Day 9

Today was an interesting and educational day. It started off with a breakfast of oatmeal and muffins along with a steady stomach. That is a great combination. Our planned 1st stop for the day was LCMi school. We walked down from Emmanuel’s house to the school, a short 200-300 yards. As we entered the school yard we were greeted with all the children lined up in formation by class with the teachers along the side.

All of the teachers introduced themselves and each of us greeted the students. Leo went first and he said a sweet prayer for them. Here is that prayer.

After all the greetings, the kids returned to the classrooms and we went to visit the preschool class. This is taught by Herrietta Bestman, a sweet lady from the LCMI church.

Here are a few quick pictures I took of the classrooms as we passed by.

They do not have full financial support to pay the teachers a salary regularly. The budget (after expected student contributions) is around $1,400 / month for 10 months of the year. If anyone is interested in helping out, please let me know and we can work out the details.

For all back at CBC, the teachers all expressed gratitude for the Christmas gift we sent them. Many thanks were given for this timely gift.

It was hard to leave as we want to know so much more of how the school can work. They have over two hundred students enrolled. For the younger grades, they charge $3,000 LD (Liberian dollars / semester. At the current exchange rate of 184 LD to $1 US dollar, this is $16.30 / semester for the young ones and $6,000 LD, or $32.60 US / semester. Even at that rate the parents can’t pay and the school does all they can to allow the child to stay in school. They want to see the parents trying to provide some for the good Christian education. We also heard about their need for a school printer / copier that can handle the paper printing they need. They currently have a 4 year old personal printer that cannot keep up with the need.

From the school visit we headed to downtown Monrovia to visit the equivalent of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. They have a meeting place that is currently used for special meetings, funerals and some holiday services. This was to be our day at school. It was very enjoyable to get more history of Liberia. Here’s a quick link to give you some information on their history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia

Here are a few pictures from our visit.

After going through their Independence Hall, we went through an attached museum. This cost $5 per person and they did not allow photography. We did get some pictures of past President’s cars.

Charles Taylor was later convicted of war crimes and is serving a 50 year prison sentence in a Sierra Leone prison. You can read more here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taylor_(Liberian_politician)

Also outside was a statue that signifies each Liberian helping each other.

We got back to the house between 2:00 & 3:00 PM and had a late lunch. we kept ourselves busy, Renee with more prep work for WOP visits coming up, Leo with his watering and I had fun playing with the kids.

As I write this it is 11:40 PM. The power went off and they are running the generator for lights. No Air or water for the night. This too is Liberia!