Be careful what you ask for.

Well today was a good day. We were able to take our time in the morning getting ready and then having breakfast. We wanted to head out to the cell company to get our cards for the phones, but our first stop for the day was walking down to see the school and the stage of their church building project. It was so good to see the administrator, Winston Monmia, all grown up. Our first visit here I remember Winston trying to drive a car when nobody was around and backing it into a muddy lawn and getting stuck and getting in trouble from Emmanuel. Winston was staying with them at the time. Each time I’ve seen growth in him and now I call him the ‘boss-man’ of the LCMI school. Here is a picture of him from our tour. Others who came will remember him.

It was so good to visit all the classes at LCMI school.

Right next door is their church building project. The first time we came there were some foundation walls and grass was overgrown all around. Now you can see they are making progress, even if it is ‘small small’.

They would like us to pray for their progress as they move towards a roof on the building.

After walking back to the house Jenny met Herrietta, the lady that would be helping with the kids, and they went over the lesson plan and the schedule.

Then it was time to head out to get our cell card for more data on our phones. It turns out it isn’t unlimited, but 2 GB which to them is a lot. Our driver was Abraham again. He took us to a Lonestar store located in red light. It was a small glimpse of red light as we didn’t go all the way through. It is just as busy as I remembered and we were just on the edge of the busy part.

The second picture shows the steel plates over the entrance drain or the lack of plates over this ditch that is probably a foot deep at least. As the car front tires fall into the bent plate it makes for a precarious revving of the engine to push through. The car in front of us had to try a few times to back up and go to a better location with less bend in the steel. Everyone takes it in stride. We made it in, got our cell coverage, and left without incident.

The title of this days blog needs some explanation. Jenny had said to Emmanuel that she would teach Bible to what she thought was the class at the school. Emmanuel thought, since she wanted to teach kids, let’s bring in kids. He scheduled Jenny’s class from 4:00-5:00. At least he only scheduled an hour. Anyway, the candy Jenny planned for would not be enough for the new plan of 100 kids. At least that is what Emmanuel was planning. We decided to stop at a store to pick up some suckers and candy for the other two days, Wednesday and Friday. We’ll see if we have enough now. We picked up the candy, more water, something to pick up each time we go out, and we bought a cold drink for us and Abraham.

We got back to Emmanuel’s house and had our lunch, palava sauce over rice. It was very good along with fresh cucumbers. After lunch Jenny wanted to make sure everything was ready so I left for a walk around the community. The trails I was taking were not roads, but more wandering trails, like cattle trails. I thought if I got lost most people know Emmanuel so someone would help me. I would get calls as I was walking of ‘Dad Robin’ which warmed my heart. I love that I’m recognized in the community. I eventually found a road of sorts and I was pretty sure where I was. I kept walking and of course scaring the youngest children outside since they don’t see a white man very often. It is so cute how they’ll stare and want to watch, but if you move closer to talk with them they’ll run to their mom for safety. The mom’s will just laugh at how their little ones react. Not all the little ones react that way. Most Liberian children want to be near you. For example, I came home from my walk and Jenny had little helpers to get ready for her class.

I think Jenny was enjoying the help. I jumped ahead a little bit since I forgot to tell that in my walk I had a man call out ‘Dad Robin’ and I waved. A minute or two later this same man kept repeating louder as he called to me ‘Dad Robin’. He was motioning behind him and I turned to see a lady trying to get my attention because she wanted to talk to me. Turns out I wasn’t the only fair skinned person out on that road. This lady is from the UK and she operates a school not too far from Emmanuel’s home. They are just completing another building so they can house 500 students. We talked for 20-30 minutes and I invited her to stop by Emmanuel’s tomorrow. Hopefully she’ll stop by. She says she’s a Christian, but she is not operating a Christian based school. She does not live here, but it sounds like she visits often. She has a principal and CEO to run the school. She now lives in London and is originally from Scotland. She is a very interesting lady. I’m hoping Jenny can meet her tomorrow also.

Well, back to our day. I came back, helped Jenny get the coloring book pages separated and we were ready for her class. It started out slow with 20-30 kids, but by the time Jenny’s story was over and it was time to color I counted 113 kids. More showed up and we were too busy to count again anyway. We are so thankful for all the help we had, including Emmanuel. He was a big help. We’ll see how the numbers change as we go through the week. Here is a short video of the kids with their papers finished afterwards. You can see Jenny in the back. She really enjoyed it, but is glad for a day break between.

Tomorrow we are going to try to go to the US embassy to work on Wintee getting a visa. We have no idea if we can help her get a visa, but we’ll go ask questions. Pray for this as we try. It is Armed forces day tomorrow which is a holiday for Liberia, but it may not affect the US embassy. We’ll see tomorrow.

Thanks for following along.