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Former CRC Pastor Running for Vice President of Liberia

July 19, 2017
Samuel Reeves praying in his church

Samuel Reeves praying in his church

Courtesy of Providence Baptist Church

God has always been leading Samuel Reeves along, pushing him to accept jobs and positions he never applied for.  The most recent job offer for the former pastor at Madison Square Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich, is to run for vice president of Liberia.

Reeves will be the running mate for Joseph Mills Jones, who served for two terms as governor of the World Bank of Liberia.

“It was God who orchestrated all of this. God has always been having me do crazy things in my life,” said Reeves, referring to jobs he never planned to do.

But, he added, “I have had to be who God has wanted me to be and to work where he has wanted me to work.”

His career path began 20 years ago when, just after graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary, Reeves received a call to serve as a copastor at Madison Square.

Though he interviewed for the job, he says he didn’t try very hard to convince Madison leaders that he was the person for them. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to do ministry, but West Michigan wasn’t even on his list.

“I was very nonchalant when they flew me out for an interview. This was not the place I was going to be,” said Reeves, who grew up in Liberia in West Africa and left the country with his wife, Alice, during a long and violent civil war.

“Looking back, it was like I was trying to talk myself right out of a job,” if for no other reason than that he was a Baptist and didn’t know much about the CRC, he said.

But when he received the offer, he accepted the job and worked at Madison for nearly nine years. During that time, Reeves said, he loved the work and the people and was involved “in a wonderful ministry, seeing the church grow and the number of services increase, and having an impact on the community.”

In 2004, Reeves had another unexpected offer — to become the senior pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia. Founded in 1822, it is the oldest and one of the largest Baptist churches in Liberia.

Again, Reeves said, he was reluctant to make a move, and his friends in Grand Rapids told him that returning to Liberia, which was just pulling itself out of the civil war, would not be a good idea.

“I really wanted to stay at Madison, but I prayed about this and asked God what he wanted me to do, and eventually I grew convinced that the Spirit wanted me to go back to help,” said Reeves.

For more than a dozen years now, he has served the church in Liberia, leading congregation members to get involved in a range of ministries, including opening a school, building a hospital, opening a feeding and mentoring program for young people who had fought in the civil war, planting other churches, and supporting 22 missionaries around the world.

“Providence as a church has been a cornerstone of the nation,” said Reeves, adding that Liberia was founded in 1821 by freed American and Caribbean slaves. Its constitution and seats of government are patterned after those of the United States.

But there are differences.

“In Liberia, there is no separation of church and state and, in fact, many government officials over the years have been members of Providence,” said Reeves. “The church has helped to shape government policies and has continued its mission to do good, even though it can be a challenge at times.”

Only recently came the job offer from Joseph Mills Jones, who was aware of and appreciated the work Reeves and his church have done.

“I never considered being a politician,” Reeves said. “But then when they asked me to run, I thought that I can’t sit on my hands. I have to get out there and be involved.”

Reeves has been returning to the U.S. nearly every summer since 2004 to visit friends and raise support for the many ministries that he and his church in Liberia have helped to establish.

This summer, among other activities, he has had the added responsibility of preparing a campaign to run for vice president of Liberia, a nation of about 4.2 million people. Election season in Liberia is short; voters will go to the polls in October.

Reeves’s party is called the Movement for Economic Empowerment, and he said that about five or six of the country’s major parties will be vying to win top spots to lead Liberia. The next president will succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is the nation’s first female president and winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize.

If Jones and he are elected, Reeves said, “I will allow my faith to influence my work in the public sphere. I’ll work for justice — and education will be the first thing” to be addressed.

Education, he explained, helps to get people out of poverty; it helps people to fend for themselves and, in turn, to help others.

Reeves said he wants to help Liberia rise up by helping people gain the skills needed to make a decent living — and he sees this as part of helping bring God’s justice to all.

“We want to offer some different options for the people,” he said. “Perhaps God will be giving us some optimism we never had before.”

When he accepted the offer to run as vice president in late June, Reeves made a speech in which he expanded on this theme of optimism.

“We present to you that these are days of possibilities, potentials, and equal opportunities for all Liberians,” he said. “That is why we are prepared to lift Liberia and Liberians from the dirt of poverty, underdevelopment and illiteracy…..

“Through confidence, self-reliance, hard work, creativity, innovation and prayers, God will make us instruments of his miracles and in the transformation and development of our nation.”