February 17th

Today, being a Saturday, and thankfully because Emmanuel, Titus and I stayed up talking until past 1:00 a.m. our morning devotions were delayed until 6:30 a.m. I did wake up earlier, but nobody was moving in the house so I stayed in bed until the djembe (drum) started signifying they would begin soon.

Speaking of nobody moving in the house I have to tell you about my upstairs neighbors last night. We went to bed late, as I said, and when I laid down I heard someone moving around and I didn’t pay much attention to it until I was trying to sleep. It was at that time the neighbors got real loud. So loud I thought they’d come through the floor above and land on my bed. They seemed to be having a dance or party of some sort. There was one particularly heavy walker that thought it wasn’t rude to stamp on the run across the floor. Only the building is one story and what is above me is just a thin 1/8” pressboard like ceiling tile. The rude neighbor was actually a lizard that had to be alligator size at least in attitude. As I lay there wondering what I would do if he indeed fell through as he was making a particularly fast run across the tiles I finally decided it had to be a track and field event and he was getting a run for the long jump. He ran, jumped and I heard him land on a lower outside roof and I could hear him run away off the metal roof to torment another neighbor for the night. I can only hope that tonight he decides not to visit.

After devotions this morning it was general clean up day for the kids. They did a great job doing the best they could to make a dusty environment seem a little less dusty. While they were cleaning I had the opportunity and privilege to interview Pastor Moses, who is now the Pastor of Redeemer Baptist Church and teaches Bible at the school for grades 4-9. We really enjoyed getting to know each other and I look forward to sharing his story when I return.

Last night at a children’s meeting to go over some orphanage business Emmanuel decided that after the clean up time I would have time for a short presentation of The Bible Overview program. So from 11:00-12:30 I gave a condensed version and we had a great time of study. The remainder of the day was contacting some of my family including talking on Facebook video messenger with my parents in Texas. What a joy it was to see my father greeting Mother Betty here in Liberia and Mother Betty thanking him for my visit. No they couldn’t hear each other real well, but imagine when they were each born to think about speaking to someone via video chat from another continent. I know they were both impressed with the improbability of that in their lives. Later on I took a ride with Mother Betty and Emmanuel to visit Pa Anthony’s grave. It is along the road just past a checkpoint on our way into Yekepa.

When we returned and we were all sitting around I asked Emmanuel and Titus if they wanted to watch the movie ‘Facing Darkness’. Since they hadn’t seen it yet I played it on my phone. It was a small screen, but we all sat on the front porch at the orphanage and watched this film about the Ebola crisis that they both lived through. It was very moving to see how they both were affected by the memories the movie stirred up for them.

Tomorrow we leave for New Yekepa Baptist Church at 8:30ish so I’m going to sleep now. I think I just heard the upstairs neighbor come home. Time to sleep before they start their party or dancing.

Till tomorrow…..