Serve Africa was founded in response to poverty and with the goal to improve the quality of life for poor pastors and vulnerable children.
The founders, Stephen and Florence Wonbenyakeh, are Liberians who relocated to West Des Moines, Iowa in 2013 with their two boys, Levi and Testimony.
In 2016, they planted Alive Church in Des Moines, Iowa to reach their local community. They also started Serve Africa as a public charity to serve the needs of their fellow brothers and sisters in Liberia. Their passion to share the gospel through the pulpit and through humanitarian interventions is overwhelming. For them, everyone needs to hear that Jesus loves them and that Jesus is the hope for this world.
In 2022, Jesus earned his graduate degree in Practical Theology at the Faith Baptist Theological Seminary in Ankeny, Iowa while continuing to pastor Alive Church and provide leadership for Serve Africa.
Over the past seven years, both Stephen and Florence have raised support and taken at least 15 mission teams to Liberia to serve their fellow Liberians who have been significantly impacted by years of abject poverty. They are deeply intentional about making Liberia a better place through their Hope Center initiatives, which are aimed at providing safe homes for kids, education for youth, empowerment for widows and pregnant women, and leadership development opportunities for village pastors.
Prior to relocating, Stephen co-founded and pastored the LCMI Church in Soul Clinic, Paynesville, Liberia for eight years. Stephen never forgets how the Lord used these years to prepare Him for bigger ministry projects that laid ahead of him.
Stephen and Florence's conviction to help their native country goes far back to the time when they to lived in Liberia. In 2003, Stephen and Florence were driven to their home village in Liberia due to civil war. During that time, God used the couple to assist some village pastors in planting new churches. As they worked alongside the pastors, they saw that the pastors served under strenuous circumstances. The pastors had no study materials. They also had no means of income. And majority of them were uneducated. Stephen and Florence also witnessed pastors' kids go to bed hungry, slept on bare floor, and were usually without clothes. Because of the severity of their state of poverty, the pastors could not afford to send their kids to school or feed them.
In response to this need, God gave Stephen and Florence a vision to reach out to rural pastors and underprivileged children. Serve Africa was consequently birthed to serve as the vehicle in this effort.