Catch up and travel.

I need to catch you up on my ‘adventures’ here in Liberia again. First a recap of yesterday which in itself was a very busy day.

Day 1-Catch-up.

We woke up in the morning with early devotions with the kids singing and Emmanuel leading the time teaching about prayer. During these devotion times everyone is still a little sleepy and most of the kids come in with their pajamas on to get dressed for school after. We finished and everyone headed out to their schedule with mine being a breakfast I was thinking I wouldn’t enjoy once I saw it. It was boiled yams and plantains with onions and sardines cooked and used as a topping over them. I believe I’ve had something similar before with eddoes (potatoes). It must be a normal breakfast over here. Anyway, I’m not a big fan of fish and sardines seem like they rate up there in being ‘fishy’. As I’ve always said I will eat any meal given to me and be grateful for it. I took my yams and plantains and cut them up and then I sparingly took some onions and sardines to put over them. I tasted it with a little hesitancy, but I was surprised at the way the onions overtook the fish flavor. I love onions and I continued to eat, adding more of this mixture of fried goodness until all of my yams and plantains were gone. I think anything fried in butter and onions ends up tasting good. That was my breakfast…yesterday.

After eating I came out to read and I had someone come to visit me that made me think of Cody back home. His name is Mr. Boo. Boo is around 13 years old and likes to visit everyone, even going to the market where he prays for the people selling there. His talking is more of yelling incoherent words (which is why he reminds me of Cody) Everyone knows Mr. Boo in the area.

Then a little girl from the orphanage came up and was looking sad. I asked her what was the matter. I tried really hard to understand, but I had to take her to Wintee to find out what happened. She told Wintee and she was at school (they wear uniforms at all schools and take it seriously) and she got sent home because she didn’t have socks. The socks should match the shirt and she only had her slipper sandals on. I asked if there was anywhere we could go and pick up socks for her so she could go back to school. I was told at the market and I said I’d go with her and take care of it. Well, Mr. Boo wasn’t going to be left behind so off we went to Camp Four and the marketplace. As we were walking Theresa grabbed my hand which was so sweet (she’s around 5 years old) and it reminded me of my grandkids. Well, Mr. Boo noticed and he wasn’t going to be left out so he grabbed my hand too. We continued to the marketplace and found someone who sold the light blue docks that match her uniform. The girl selling was a good salesperson as she said ‘She can’t go to school in those slippers. Try these shoes on and before you know it I had purchased socks and shoes for Theresa. Take a look at the picture and you’ll agree it was a good idea.

After getting Theresa back to school I had a visit from the Roff family (A family formerly from CBC-Jay & Jennifer went on the first mission trip to Liberia in 2012 and also love the people here so they are living over here with the family). Jennifer had stopped by the day before and said Jay and the kids would stop by. Jay, Ethan, Abbey, Brie and Kate came to the orphanage on two motorbikes with Jay driving one and Ethan driving the other. We talked for awhile and then planned to get together again.

In the afternoon we went into Yekepa to visit a Women of Purpose group at Emmanuel’s sister-in-law’s house. Amelia has just started a chapter in Yekepa and I even bought a cake from the newly trained bakers. It was good.

The plan for the evening was to show a movie and have some popcorn for the kids. That was the plan…but…this too is my not planning well. As we were out we bought popcorn, butter, oil and salt. Before I left home I purchased and downloaded the movie ‘Ten Commandments’ with Charlton Heston as Moses. This was a movie I remember watching when I was growing up. I thought the kids would like to see the Bible story come to life, even if it was a little old fashioned Hollywood. We bought fuel for the generator, fashioned an extension cord from a piece of romex and got the projector working and mirroring my phone. One problem, even when you purchase a movie and download it, Amazon prime licenses it in a way that it won’t play on a projector. If I had read up a little more I would have found this out, but nope, I just ran with how I did it so, if you remember this movie…3 hours and 40 minutes long…about 12-15 people watched my little phone for the whole movie. I was surprised, but they don’t see movies very often so they all stuck it out. Well, most of them. 3 or 4 of the youngest fell asleep in the middle of the movie. I was irritated at the situation, but lesson learned. I think we’ll try to show it in church here in Monrovia tomorrow. If you download to a laptop (I’ll download to Emmanuel’s laptop tomorrow) you can project it, just not from a phone or iPad. That’s crazy to me. I invited Jay, Jennifer and the kids to come too. The Roffs enjoyed it too and they send their greetings to all at CBC that remember them. Ethan specifically said to tell the Buckley boys hi from him.

The movie finished real late so that is why my last night’s blog was so short.

Day-2-travel day.

Woke up this morning for devotions again and made plans with Jay Roff the night before to have him pick me up on his motorbike so I could go see his home. He is staying in a guest house of another church in the area. After devotions Jay showed up, I climbed on the back of his bike and we took the 3-4 mile ride from the orphanage to his Liberian home. Here are a couple of

pictures of their home and family.

After visiting for a couple of hours over a cup of coffee Jay took me back to the orphanage to say my good byes. I was able to sing for and pray for Mother Betty before we left. She is, as they say here, trying, little by little. We did have her smile and laughing at me, but she still cannot speak after the stroke. I’ve had my picture with her each time so here is 2021 version. The first one is where she is laughing at me and then the look at the camera.

Saying goodbye is always difficult. I handed out all of the letters, coloring books and crayons along with Brenda’s care package for the girls. They loved all of them. The letters are planned to be opened later as all the kids weren’t there. I’m sure they’ll be surprised by the gift donated to them and left in the envelopes. Any money is so appreciated over here.

We finally got underway, but travel in Liberia always has other stops. The main stop was in Ganta to see the Women of Purpose class and speak to them and encourage them to continue to learn the skill they signed up for. Women are oppressed in Liberia and this helps give some usable training along with the Gospel presentation. Here is the group from today (just a couple of the training classes in Ganta).

After leaving Ganta we headed for Monrovia. One problem, the car started to make a noise at higher speeds. It sounded like a tire so in Palala, Emmanuel pulled over to a gentleman who had some tires hanging outside. He asked them to look over the tires to see if they could notice a problem. The left front tire had a bulge in it so it was time for a new used tire. The only tool with power was the compressor so I found it interesting when they worked on getting the old tire off the rim.

After a couple more short stops, one for fuel and the other to see a couple of people, one being a pastor of the LCMI Gbarnga (pronounced Bonga with a guttural B at the beginning.) we finally arrived at home for a quick shower and of course a meal which consisted of palm butter soup over rice.

This was a great couple days. I may even sleep in a little tomorrow morning since it is almost midnight now.