I’m traveling this weekend, so I’ll be postponing the rest of the recap until I get home on Monday. Sorry guys!

Our first Saturday was pretty busy. We got to sleep in a little, then boarded the bus to go visit another college about two hours away. We returned, ate a quick lunch, and had our last VBS. It was a smaller one, with only 40 kids attending. We had 80 come the night before, which was quite chaotic. Unfortunately, I didn’t journal much that day. Nothing noteworthy to quote, but overall, it was a good day. Busy, but fun.

The weather in Africa the first week we were there was dry and hot. But on Thursday night it rained. It rained and it rained. I honestly don’t know that I’ve ever heard it rain so much.

Here’s what I noticed Friday, June 28:

“The rain gauges say we got five inches of rain last night (most of it in about two hours). And there weren’t even very many puddles this morning. The mud is almost dry.”

I thought that this was also a really good representation of the people I saw in Liberia. They are so thirsty for knowledge, both practical and spiritual. They eagerly soak up any chance to learn.

So what do you thirst for? Do you soak up opportunities to learn and grow? Or do you let the chances slide by you?

Our first day of VBS was on Thursday, June 27. We had 60 kids attend. We had three classes, where the kids made salvation bracelets, a mural with painted hand prints, and tambourines. Afterwards, we came back together for a skit, a lesson, worship, games, and refreshments. I was in charge of the tambourine station, and it was a blast! We sang songs together and made music.

“VBS is over and what a success it was! The kids started with some sort of meeting. It was surprisingly official. The tambourine making went well. Worship was amazing and the games a hit.”

It was so much fun to interact with the kids of the community. They had never been to a Vacation Bible School before and it was so neat to see the wonder and excitement on their faces. It was a joy and a privilege. 

Wednesday, June 26 continued in the same fashion. Breakfast, work in the library, lunch, work in the library, dinner, and back to the guest house. I cataloged roughly 130 books.

I had a big epiphany that day. I was reading Psalm 56 and verses 3 and 4 caught my attention. Here was my thought process.

“(Verses 3&4) When I am afraid I put my trust in you, in God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? (End verses) I’ve definitely been clinging to that. I don’t fear physical harm; I doubt myself. And that doubting God, in a sense.  After all, He made me the way I am. Doubting myself is like questioning that He knows what He’s doing. And He does. He always does.”

I’m not going to lie. Like most people, I have to deal with insecurities. And I struggle with how to defeat them. It hit me while in Liberia. I am exactly who God intended me to be. That is an eye-opening thought. Because if I believe that God is sovereign and all-powerful, which I do, then I have to believe He didn’t make a mistake with me.

I don’t know about you, but I find that extremely comforting.

Tuesday, June 25 was a pretty low-key day. I worked in the library all day. After cataloging 63 books the day before, Enoch challenged me to get 100 done on Tuesday. So I did. The grand total from the day was 122 books!

Thoughts from the day : “It’s amazing how much got done yesterday! The greenhouse’s frame is up after one day! It’s going to be great.”

I chose this thought because, after all, I was not the only person on the trip. There were multiple projects going on at the same time. A greenhouse was being built, a few people were working on repairing cabinets, a field was cleared, leveled, and planted, and we held a few craft classes and a VBS. It was an incredibly busy two weeks.

No deep thoughts or profound insights today, I’m afraid. I can only take so much soul-searching at a time.

Monday, June 24 was probably the busiest days of the trip for me. We left for the college at 7:30, ate breakfast, and got to work. I spent the first hour or so in a storeroom with Gina, sorting children’s clothes. Then I helped unpack library supplies I brought over. I got a short tour of the library and, after learning the software, got to work. I stayed in the library until 5, with a short lunch break, then had dinner and went back to the guest house.

My job was pretty simple. I took one of the new books that had been donated and entered information about it into the software. For about half of the books, the information was nice and neat and all in one place in the front of the book. For the other half…not so much. That first day I managed to catalog 63 books. It was something that the library staff could do, but I could do it faster. I am, after all, a writer and a quick typist.

A thought from the day: “I seriously feel like such a stupid American. These people speak my language, but I still can’t comprehend half of what they say.  I wonder if they have trouble understanding us.”

This entry got me thinking about how I listen to people. Do I really make an effort to listen, really listen, to people when they are talking to me? While I was in Liberia, I had to make much more of a focused effort to listen to the people speaking to me. It’s so easy here at home to get distracted by the sheer amount of multitasking opportunities. As Americans, it is almost expected that we be doing at least two things at once. When was the last time I gave someone my full attention when they were talking to me? I certainly would like to have someone’s full attention, so it only makes sense that I do the same for others. But more often than not, I find my mind wandering to other things. And that sends a message of “My problems, my priorities, are more important that what you are saying to me.” I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of message I want to send people. I want my friends to feel like they have my complete attention when they tell me important things, that I really care about what they’re saying. Because it’s true.

So that’s something I’m going to be working on.

Sunday, June 23. We went to the Inland Church in the morning and spent a relaxed afternoon sitting outside getting to know each other better. We were a team of 14, three women and 11 men, from different churches, so it was great to spend time bonding.

Church was such an interesting experience. Seeing the Liberian people spontaneously dance, sing, and shout out praise to God was very different than what I’m used to. But it was their way of expressing their deep love of Christ. They can’t contain themselves.

“Church this morning was incredible! The people are so passionate, so alive in their love of Christ….Church started at 11 and went until 1, about an hour sooner than it usually runs.”

The outpouring expression of love, the uncontainable joy I saw, was a great reminder to me. I asked myself the hard question “What does my love for God look like? Is it uncontrollable? Does it spill over into other parts of my life, of my day?” The answer is sadly, “Not really.” It really motivated me to reevaluate my priorities.

So I’ll ask you the same question, hard as it is. Is your love of God overflowing in your life?

Saturday, June 22 we spent most of the day on the LICC bus, traveling the roughly 8-hour (depending on road conditions) drive from Monrovia, the capital, to Ganta, a small town near Liberia’s northern border with Guinea.

 

 

The culture shock hit me a lot harder than I expected. Here are some thoughts that went through my head as we were driving through Monrovia:

“Gina has been telling us facts about Liberia. The poverty level is so astounding! Liberia is the size of Ohio, has 4.2 billion people, and over 30 embassies in Monrovia (which means countries are taking a portion of the income, I believe. Or at least conducting business that competes with native business.). Haiti has a GPD  (I think those are the right initials….) that is 8 times higher than Liberia. (Or, put into plainer terms, Liberia is tied with Somalia as the third poorest country in the world. Sobering, isn’t it?) Driving through Monrovia is crazy! People, cars, and motorbikes are everywhere! People are selling things on the streets and out of their homes. Homes which are in terrible condition. Walls and roofs are constantly absent and there are few doors and windows. Gina said you can still see bullet holes from the civil war, which ended about 9 years ago. Abandoned buildings are subdivided and filled to bursting with people.”

I added the parts in parenthesis based on knowledge gained later in the trip. As we left Monrovia and began driving through the countryside, it only got worse. It was pretty eye-opening experience. Seeing kids running around half or completely naked because they had no choice, watching women wash clothes in muddy rivers, and seeing the meager products for sale by the side of the road was a truly humbling reminder of how blessed I am. This trip really taught me to be grateful for and aware of what I have.

Guess who’s back from Africa! That’s right, it’s me! As many people want to hear about the trip, I’ve decided to use this blog as an opportunity to do a detailed recap so that I don’t have to tell the same stories over and over, or decide exactly what to share. I can just direct people here. For the next two weeks, I will be writing a post a day, detailing a different day of the trip. I’ll include a summary of what we did, some excerpts of my 86-page journal, and other thoughts in general. I’ll try to keep it to the interesting stuff.

Today we begin with Thursday, June 20 and Friday, June 21. I’m combining these two days because I spent the majority of them sitting on airplanes or in airports. We left early in the morning on Thursday and arrived in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, on Friday afternoon. We spent the night at a guest house, which is kind of like a hostel.

The trip was long, but we didn’t run into any major difficulties, thank goodness. I didn’t get much of a first impression of Africa because we got there in the late afternoon and didn’t leave for the guest house until after dark. The few impressions I got were of a poor, underdeveloped country and a people who were working as hard as they could simply to survive.

From Friday night:

“Jim said that after a trip to a third world country, the smells and the feel of the place would be what stuck and I can see why. But I think what I’ll remember most are the sounds. I’m outside the guest house in Monrovia right now, and there is a group practicing music for the church (I found out after that it was an all-night prayer service, not a music practice.). It’s unlike any I’ve ever heard. The bugs make a soothing background noise. The cars honk as they drive. And the accents are melodic, if a little hard to understand.”

I don’t really have much more than that to add. So I’ll sign off for today and be back tomorrow with the next recap post!