I'm home and I would like to say....

I have been back in America for a week now and to be honest with you the transition has been difficult. I became ill the Saturday before I was to leave…needless to say the flight home was very long. It was emotional leaving the country that has captured my heart, leaving the friends that I have made and beginning a new journey….the journey of returning to a world that is familiar yet so unfamiliar. I have come home with a new view on life, on happiness and on love. Coming back to Orange County and seeing the $100,000 cars, the enormous houses and the endless supply of “stuff” saddens me. How can you justify buying an expensive pair of jeans, an expensive car or whatever yet you can’t seem to have enough money to help those who can’t help themselves? To me this doesn’t make sense. My journey to Liberia has been life changing and has been difficult yet it was so rewarding. I am still processing my trip and figuring things out but I would like to take this time to thank a couple of people:

Dad – thank you for all of your encouragement that you gave me before I left and while I was gone. Your guidance and support means so much to me and I thank you for supporting my dreams and my passion.
Adam – you have stood by me during this process even though it was difficult to let me go on this journey. I thank you for your endless support and encouragement. Your daily emails and talks helped me so much while I was thousands of miles away. I love you with all of my heart and I hope that we can go to Liberia together.
Andrea – I have never met you but I feel like I have known you for years. I thank you for your support and encouragement. Your faith in the Lord is amazing and I am so thankful that the Lord brought us together for my journey. You are a wonderful woman of God and I hope that one day we can meet.
Maria (aka the Queen) – I have never met a more inspiring woman in my life, you are a true servant of the Lord and you have a wonderful heart. I am so honored to have met you and to have spent the time we did together was priceless. You allowed me to understand many things that I misunderstood. Thank you for taking the time to share your story with me and I hope to see you soon!
Francis – I have learned so much from you. Thank you for taking me under your wing and showing me so much of Liberia. I admire your passion, your drive and your love for Liberia. I’m excited to continue to work with you from the Golden State.
Abigail – my friend and my sister in Christ. I miss you most of all. Thank you for being my friend and for spending so much time with me. You’re a strong woman and I thank God everyday for bringing you into my life. I listen to your CD everyday and I can’t wait to see you again!
To the rest of my family and friends thank you for the emails that you sent while I was gone. I hope that you enjoyed my journey and thank you for sharing such an amazing journey with me.

Reflection

I look back over my stay here in Liberia and there is one thing that has clearly happened to me. My world has been turned around and my ways of seeing and thinking are drastically different than before I stepped foot in Africa. I sit here and see the endless disadvantages of the people here, the empty hands and stomachs that shouldn't even exist. I see the surplus that the developed world has, a world in which I'm a part of, where people are expected to accumulate, not give away.
As I see the children working in the markets and I see the women and men who work 12-14 hour days just to make a dollar I become haunted. There is no way I can walk away from here and reject the injustice of this unequal world. Christ saw the same thing...he saw the poor, the blind, the sick and the rejected who were struggling. He also saw the other side...the wealthy that didn't take care of the people who were not able to help themselves. He took a stand for the helpless. When I stand back and see the haves and the have-nots, it suddenly becomes clearer and I see the cry for help...that's when I see the heart of Christ in the ones who cry.
I remember reading a book and the author said

"It is not possible to be too generous in this world. It is not likely that I can go wrong in providing for someone if the money is available or my "budget" can be stretched to help a person in need."

I agree with him 100%.
Many people have thanked me for coming and helping their people...but I thank them for opening my eyes and my heart. I have been so blessed to meet the most interesting people and to hear the stories of the people’s lives have been incredible. I will hold a special place in my heart for all of the men, women and children who I have met. There will not be a day that goes by that I will not think of them and miss my dear friends.

Liberianized

On Wednesday night there was a party at the compound. Maria and Francis had a farewell party for Jem and I. The friends that we have met during our stay came to our party. People from WACSN, DUCOR, Ministry of Health, Immigration, Public Works, Liberia Water and Sewer, Mambo Town East, UNDP, Decontee and Vivian. Jem and I had a chance to thank everyone who has taken the time to meet with us and share so much information with us. Each person that I have met has taught me something. Being in the field has been an eye opening experience and this trip was worth the time and money it took to plan this trip. Then Jem and I were "Liberianized". They bought us traditional dresses and gowned us. My dress is beautiful and now my official Liberian name is K-Ma. We took tons of pictures so I can share them with you. We had a great meal and some people started to leave. We were invited to go out to a "club". We went to Groovies which is a restaurant during the day and then at night they have karaoke. They played a lot of reggae and hip hop. Abigail got up and sang a couple of songs. There was even one guy who sang The Gambler by Johnny Cash...they know about country even in Liberia! I had a great time and I want to thank Maria and Francis for having the party for us.

Childhood Education

We went to the children's home yesterday for the first day of school. I was excited to see the children as I have wanted to spend as much time as possible with them. They were excited to see Abigail and I as they have been looking forward to starting "school". PTO, Marco, BaBoy, Ezekiel and Era all asked about James. The wanted to know if I have talked to him since I have been here. They also asked to see the video of him. I told them that they could watch it after "school" was done. We got everyone situated and immediately started on testing what each child knew. To my surprise most of them could recite the alphabet and could identify each letter. There was one child who was 3 and he could recite his ABC's. Most of the children could count from 1-20 but had a harder time identifying the numbers. We taught them the American version of the ABC's and when they were singing it they were dancing around. I was cracking up the whole time. So the children will be learning 3 days a week for an hour and a half to start. As time passes I hope that the time will increase.
I am so glad that WACSN has agreed to start teaching the children the basics. This will definitely help the adoptive parents when they take them back home and they enroll them into school. I am thankful that I was able to find the right people to start this kind of program to lay the foundation for these precious children.

Wiping the Grime off of the Lens that so Easily gets Clouded – F. Bohls

After having a conversation with my father over the Internet he asked me if I had gone back through my blog to see if my views had changed at all. I actually skimmed through my journal that I have been keeping and found it interesting that my viewpoint has changed quite a bit. My dad encouraged me to share with you all how my viewpoint has changed.
In an earlier post I wrote about how frustrated I was getting with the people here and how I didn’t understand the mindset of the people. I had a very enlightening conversation with Maria who is an amazing woman. Her story is incredible and she has a servant’s heart that is obedient to the Lord. She was explaining why the people here are the way they are. In helping me understand she said how the war affected all of the men, women and children in Liberia. Many of the young men were taken from their families and villages and were forced to join the rebels, carry guns and fight. Many of the men who work for WACSN were forced to join the rebel groups and fight…they survived by dancing and singing to keep themselves alive. The women were abused and raped by the rebel groups. These young men and women were robbed of their childhood, of their dreams and of their innocence. The war ended 4 years ago but there are men and women who are now in their 20’s and 30’s have the mentality of a teenager. They never had a chance to be a child or a teenager. Many had family members killed during the war…some had to witness the death of family members. Many people tried to flee the country to stay alive. These men and women do not understand the meaning of family as they were taken from their parents, they do not understand how to resolve conflict and they do not know how to think for themselves because for years they were told what to do and they didn’t question why.
When I first came to Liberia I questioned why the adults didn’t think for themselves, why they said the things they said and I questioned the mindset of the people. I assumed that the people here were like me in how they "should" act or how they "should" think. I never took into account what they actually have been through and that was wrong of me. Now I have a clearer picture and I am more understanding of where the people are at. The people of Liberia have been through hell which was caused by its own people and are now trying to heal and regain confidence in themselves. It takes only a short time to destroy a country and its people but it takes a lifetime to rebuild it.
In closing I would like to share something that Maria challenged me with and I will never forget it. She told me now that I am aware of the problems it now becomes my responsibility to help and I can’t say that I don’t know about it. I encourage you to do the same…now that you know what some of the problems are what are you going to do to help?

A Good Start

As we have traveled around Liberia visiting different villages we found that some of the villages actually had literacy programs for women to teach them how to read and write. Francis thought that we should start one here at WACSN for the women who work for WACSN and the women who live around the compound. I was given the task to start this program. I'm not going to lie I was a little nervous putting this together as I'm not a teacher. Right away I knew a woman who worked for WACSN who would be a great teacher. We had a meeting last Friday for the women to get some general information about them and their families. The women decided to have class on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays from 5:00 until 6:00 p.m.
So today was the big day for the Women's Adult Literacy program. Abigail and I went to get the supplies that were needed (composition books for the women, pencils, chock and markers). We came back and discussed what she would start off teaching these women.
I was shocked when 5:00 rolled around all of the women were here on time! This is a huge deal as most people are late here! There were 8 women who attended the first day of class. Abigail did such a great job encouraging the women and getting them to participate. There were 2 women who did not know the alphabet and by the end of class one of the women knew all of the letters! I felt like a parent watching their child learn something new for the first time! I'm hoping that more women come on Wendesday as we encouraged the women to bring their friends who wanted to learn how to read and write.
For many of these women today was special for them and for once they felt important and apart of something. I will never forget the excitement in the women's faces....it was priceless!