Pastor Eric Sumo
Life and Ministry
Committed To Fulfilling The Great Commission
Pastor Eric Sumo
Eric Sumo gave his life to Christ as a teenager and while being mentored by believers in a Liberian church he felt the call of God on his life to become a pastor. After graduating from high school he began work with Gospel Recordings (www.globalrecordings.net) as a field coordinator taking tape recordings of the gospel they had made in various dialects to the people of the villages in the interior of Liberia.
Pastor Eric Vision Impact Liberia
Pastor Eric Preaching to Village in Liberia
Eric believed the holistic approach to ministry would be far better for these people with so many needs and founded Christian Liberia Village Ministries and began to minister and plant churches. In 2000, he took part in evangelical training with the Billy Graham Crusade in Holland and Leadership training in Singapore at the Hagar Institute. He spent one year in Jos, Nigeria producing gospel recordings in some of the many Nigerian dialects. During Liberia’s 14 years civil war, he ministered to Liberians in Monrovia and the refugee camps; a most dangerous activity.
Before 2006, Pastor Eric was volunteering with Gospel Recordings (now Global Recordings) and had completed two years study at Moriah Bible Training Institute in Liberia and three months training with Gospel Recordings in Ghana in Cross Cultural Training. This was followed by his seminary training in Ghana on a scholarship. By 2004 he was also the Managing Director of “Investment Finance Company” a Czech Republic business buying Iron Ore from Liberia. Eric was paid $1,000. USD monthly plus medical insurance, given an apartment within a compound and the use of a car.
Altar Call Vision Impact Liberia
He was to manage the operations of the company and be the second signature of the company’s account. Eric was applying his salary and bonuses to ministry for the people of the 30 churches that he had planted, to Omega Orphanage, and to pay for repairs for a small war-damaged building, which is now our ministry office. He had the use of the company car to go to villages of the interior helping with wells, medications, zinc for roofs and teaching and training of new pastors. But the combined work load of the company job and ministry was too heavy and by 2008 Eric had to stop his work with the Czech Company because he could not walk away from the calling of God.
On his return to Liberia in 2006, he met Helen Fletcher who was serving on the Mercy Ship, Anastasis. He showed her many parts of the city and countryside including visits to churches and viewing the post civil war destruction. As Helen was formulating strategies in her mind for helping these people, God was revealing His call for her to serve Him in Liberia. The plans to establish a ministry they would call Village Ministries began in 2006 and Pastor Eric continued his studies in Sociology with a minor in management at the University of Liberia.
Eric and Helen Vision Impact Liberia
Pastor Eric was part of a spiritual advisory team for President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf before her election and for her first term in office holding devotions with her and other government staff. On three occasions the President offered him leadership positions in government but he declined saying that he was called to ministry and could not do both, not even for the monetary rewards. Eric has been coordinating all ministry work of Vision Impact Liberia for the past seventeen years.
On various occasions Pastor Eric accepted invitation to the USA as a conference speaker in Chicago, Seattle, California, Philadelphia, New York and Iowa and he also took a course from Rhode Island University on Peace and Non-violence, with honors.
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed."