Sent to Heal a Wounded Nation – Sierra Leone’s Journey of Faith and Restoration

Welcome to Voice Afrique, a space where faith meets the deep wounds and hopes of Africa. I’m your host, Fr. Stan Chu Ilo, inviting you into a moment of reflection, healing, and encounter.

In this episode, we turn our gaze to Sierra Leone — a nation once scarred by war, disease, and poverty, yet resilient through the power of faith. Through the eyes of faith, we discover that Sierra Leone’s post-war recovery is not just political or economic, but a spiritual pilgrimage of restoration.

Joining me is Agnes Ainea, an acclaimed African journalist and author of “Sent to Heal a Wounded Nation: The Story of Father Peter Konteh” (Paulines Africa). Together, we explore the prophetic witness of Fr. Peter Konteh — a Catholic priest whose ministry through Caritas Freetown embodies the Church’s healing mission: rebuilding communities, restoring dignity, and renewing hope.

From the ruins of civil war and the scars of Ebola to the promise of peace and education, this story captures what Pope Francis calls “the polyhedron of hope” — a people whose faith and solidarity transform suffering into grace.

📖 In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• How the Church in Sierra Leone became a sanctuary for the wounded
• The transformative power of faith-based humanitarian work
• Why Africa’s story of resilience is also a theology of hope
• Lessons for building peace, healing trauma, and empowering communities

💡 “Faith is not just belief—it is action. It is love walking among ruins.”

🙏 Stay tuned until the end for a prayer for peace and renewal in Sierra Leone and across Africa.

#VoiceAfrique #FrStanChuIlo #AfricaFaith #SierraLeone #CatholicChurch #Caritas #PeterKonteh #AgnesAinea #PaulinesAfrica #AfricanHope #PostConflictHealing #PeaceAndFaith #AfricanPodcast #FaithInAction #JusticeAndPeace #Reconciliation

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to VoiceAfrica, the public conversation on faith, life, and politics from the perspective of Africa and the diaspora. In this podcast, Faith meets the deep wants and hopes of our African continent. I am your host, but I stand to Evo, inviting you into a moment of reflection, feeling, and encounter. Today we turn our gaze to Pierre Leo, a land of once powered by civil war disease and poverty, yet resilient in the spirit of our people. Through the eyes of faith, we explore how Stered Leon's journey of forced recovery is not only a political or economic process, but also a spiritual fragment of restoration, where the Catholic Church, inspired by the gospel of love and service, walks with the wounded, rebuilt broken communities and souls of the world. From the ruins of conflict and the shadows of the border to the promise of education, community health and reconciliation, there are new hands as giving testaments to what Francis calls the holy feeder of all people whose diverse gifts and faith traditions converge to renew the human factor. We will listen particularly to the story of Father Peter Contex as recounted by one of Africa's outstanding journalists, Agnes Ainier, who has written a very compelling narrative of the testament or testimony or witness of the prophetic presence of this outstanding priest to this episode of Bright Year and Lord. Not through the lands of tragedy, but through the sacrament of repeating that emerges when faith becomes fresh in the world of mercy. We will listen to the stories of this one of our priests and how the fire works through the shadows to bring the life of Christ. So stay tuned as we explore the Catholic Church of Sierra Leone embodying the healing mission of Christ through the book by Agnes titled Sent to Heal a Wounded Nation the Story of Father Peter Conte. Welcome to Voice Africa Agnes.

SPEAKER_06 2:33

Thank you, Father.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And thank you for making the time. I know you have been doing the rounds uh talking to many outlets about this uh important book published by uh Paul Lines of Africa. So uh for those uh who have not read the book, uh can you tell us uh what the book is about?

SPEAKER_06 2:55

Uh okay, the book is about um this uh particular Sierra Leone priest, Father Peter Conte, who was uh ordained at the height of war in the country. That was between 1991 and uh 2002, the worst civil war that uh that tiny African country has ever experienced, uh in which uh more than 50,000, an estimated 50,000 people were killed, and half of the population was displaced. So 50,000 may seem little, but compared to the population of the country, especially at that particular time, this was a very huge number because uh in 1990, Sierra Leone was just about 4 million people. Uh, that is the size of maybe uh Louisiana State, uh, you know, very a very small uh population, and out of this, 50,000 people were killed. So at the height of that uh civil war, um uh a young priest, a young uh deacon was ordained, and on the day of his ordination, his archbishop sent him uh to one of the IDP camps uh to distribute the food that had been prepared for his uh reception after ordination. So uh being at the height of war, people were so scared. Uh, in fact, the ordination was done in so much haste that no one was left to eat this food. So the archbishop sent Father Stan on that very day of his ordination to distribute this food among the IDPs. So that in a way marks uh the start of uh Father Peter's humanitarian work, and he has never stopped doing that up to up to now. So Sierra Leone is a wounded country, and that is one of the things that I explore in the book. It is wounded in so many ways, uh, mainly from the from the war. If you go to Sierra Leone right now, you will find people who are still uh the amputees are still there, those people who were cut their limbs at the height of the war, they are still there. Some of them were still uh young children, and now they are uh adults, they still have these physical wounds. Um we find there is so much uh bitterness and anger among some of the people who experienced the war. And um some of the issues that emanated from the war are uh sexual and gender-based violence, which is very rampant in Sierra Leone, because you find that um in an attempt to settle some of these people that they were not settled very well, and uh in a place known as um Grafton community where the uh widows were settled, uh widows, uh people, you know, people who have been separated by their families, uh, you find that they were settled without any packages. And so the soldiers who solicit for sexual favors from the from the young young girls there, and the people, the young men also felt entitled, you know, to solicit this, yet they didn't have money or food to offer like the soldiers did. So they started forcing themselves on the girls. So that uh was the start of something that has been very difficult to tackle, and uh Sierra Leone uh through characters is trying to address some of these issues. Uh during the war, um Islam communities uh emerged around Freetown because the people were leaving the provinces where the fighting was more most intense, and now we have uh very big slam communities around Freetown, you know, the congestion and everything else that comes with the impoverishment of slam communities is there, and uh that is that is one of the work that uh Caritas Freetown, under the leadership of uh Father Conte, is trying to address. So that is that is basically about what the book is about, uh, about this priest who is trying to bring healing in Sierra Leone. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Thank you very much, Agnes. And um uh what's your motivation really in in telling this story through the lens of uh the life of uh Father Conte?

SPEAKER_06 7:24

Yes, my biggest motivation as a storyteller was um to tell stories of us storytellers within the Catholic Church to tell stories of these people who are making an impact in the Catholic Church, you know, to give them the voice to tell stories of real stories of real people. Uh, you know, right now people might might not really care of what uh Father Conte is doing, but future generations will want to know, you know, in the healing journey of Sierra Leone, who are the people, who are the key players. So uh that is what motivated me to write to write the story. I had uh written a lot about uh Father Conte and the work of characters written, even before I decided to write this book. You know, um I would see that they had won awards uh as characters, some of them as individual. And then one time father told me that uh you've been writing about us, but we would love for you to come and see for yourself actually what you are writing about our work on the ground. So I traveled to Sierra Leone in 2022 at the invitation of Caritas Freetown, and I stayed there for for two for two weeks. Two weeks of going around, you know, uh looking at what Father is doing in the slums, slam, especially in the slum communities among these women who are experiencing sexual and gender-based violence. And I saw for myself, you know, and uh I saw for myself the work of Caritas Free Town, and uh going through these slums, I realized that actually Kadakita is a household name. Even small children know him, you know. He goes on the ground, he just doesn't send people there when they are going to distribute food and going when they are going to address these fires that uh happen in the slums, the floodings, you know. He goes there and uh they have us uh people know that Caritas Freetown uh is usually the first to arrive when disaster happens, and they're usually the last to leave after people have settled. And Father Peter is always among them. Yeah, so when I went there and uh and saw all this, I thought that this is more than just a story, you know, an article. This deserves a book. Yeah, so to answer your question about motivation, that is what I can say.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Thank you very much, Agnes. Dear friends, you're listening to VoiceAfrique Perspectives on Faith, Life and Politics from Africa and the diaspora. And today my conversation partner is Agnes Ainer, author and journalist who has written a very compelling account of the work of Father Peter Conte and Carita Sierra Leone, a book published by Holland Africa titled Sent to Heal a Wounded Nation: The Story of Father Peter Conte!

SPEAKER_05 10:46

Come on, tiny up the couch, my duck to be done to the bottom, that's a shape, I think.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Welcome back. And Agnes, you talk about your motivation, the need to give voice to people like Father Peter, who is working at the existential peripheries of life. Recently, Pope Leo released an apostolic exhortation, The Legacy, where he warned the world of the devastating impact of the throwaway society, or even what sometimes people say the deserving poor, the uh attempt by uh the wealthy or the powerful to uh to discard the poor, to clear the streets of the poor. And your story tells us of the importance of this work of social repair that has a story that is told of poverty. If you look at the statistics, here and only still uh uh poor. There are so many people like you point out uh in the book, women, uh young people that are living in slums. So what do you think the continent of Africa and the church in Africa can learn from the story of Father Peter in terms of uh how to give hope to our people living in this kind of uh uh post-conflict situation or in conflict situation and uh so much uh suffering and devastation in many parts of the continent.

SPEAKER_06 15:10

That's right. Um you see, uh in many African countries we are still uh depending on uh donors, uh not just Sierra Leone. And um Father Peter has been in humanitarian work for all this time and he offers a very refreshing approach uh to humanitarian work. Uh he just Sierra Leone and Caritas Freetown uh isn't just on the receiving end as we have always known um uh traditional aid to be. Uh he told me that Africa can also be in a position to give back, especially to these countries that give donor funding. And uh their way of giving back is in terms of uh expertise. Uh he told me that uh they give experts advice to countries, uh developed countries that are also dealing with disasters, you know, so that it is not just uh them on the receiving end. So he presents a way in which you can tackle uh world challenges in a in a manner of collaboration so that uh we don't have just uh one country or like one region on the receiving end and the other on the on the giving. Yeah, so I don't know, I don't know if I have uh uh really responded to your question. Yeah, but that is one one of the perspectives that comes out in the book so clearly, like this refreshing approach to humanitarian, humanitarian work in Africa.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, thank you. Um but I would like to know from your experience you not only cover uh Sierra Leom, you cover the whole of Africa. What lessons can people learn in South Sudan, for instance? What lessons can people learn from Congo? What lessons can people learn from uh Nigeria or in um Central African Republic, from the ministry of Father Peter, who evidently from your narrative is uh building on assets rather than simply remaining on addressing needs and uh replicating a dependence cycle? Yes, it's a devastated country, but then from the ashes, from the wounds, he's constructing gradually um the architecture for progress and for peace and for hope. So what uh so you you present him as a best practice evidently. So, how can this apply to some of the other African countries that are failing to rise from the ashes? Rather, what you see is an ever-evolving cycle of decay.

SPEAKER_06 17:55

Okay, you you speak about uh your your question is very is not very clear, uh, but what we can do is.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

So let me make it clear. Let me make it clear. So this is a best practice. You identify a best practice, but we don't see such best practices in some places that are caught in this ever-revolving cycle of war. So what lessons can are you presenting in this book um that can be applied to other African countries?

SPEAKER_06 18:29

Yes, uh many African countries have uh experienced a devastation and they continue to experience a devastation. So we might have actually not seen people who rise to the occasion to start the healing process, like uh Father Peter and Caritas Freetown uh clearly do. Yeah, so this is a lesson. Um they could be there, maybe it is us who are not amplifying their stories, but maybe they could be there. Uh but uh it is not coming out uh uh clearly. Uh and uh what they can learn, uh what other countries can learn, African two countries, uh is to stem any pointers uh to violence and war uh before it actually happens, because it can take a very, very long time uh to heal once it has happened. Like Sierra Leone, uh the wounds are so deep, and it might take actually a very long time uh to heal. So other African countries can learn from this particular devastation and stem uh actually any violence from the bird. And uh for the church that is uh involved in humanitarian work, um I spoke to one person in the book actually who talks about uh Father Peter being able to achieve miracles with nothing. So this is a lesson. Like you don't have uh you don't have to have a lot uh to bring healing to the people. Yeah, so they speak about very positive things about Father Peter. One says that actually the Archbishop of Freetown says Father Peter sees priesthood as a ministry of service. Yeah, so there are so many lessons to learn from the from from Father Peter, especially for those who are who are involved in any way to bring healing in on the African continent.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Thank you very much, Agnes. And finally, um, is now an opportunity for you to advertise your book. Why why should every person buy this book?

SPEAKER_06 20:43

Okay, um I'll start by those in humanitarian work. Uh, there is a section, a whole section, uh let me just call it a chapter that have dedicated to this, uh, where Father Peter offers advice uh to those people who are in engaged in humanitarian work. In Africa, you can learn a lot from it. And then those who would uh love to read the about the history of this uh very beautiful country, Sierra Leone, um uh they can uh they they they should also buy the book. And uh yeah, those who want to know about uh the steady growth of the Catholic Church uh in Sierra Leone and um the peaceful coexistence uh between Christians and Muslims. Actually, I elevate Sierra Leone as an example to other countries in in West Africa that are experiencing these uh instabilities religious based in West Africa. You know, uh Sierra Leone is majorly Muslim, about 77% uh Muslims. Christians just about 20%, but they live so peacefully together. It's an important Lesson for other countries in West Africa, Nigeria, Burkina Paso Nigeria to learn from, you know. You can live peacefully. A family that is just if you are a Muslim, if you are in Christian. They live even the the bishop of people, his parents are Muslims. The bishop of the Catholic decision. So uh get this book and uh get some of these lessons on just how to live peacefully, how to hear the voice of the people.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Thank you, thank you. And where can they get the book?

SPEAKER_06 22:42

The book is uh on Amazon. Uh for those who want to read the soft copy. Uh just type the title Send to Heal a Wonder Nation, the story of Adatita Country. And those who can access any bookshop by the pollen publication system. Uh, they also have the book, you can get it there.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Are you doing any book tours to Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa where people can get autographs?

SPEAKER_06 23:14

Uh I don't know. Um we might have a launch uh later when Father Peter will be celebrating his Christie anniversary, I think in April next year. But uh I don't know. Yeah, those who want autographed books can look only in Nairobi.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Congratulations, congratulations, uh Agnes Aine. Thank you. And thank you, brothers and sisters, for uh listening to this uh episode where we presented uh the book sent to heal a wounded nation, the story of Father Peter Conte, written by journalist and author Agnes Aineer. And let us conclude our session with a prayer. Eternal God of mercy and hope you who bring life out of ruins and peace out of pain. Look with love upon the people of Sierra Leone and all your children across Africa, heal the memories of war and loss, restore the land, the rivers, and the hearts of your people. Strengthen those who labor for justice, peace and reconciliation. Bless Caritas Sierra Leone, bless our leaders with wisdom, our youth with courage, our mothers and fathers with steadfast faith, and bless our church with the compassion of Christ to reach out to the poor, the broken, and the wounded. Breathe your Holy Spirit, O Lord, with prayer upon your church, upon your people, breathe new life into our nations, that from the ashes of suffering may rise a new dawn of hope, and that all Africa may sing again the song of creation, the song of glory. The Lord is our healer, and Africa shall live. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. And thank you, friends, for being a part of this episode. Until we come your way again next week, we ask you, be strong in your faith, be courageous in your hope, be faithful and fervent in loving. Take care of yourself, your neighbors, your family, and together, let's take care of the church, let's take care of Africa, let's take care of this planet that God has given to us as our common home. God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Thank you for listening to Voice Africa with Father Stan True Elo. Stay tuned for our next podcast. God bless you.