Newsletter: March Issue - 2025

I returned from an 8 day trip to Sierra Leone only a week ago, where Never Evanescent partnered with Seven Soils, a ministry focused on bringing the Gospel to the seven continents, to travel to Sierra Leone, meet with church leaders, and see if God wanted to use Never Evanescent there.

Before I get into the trip itself, I want to share the buildup to the trip, because from the beginning it was clear that the trip was orchestrated by God. For those who don’t know, I am in the Marine Corps, which means traveling to a foreign country requires a time-intensive, paperwork-heavy, bureaucratic process to gain approval for travel. This process only becomes more difficult the more obscure your final location is; in routing my package I was told multiple times “I have never seen a request like this before.” I suppose most people don’t travel to third-world, sub-Saharan, West African countries. Due to the uniqueness of my request, many of the people that I needed to help me through the process had to learn new systems and route paperwork they had never before done. All this to say, I had ZERO expectations of gaining approval. I started my request about 90 days prior to the trip and received my final authorization coming just 11 days before we left. I am fully convinced that if God had not facilitated my approval, I would not have received approval.

I want to briefly touch on three major events that happened during our trip.

1. One of the first things we did was meet with the local church leaders. While the primary discussion surrounded the work that Seven Soils was accomplishing, we spoke about how Never Evanescent could partner with the church. The pastor expressed a desire to operate a safehouse. Before the trip, the Never Evanescent team had identified this as one the the primary areas we could help. Our research shows that Sierra Leone is desperately short on viable, adequately-funded safehouses for trafficked survivors. Upon my arrival back in the States, I received a message from the lead pastor asking if we were ready to start looking for a house to begin operations. He had already found church members who would be willing to be employed in support of the safehouse.

2. We traveled to a distant township called Mattru to meet with a partner church and facilitate their introduction with the local chiefdom leadership and regional government personnel. During our trip to Mattru, Justice, a man traveling with Seven Soils, and I were approached by many of the young men and women. Time and time again our conversations would lead us to asking what their future desires were. For many of them the answer was the same: college. When asked why the answer was always, “So that I can provide for my family, my friends, and my church”. This touched our hearts and led Justice and I to create The Hope for Sierra Leone Scholarship Fund.

3. Finally, we met with a Sierra Leonean human rights lawyer who agreed to partner with NE. To emphasize the point made earlier about the lack of appropriate safehouses: during our conversation I mentioned that we were going to start a safehouse and he said “That’s a great idea. I don't think I know of one.” The fact that one of the most prominent human rights lawyers doesn’t know about any safehouses is clearly an issue, and we believe that we are called to solve it.

Something I want to discuss before ending this letter is something that I saw during our trip back to the capital city. We witnessed a fatal car accident. This was a sobering reminder that our life is short and that we are not promised tomorrow. God is the giver and taker of life. I see this as a reminder that I should pursue each day as though it's my last. How can I give God glory today? How can I accomplish His will today? Is there something I should do today that I have been putting off?

I have only been able to capture a small portion of the work God is planning in Sierra Leone here in this short newsletter. Please do not hesitate to reach out and learn more about how you can help in accomplishing His mission.

God Bless,

Seth A. N. McAnally

Founder, President

P.S. Here's what I know about the God I serve. He provides. God has clearly opened doors for Never Evanescent. We intend to run full speed through them regardless of our situation. Moving forward we have one area that needs support: finances. Our financial situation is changing dramatically with the need for consistent monthly income in support of the safehouse. We will not let this slow us down because God has said “Go.” So we go. God has shown us the path. We will follow it regardless of what “commonsense” says. We follow an uncommon God.