King George

A few weeks ago I started telling George’s story. He was abandoned at a hospital needing emergency surgery. After a month in the hospital he was ready to be discharged, but had no where to go. I called in my friends at the Ministry of Social Welfare and they found a place for him at an orphanage that I know well. Unfortunately, after a week at the orphanage, George’s surgical wound opened up and he was emergently readmitted to the hospital...

That was three weeks ago. Today George is still in the hospital, but he is doing much better. After several days of close observation, the doctors decided not to rush him back for another risky surgery. Instead, the’ve been watching him closely, treating him with preventative antibiotics and doing dressing changes as needed. After a week and a half they started letting him eat soft foods. As soon as he received the ok to eat he was calling me and begging for some Cream of Wheat. 

Hospital patients in Liberia rarely get fed by the hospital staff. Usually family are responsible for providing things like food, soap, and any kind of non-medical care. Since George doesn’t have family, and everyone at the hospital has come to love him, all the hospital staff have taken him under their wing. He has some ladies in the kitchen who cook his Cream of Wheat for him and make him tea everyday. The nurses buy him juice, and help him with his laundry. I’ve started calling him King George, because everyone at the hospital is working for him. When I come for a visit he struts around the hospital wards introducing me to everyone. He is definitely the Big-Man on campus. 

Today I spoke with George’s surgeon. He feels like George is doing much better, but he is still not out of danger for going back to surgery. So, for now King George will stay on his throne at the hospital. And I’ll keep bringing him Cream of Wheat and we’ll all keep praying that George will be able to leave the hospital-- happy and healthy, soon.

mayday

May is here. Happy, beautiful, May. The first day of May, May Day, is celebrated by many as a sign of new life and hope, ushering in the first signs of spring. Interestingly, Mayday is also a call for help...

April did not find me very much time or energy for blogging. I am sorry. April was brutal. Not only was it unceasingly HOT in Liberia (my thermometer reached numbers over 100 many times, add on the extreme humidity and I am sure the heat index was at least 1000 degrees), but the workload was almost unbearably heavy. Not only the actual physical work, even more the Spiritual and emotional work. Thankfully I found my strength in God, He proved to me (once again) that He gives me the strength to endure the unendurable. I also learned the importance of sharing the burden, it is not my burden to carry alone and God has surrounded me with many people, both here and in the states who are helping me to carry the burdens that come along with living and working in Liberia. 

So, like I said, April was brutal. The last few weeks have been especially difficult. My team-mates and I have found ourselves fighting harder for truth, justice and the protection of children than ever before. We have felt beat down and exhausted through this fight, but at the same time energized by God’s strength.

Last night the rain finally came. We had been begging for it, desperate for some kind of reprieve from the oppressive heat, a rescue from the heaviness of the last few weeks. And it came, refreshing and new. Last night brought a coolness to the air, a promise, rest. Today starts a new month, a new stage in the journey. Nothing has changed. The circumstances are the same, but there is hope in a new season, hope in a God who gives strength and loves beyond measure.

Still, I feel God leading me to ask for prayer today. We need prayer. The field team needs wisdom, guidance and strength as we continue to be a voice with action for orphans who literally no one else is helping. The children need protection, comfort, justice and provision for so much more than just their physical needs. The country of Liberia needs redemption, salvation from corruption and lies that continue to influence it to the very core.

Speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice. 

Proverbs 31:8-9

George's Story

About two weeks ago, I received a call from a local hospital asking for help. A boy had been dropped off in the emergency room several weeks before, gravely ill. He ended up having emergency surgery to repair a bowel obstruction. Six weeks had passed and he was improving, but the problem was they had no where to discharge him to. The entire time he had been in the hospital he had no visitors. He had been abandoned. 

As I walked onto the ward to meet him for the first time I found a shy, very thin teenage boy.  He looked up at me with a sweet smile and told me his name was George. As George continued to talk to me, telling me his story, my heart dropped. His father had died years before, his mother last July. For the last several months he had been forced to scavenge for work and food in the bush. He and a handful of other boys his age had banded together to try and survive. It was these friends who somehow were able to get him all the way to town, to the hospital just in time when he fell sick. 

I immediately called a friend at the Ministry of Social Welfare and notified her of the boy’s situation. Within a few hours, a social worker was at the hospital interviewing him and had already arranged for him to be placed (hopefully temporarily) in an orphanage. I was thankful it was an orphanage that we know well, with a director who has experience taking care of kids with special medical needs. 

A few days later, as I drove up to the orphanage to check on George, he met me at the car with that same, sweet smile. He was moving slowly, but had improved slightly from when I had seen him in the hospital. We talked for awhile and agreed that I’d come back to see him the next week.

The night before I was scheduled to go back and visit George, I received a frantic phone call from the orphanage director. George was very sick again. His stomach was swelling, and he couldn’t eat. I told the director to get George back to the emergency room as soon as possible. They took him to the hospital, but George’s incision had already re-opened. George has been readmitted to the hospital and is currently awaiting another surgery to fix the open wound. 

This boy has already been through so much trauma, and my heart breaks for him. He’s completely and utterly alone, and his health is a grave concern. Please join us in praying for him today.

Cultural Presentation

Sing with the SawSaw.

Warmin' up the drums.

Start dancing.

Laugh a little.

Staring contest.

Wait for your turn,

Photo op!

Dance some more!

Climb to the top.

More acrobatics.

Smile!

Celebrate!

four years

Today I am celebrating four years in Liberia!

"Jesus is the one we take care of, visit, clothe, feed and comfort. Every time we do this for the poorest of the poor, to the sick, to they dying, to the lepers, (to the orphans), and to the ones who suffer from AIDS... we should not serve the poor like they were Jesus; we should serve the poor because they are Jesus." 

 -Mother Teresa

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." 

Matthew 25:40

life and death in liberia

We all say that death is part of life, but sometimes I think it is more a part of life in Liberia then anywhere else. A week doesn't go by that someone I know isn't mourning the loss of a loved one. In the last year alone-- Joseph's brother and father, Piko's brother, Amma's brother, Alvina's aunt, uncle and cousin, General's baby boy, a really good friend of Ma Mary... the list goes on and on.

Two Monday's ago I received an early morning phone call from a man I hadn't talked to in close to two years. I met Peter when Michael died. Sweet, innocent, faithful, Michael. Peter was his uncle, the one who cared for Michael when his mother and father died, who tried to get him treatment in the simplicity of rural Liberia and then sent him to Monrovia for treatment when it became obvious he was too sick. The uncle that I mourned with at the graveside and shared stories and pictures of Michael with on my front porch.

Peter lives six hours outside of Monrovia and I haven't seen him since Michael died. Unfortunately, he wasn't calling with just a friendly hello. He had news. News you never want to hear. Michael's twin brother, Mark, had been in a terrible motorbike accident, his back broken, his body paralyzed. Peter wasn't asking for anything besides prayer. "Please pray for us!" he begged me, and I promised him I would.

I thought of Peter and Mark several times over the next week. Racking my brain for someway to help, all I came up with were prayers for comfort and peace and healing. Helpless. I received another call this Monday, Mark was being discharged from the hospital on a stretcher to the family home. Again, the only thing I could offer from so far away were my prayers.

Yesterday morning I was greeted at my front gate by the crying wails of a mourning woman. The boys' auntie, Bee, had come to tell me Mark was dead. She clutched my neck and sobbed into my shoulder and I was taken back to the hospital 22 months ago when this same fragile woman clutched my neck and sobbed into my shoulder over Michael's dead body. Two boys dead. The hope of the family. Twins in life and now in death.

These are the why questions that were never meant to be answered. Why so much death in one small country? Why so much tragedy in one small family? Why two boys who hadn't yet reached twenty-one? Just, why?

I have only known this family in times of mourning, but I pray they can find joy again... somehow. I never even met Mark, but his death affects my life. I can only hope and pray that my prayers-- my God who answers prayers-- affected his life as well. 

My latest Liberian adventure...

Last week Ashley, Joseph (our driver), and I took our yearly trek (over 8 hours each way on super-bumpy dirt/mud roads) into the up-county bush of Liberia-- Sinoe County. Nestled in the deep green jungle, 200 miles away from the chaos of Monrovia, is a children’s home that ORR has been supporting since 2009. This was actually my third time visiting The Heart of God Children’s Refuge, which is so hard to get to we only make it there once a year. It is a small mission that is run by our long-time friends Pastor Wion and Mama Shirley Wleh. Their mission may be small now, but their vision is big.

Their long-term plan is to have a K-12th grade boarding school, fully functioning organic farm and guesthouse within the next few years. All these goals will go far to benefiting not only the vulnerable children, but everyone else in this rural community.

Sinoe County jungle view. The blue roof is for the new school.

The main project focus last week was starting to build their new school building, and it started off with a bang. The students took a holiday from book-learning to earn a life-lesson. They all reported to the school building that morning, but instead of sitting on wooden benches for class, they went to work making mud bricks which would become the foundation and walls of their new school building. It was hard work, but they were learning how to be responsible and take pride in their work. Their dedication to school will be deeper now that they have been a part of building it.

These boys seem to be enjoying their block-making lesson.

After a long day of building, the entire village gathered around the small grass-mat house to watch “The Jesus Film” in their local tribal language. I was glad I knew the story since I didn’t understand the words. It was fun watching the Liberians watch the show though, they were on the edge of their seats, often gasping or breaking into applause. Our short visit ended with a Christmas-in-March gift distribution to the children living on the mission. 

Merry Christmas! (in March... why not!?)

Mama Shirley took good care of us while we were there. I’ve never eaten so good in the bush-- hot, fresh, hand-made donuts for breakfast each morning, fresh potato greens, cassava leaf, palm butter and delicious pineapple straight from the farm. We even watched them slaughter the chicken that was in our soup (this was actually a first for me). We were not allowed to lift a finger the entire time, which actually made me feel like quite a slug since working to keep a home in the bush takes a lot of hard work. They even warmed up water for our bucket baths each evening.

Donuts! Cooked outside on a coalpot, the Liberian way.

Daily life in a small village definitely has a different flow. We woke up with the chickens at 0430 each morning, had to walk into the jungle with a shovel when it was time to relieve ourselves and slept on flat mattresses only a few inches above the dirt floor. It is a hard life, but there is something simple and beautiful about it as well.

I think the hardest thing for me to see was where they get their water. Their biggest need right now is definitely a new well to bring them clean water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Since the closest well to them has broken, they are forced to use a small dirty creek for their water needs. (We brought our own drinking water, since we had a vehicle, they drove to a close by village to get some water for us to bathe in.) There are a lot of logistical details that make it very difficult for a well to be dug so far in the bush. Please pray with me for my dear friends at the Heart of God Children’s Refuge mission-- that they will continue to have strength to do the work that God has called them to do and health despite such poor conditions. 

This three year old is helping to carry water up from the creek.

For more info on what ORR is doing follow this link to the website.