Life is Beautiful: what we did in Liberia

Some people have asked me what exactly we did in Liberia so I will try to explain our trip. There is so much to talk about but I'll do my best to summarize. Our church has started a friendship with a church in Monrovia just a few years ago. It started as more of a friendship between our pastor and theirs and as our church has sent a few teams over there we just wanted to help the church and school there in any way. This pastor and his wife started a church and a school from nursery to 9th grade and our church just wants to come along side of them and try to help them move ahead in any way we can. They have so many needs and sometimes it seems impossible to know where do we even start but at the same time every time someone from our church goes there our relationship with them grows, we understand each other better and they are so grateful for everything we do.

This particular short-term mission was to do health screenings for all the kids that go to their school. A couple nurses from our church already did the screenings like this over there 2 years ago and this time we did it at the clinic that is very close to the school. The nurses there and the teachers helped us with checking the kids' temperature, blood pressure, height, weight and vision. Stacy is an RN from our church and she has been there before and my job was to help her in any way. It was such a great experience and just getting to know the kids there a little bit was great. We ended up screening about 340 kids in 3 days. Some kids didn't show up because their parents didn't think they needed it. It was not very surprising though because most of the kids we've seen have never been to a clinic or anywhere. They don't seek medical help until they are very sick, most of the times when it's too late. Our hope is that now that we've done the screening with them and brought all the supplies and forms for them, they can do it on their own once or twice a year.

At the same time, pastor Bruce came with us and his focus was to do a pastoral training for church leaders. People there have such little resources available to them and they are really hungry for teaching, seminars, anything where they can learn more. They are always so thankful when pastor Bruce is able to come and they appreciate him very much.

Another thing we were hoping to achieve in our short time there was to assess the school situation the best we could, just seeing the real needs and how we could help in the near future. Their school seems very organized and runs well in comparison to many other schools in Liberia and their kids get some of the highest scores in tests, yet even that is not enough and they are trying to improve so the kids that graduate are able to go to a university. To be honest, at first I thought it would be almost impossible to assess their situation in such a short time, not really seeing how they do school. But God really showed us the needs and weaknesses of their school.

Our first day there we toured the school, all the classes and even got to be substitute teachers for 6th graders. :) That was fun, we played some games, kids sang some songs to us and we wrote down assignments for them on the black board. It was interesting to me that no matter where you're from, kids act the same. Preteens act exactly like ours. Some of them are more shy at first because they don't see very many white people but they are just as much curious, playful and eager to learn as our kids. And they can figure out electronics in minutes just like our kids. :) Stacy let some girls play with her phone for a bit and they figured out a lot of stuff right away. A funny thing was that when I told any kids my name they were so excited and kept saying "Hi Ester" to me everywhere because Ester is a very common name over there. Of course they say it like "Estaaar" with their Liberian accent. Sometimes it was very hard to understand them, especially when they turned to each other and talked really fast I had to focus really hard to get just a few words out. It actually doesn't even sound like English at all, especially when they are singing unless it's a song you know and then you can decode the words to our pronunciation. :)

One really cool thing that happened was that at the guest house we stayed at we met a lady that is from the US, she is an educator with a doctoral degree, has her own school in Monrovia and helps a lot of different schools in Liberia. It was like God brought her there just so we can talk to her about our concerns and to help us understand the mentality and the way Liberians are taught. The number one thing is that they are taught to repeat everything after the teacher, memorize sentences on the black board which results in not being able to think critically or creatively. We saw this right away when we toured the classrooms because every one of them was copying sentences off the black board. For their homework, they had do copy sentences down from the black board and just fill some words in the blank. And that is how every subject is done, they memorize and if they come across a different word or sentence they don't know what to do. Another part is working on phonics at an early age. They don't do much with phonics at all and pretty much just memorize each word they read so if they see a word they haven't read before they can't sound it out. One immediate need this school has is to set up their library. Right now they have a room that is full of books, just sitting in piles. They have wonderful kids books, encyclopedias, textbooks and workbooks just sitting there locked up but they don't do anything with them at the moment. It would be really wonderful if a team from our church could come and help them set the library up efficiently and with that train the teachers on ways to use it most effectively and creatively. So in a nutshell, there is a lot to be done but if the teachers there can be given some teaching tools, ideas and specific things they can do to improve the kids' learning it could be huge. There obviously isn't an overnight solution and it would take time to see any changes but little by little I think something can be done.

So, that is what our trip was about. Our church is planning on sending another team of people this summer and we're hoping to send some teachers along and do some training for the Liberian teachers, maybe some day camp activities for the kids since they will have a break from school then. At the same time we hope to ship some newer books over to them, maybe some dealing with phonics.
Well, that is about the whole trip in a nut shell. :) We also had 2 days of no work. Friday we went to visit and tour another small school these same people are supporting. It was far away, 3 hours one way from where we stayed at and it was in a mostly muslim community so running a school for their children is a big ministry, teaching the Gospel to those kids. Then on Saturday there was a youth leaders' seminar that we went to, on Sunday pastor Bruce preached at their church and after that it was time to get to the airport and back home.

It is interesting when you meet other white people there, most of the times it is missionaries, doctors, nurses, or teachers. It is very interesting talking to them about what their project is and how it's going, what their challenges are, etc. The needs in Liberia are very great and it almost feels like the work we do is a tiny drop in the ocean, yet I know God is calling us to do work there and just establishing those friendships is so huge because a lot of the people there have no hope of getting ahead and feel alone in their poverty. All the people we have met are so thankful and excited that we are there, it means a world to them when to us sometimes it seems like not enough.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the kids and people we've worked with. It was an amazing experience for me and I really hope some day our kids are able to go somewhere like that.