Jefferson’s Tears: Liberia’s Founding and Fall, One Man’s Horror and Hope

Great hope accompanied the movement of freed African-American slaves who migrated to Liberia. The Liberian national constitution was a nurtured sprig from the American tree. Yet the African soil proved relentlessly challenging. Over the decades, Liberia became a morally bankrupt nation beset by criminality and vicious revolution. How could God save a young man in such a cauldron of chaos?

Jefferson Williams Kollie’s story is one of horror, despair, and deliverance. The degraded and revolution-torn African country of Liberia reduced a boy’s life to brutal survival. The once-promising nation was now threatening both body and soul. Yet somehow Jefferson found hope and life. Could grace and redemption experienced by one man presage that of an entire struggling nation? Read how one traumatized young man confirmed God’s radical emancipation in his new home of Australia.