ Fellowship.

It was established as a displaced fellowship in 1994. After the annulment of internal displacement in 1997 when the first phase of the civil war ended, about 72 members of this fellowship urged the pastor, Reverend Kortu K. Brown to establish a regular local Church in the Brewerville Community, a settlement of more than a hundred years that became home to uprooted people throughout the 14 years of civil conflict in Liberia. A regular assembly was launched in earnest after three days of fast and prayer from December 29-31, 1997.

Out of those spiritual consultations and business meetings, New Water in the Desert Assembly (NWIDA) developed and the Pastor was formally inducted on August 16, 1998.In 2000, the church relocated about a mile from her previous site on a 10-acre piece of land where it planted cassava and built a “farmhouse” for the caretaker of the mission, the Church Administrator and the current 8-office second edifice out of dirt bricks. Since then weekly activities have expanded and attendance has grown to the present five hundred or more persons including the regular worship service and children Sunday school which runs concurrently. Members come from within and outside of Brewerville.In May 2001, NWIDA began relocating to her present site in the northwest of Brewerville when the area was cleared for cassava farm and a mission house was constructed.

In 2002, a health center was constructed and a school, now a senior high with more than five hundred children constructed in the same year.In 2003, fighting disrupted normal activities and forced people to flee the area. Towards the end of that year, things normalized, and Church Aid Inc (CAI) constructed a 6-room ‘Church Women Training Center’ (CWTC) for training women and girls.

This relief and development department of the Church manages and encourages a micro enterprise development program that has a target to give out a million Liberia dollars in credit in one year, through God’s help.Evangelism has remained the heartbeat of NWIDA. Souls are being baptized in the Holy Ghost and lives transformed because God is in her midst. Preaching points have been established in almost half of Liberia’s 15 counties over the past three years. Different programs in missions to include the Youth Missions Service placing young people in temporal rural fields for evangelism purposes, Mobile Missions: ‘Mission on the move’ providing material and spiritual helps through medication, technical help (i.e.) in the areas of construction, counseling, etc. to needy community residents and displaced persons returning to their pre-war villages, Mobile Bible Training Clinic intended to train pastors, evangelists, etc. in their places of assignments, amongst others have been established to further the works of mission in Liberia.

But besides the furtherance of ecumenical duties, the Church and its leadership have been in the forefront of promoting good governance in Liberia.As former president of the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC) Rev. Brown’s voice had always rang the loudest in denouncing bad governance and holding even religious leaders’ feet to the fire, especially those who sought accepted political appointments as a means of silencing their critical voices.When former President George Weah dismissed the Managing Director of the Liberia Airport Authority (LAA, renowned Liberian Bishop John Allen Klayee, Rev. Brown said Bishop Klayee who is the General Overseer and Chief Executive Officer of the famous Jubilee Praise and Worship Church in Liberia, with branches in Guinea and Sierra Leone, shouldn’t have accepted the political appointment because it compromised his critical voice to erect checkpoints against bad governance.

Today, as Rev. Brown leads his flock at the Liberia Water in the Desert Church in outlying Brewerville, his voice remains even more critical as he addresses national issues ranging from the ongoing National Legislature leadership crisis to other critical issues that tend to disrupt the peace and shatter the lives of destitute Liberians who are struggling to make ends meet after decades of civil upheaval. Rev. Brown in this regard rightfully deserves The Analyst’s accolade as Liberia’s foremost ecumenical giant for this year in review.