Liberia Photos and Follow-Up

TO SEE THE PHOTOS IN A LARGER FORMAT, CLICK ON THE PHOTO. THAT WILL TAKE YOU INTO THE SLIDE SHOW IN PICASA

It's been a little more than two weeks since we returned from Liberia, and I'm FINALLY posting something. Please don't take that to mean that I don't have much to say. It's quite the opposite. There's so much that I've almost been without words. The range of issues at hand in a place like Liberia are so vast and so complex that to sum it up in one post would be nearly impossible.

War, past history and cultural norms complicate what is already a difficult situation. The daunting hurdles faced by the people of Liberia and outsiders who are trying to help rebuild could easily cause many to throw in the towel. Some may have, but I left Liberia with a sense of hope.

So instead of rambling on and on about the millions things in my head, I thought in good ol' journalistic fashion that I'd just interview myself to give you an idea about what went on while we were there:

What was Liberia like?
In a word: HOT! Yes, it was hot and sticky. I drank about 3 LITERS of water a day, and I'm sure I sweat out a lot of it. I wouldn't say it was worse than Venezuela (where I traveled in 2001), though. It was probably better, and it helped that we avoided the rainy season. Dan and Angel said it was very different from when they were there in September 2007. Monrovia is a large city, but there weren't many tall buildings. The main roads in the downtown area were paved, but we drove on many bumpy dirt roads lined with tiny homes (the size of my living room or smaller) built of woven straw. I think I saw one traffic light the whole time we were there, and it wasn't really functional. Needless to say, every day included a wild ride, no matter where we went! Still, people find a way to get around whether they walk, ride a scooter or cram into a minivan.

What kind of things did you see there?
An important thing to note is that all of our time was spent in and around the capital city of Monrovia. While a large chunk of the country's residents live in this area, many others live in the interior, so I can't speak to that at all. Liberia's years of civil war came to an end just barely a few years ago. Think of places like Afghanistan, the Balkans and even the south after the American Civil War. It's just devastating what war does. The land is stripped of resources, people are completely thrown for a loop (and some have only known war having grown up during it), and because of instability, many countries and companies don't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. The need for infrastructure to be rebuilt is massive. Running water is a luxury. Everything is powered by generators. Gasoline is poured from jars that, in the Carolinas, would hold sweet tea. Life functions on an everyday level just trying to get by. People go to market every day for their needs, and most people walk to get there.

What did a typical day look like for your team?
We visited the Daniel Hoover Children's Village or the Deaf Home every day. The majority of our time was spent there. However, a few members of our team were in other places at different times. Cyndie and I accompanied Angel one day as she met with other agencies who are efforting to get the moratorium on adoptions lifted. That was fascinating. Part of another day I spent with Angel in the offices of African Christians Fellowship International (ACFI) working to get things organized into file cabinets that will be easily accessible to the staff there. Bob investigated various investment opportunities and investigated ways for the orphanages to become more self-sustaining.

Most of the time, though, we were engaged in various projects around the orphanage. Part of the team worked on construction and maintenance issues, but many of us went through the process of seeing every child for the purpose of giving them a brief medical exam and collecting information for the sponsorships and adoptions run through Christian Adoption Services. This is just a simple example, but I think it speaks to how life was so interrupted by war. One day I weighed and measured height for each child. Almost none of them knew what to do with a scale. Some stared at it like it was a UFO, and others I had to push up onto it. If they were little enough, I finally just picked them up!

Later in the afternoon, we would break up into all of the kids' dorms to play games, listen to a Bible story and make some kind of craft. Eden and I were in dorm 5, which was mostly comprised of girls age 9-11. These girls love to sing!!! Before we would even start we would have them sing us a couple of songs because they were so good and clearly love it so much (and we did, too). It was hilarious when Eden and I would try to get up there and teach them a song because neither of us is a gifted singer.

We did some other things like visit churches, walk to the beach and a little shopping. I also preached a brief message during a service that ACFI hosted in our honor the night before we left. It was a priceless time of celebration, especially because they had brought about 50 children from the orphanage to join us. We sang, danced and praised God for all he had done over the course of the week.

What were the children like at Daniel Hoover Children's Village?
First of all, there are so many of them! It was hard to walk from place to place without being surrounded by children. They love to write letters, and many of the team members received them from the kids they were spending time with. It goes without saying that the children LOVED a little extra attention. They were a lot healthier than I had expected. Having ministered to people in the Venezuelan jungle who were very sick from water-borne illnesses and parasites, I was relieved to not see much of that. I'd attribute that mostly to a well that is onsite. Still, their food supply is small and not nearly as nutritious as they need, so most of them are smaller than American children their age. They liked to have fun in different ways, just like our children do. Some loved dodgeball, others (OK, most of them) play lots of soccer. Many of the girls sang and sang and sang. The older girls like to braid hair, and some of our team got lovely braided hair-dos of their own! I found that the children at the deaf home had good communication skills, probably because of their need to learn how to read and write earlier in life than their hearing counterparts. We were immediately greeted by some of the older children who carried on long conversations with us on paper. Both the DHCV and the Deaf Home are run by ACFI, and so they receive a Christian education along with their school subjects. They know the gospel and are taught the Bible.

How did things go for your team?
I can't give anyone but the Lord the credit for how well things went. We brought 32 suitcases packed to the brim with supplies for the orphanages and ACFI. Every single one of them arrived on time and undamaged. For the most part, we were all very healthy during the trip. Considering all of the time spent on airplanes and airports, it's a miracle no one picked up a cold or flu bug. I did spend the first couple of days sick from a combination of the heat, Malaria meds, and most of all car exhaust. A brilliant idea from someone (I think it was Angel or Dan) meant I got to ride in the one air-conditioned car the rest of the trip. I felt bad that I always got to ride in there, but the guilt was a lot better than losing my breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. The Lord worked it out that we accomplished much, if not all, that we planned to do. We all wish we would have had more individual time to spend with the children, but the time we did get was precious. We all got along pretty well. Everyone got a decent amount of sleep. We laughed. We cried. It was a great trip all around.

How can I help?
A sponsorship program for the two orphanages is run through Christian Adoption Services, and I encourage you to check out the web site and consider sponsoring a child. It's www.AfricanChildSponsorship.com Mark and I now sponsor two of the children that were particularly special to me. When you sponsor a child, you can communicate with them through letters and possibly even send them something small with future teams. You also have access to newsletters and photos from visiting teams and from ACFI. We sponsored another child through a major aid organization, and I found the communication to be far less personal than what is on the website for DHCV. Not to mention that it seemed we got additional requests for money from the organization on an almost weekly basis. I'm not trying to knock what other organizations do. It just bothered me that so much money was clearly being spent on incessant marketing and so little seemed to be done to foster communication.

What else?
If you want to know more about what is going on in Liberia, particularly with the children at DHCV and adoption, check out Angel Rutledge's blog, rutledge6.blogspot.com. She updates it pretty regularly.

If anyone has any specific questions for me, feel free to email or ask in the comments.

A big THANK YOU to all of you who prayed, donated money for travel costs and donated supplies for us to take. I'm always amazed how God brings together team to support those who actually get on the plane and go. Some of us are able to get on that plane, and others of us aren't or just aren't called to. God uses all of us to accomplish the mission, though, and I think that's one of the coolest lessons. I was reminded of how much we need each other to accomplish what God asks us to do. After all, God himself is community -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- so it only makes sense that we should carry out His will in the same manner.

I think that's all for now.