Here is a story I am working on for children that you can share with your children. I hope to make it into a picture book for kids.

George Liele was born into slavery. That means another man owned George just like any other property. George's life was not his own. He lived where he was told. He worked when, where, and how he was told. He could be sold, whipped, beaten, or killed because he wasn't considered a person but a piece of property like a horse or cow or animal. 

George was born way back in 1750 or 1751. That was before the United States was even a country. 

George's owner was Henry Sharpe. Mr. Sharpe was a Baptist deacon that loved God, and as masters or slave owners went, he was a kind master. 

Mr. Sharpe took George to church with him, and after hearing months and months of preaching, George got saved. He was 21 or 22 years old. He was not sure how old he was because he had no record of his birth.

As a boy, George thought his good works would get him saved and take him to heaven, but at church, he learned that his sins were too great for him to get right.

George learned that Jesus had died for him and paid his sin debt. 

George immediately started teaching the Bible to the other slaves. When Mr. Sharpe's pastor and the church heard about what George was doing, they ordained him to preach the gospel. 

Mr. Sharpe set George free just a year after he got saved. As a free man, George would tell others how Jesus died on the cross for their sins. When George preached, God blessed even the white people that heard George preach the Bible. 

When George was only 23, he started the first Negro Church in America. 

What George did was very unusual. Most masters and white people would not allow a Black man to preach the gospel or lead church services.

When the Revolutionary War started, Mr. Sharpe died of a gunshot wound. He was on the side of the British. Mr. Sharpe's children wanted to enslave George again. They put him in jail. 

The judge freed George when he showed the judge his papers signed by Mr. Sharpe, giving him his freedom. To pay for his release, George had to borrow money.

The only way he could borrow money was to sell himself again into slavery to a good man who would free him after he paid back the money he borrowed. This was called an indentured servant. 

After getting out of jail, George and Colonel Kirkland, who had loaned him the money for his defense, went to Jamaica. Colonel Kirkland loaned the money for George and his family to travel to Jamaica. So George carried his wife and children to Jamaica, where George would become the first foreign missionary to leave America. 

George worked for Colonel Kirkland for two years to pay off his debt of $700 that it cost for court and to move his family to Jamaica.

When George went to Jamaica, four other families of freed slaves went with him. They worked together and started a church. The members were primarily slaves who had little or nothing of money. The slaves suffered persecution for going to church.

George was jailed more than once but would never quit loving and serving God. The white people were afraid that if the slaves heard the gospel, they might rise in rebellion.

George wouldn't allow any slave to attend his church without a letter from their masters that they were obedient and working hard. 

While George was in jail for preaching, the wicked slave owners drug David a praying slave, whipped, and then hung him. After that, they cut off his head.

The slave owners told the slave believers not to worship, or they would do the same to them. Then dragging up Moses Hall, the slave owners asked him whose head it was. Moses replied. "David's."

Then the slave owners asked him, "Do you know why he is up here?"

"For praying, sir," Moses said.

The slave owners said, "No more of your prayer meetings. If we catch you at it, we will do the same thing to you." 

Everyone watched as Moses knelt beside the pole that held David's head and said. Let us pray. He then prayed for the salvation of the murderers. 

The slave owners were shocked and left without harming the slave believers. 

God significantly used George Liele. By 1814 there were over 8,000 believers in this ministry. Within five years of his death, the number reached 20,000. Of course, the preachers George trained did much of the work.

So before George died, God had blessed him, making him the first Black man ordained to the gospel ministry. He started the first black church, was the first missionary, and even the first black missionary to leave America to go to another country with the gospel.

Have you decided to follow Jesus?

Would you follow Jesus if people hurt and threatened to kill you as the Jamaican Christians did?

Would you be willing to go to another country and share the gospel with those that have never heard what Jesus did for them on the cross of Calvary?