Just another day in Liberia

I recieve a few of these a week it seems...but this one was definitely worth sharing. Now keep in mind that this was after meeting someone for 20 seconds:

Text Message received:

"I used to call your line, but you cannot take my call. Why Joni? I have deep love for you. Please accept my love as I am presently suffering for it. From the time I met you at Foya and the base manager introduced me to you, I fell in love for you straight away due to your smiling face and your happiness towards us, up to now I need you so much and I want to be yours, and you be mine.... I have no wife neither child. I need your presence in my life. I will be very much happy if you accept my request. With love from your promising man..."

First of all, this was the longest text I have ever seen, and secondly... I better stop smiling so much ;)

Yay for adult literacy!

Here are a few pics from my women's literacy program! SO inspiring to watch!

This woman recently gave birth to twins. During her class time, she rotates children while keeping up with the lesson!

These women are both in their 70's, and learning to hold a pencil for the first time in their lifetimes! They are both very excited to learn how to read and write their own names. Here they show off the symbols they have been practicing, which is the first step in their literacy lessons.

Currently we have 364 women in Lofa county attending literacy classes, and will be adding another 200 in Gbarpolu County as we do a follow up program from the previous 2 years. Exciting!

Fishponds!

Last month I was able to photograph another harvest of one of our fishponds up in Lofa county. This program works through local churches. The community/church commits to building the fishpond with SP's technical leading, and SP supplies the fingerlings for the ponds. There are six ponds typically in one community, so that each pond can be harvested twice a year, giving the community fish every month of the year for up to thirty years! It is quite a cool project.

This particular fishpond is in Sevelahun. Predominantly a M*slim community, the church only had 25 members when SP came to work there. When the church asked the community for land to build the fishpond, the community gave them a spot that has never been farm-able, and was written off. The chief told the church, "If you succeed here, that will say a lot about your god."

The Sevelahun fishpond is the most plentiful fishpond we have! The church has grown to over 150 members, and the last harvest was 325 kilograms of fish! The church has used the fish to feed the vulnerable in their community, and to sell in order to build a church building for themselves.

As a result of the church growth and the fruitfulness of the fishpond, the Imam of Sevelahun responded with, "I now know that you serve the One, true God!"

The town chief and his wife, leaving the harvest with some of the fish they purchased, carried in his hat.

Blessings

The great thing about our Father is that He doesn't give us more than we can handle, and He blesses us continually throughout each day! I just wanted to share a couple of the blessings I have had recently...

This is Annie! She is our "new" seven year old black lab! A missionary couple was leaving for the States and was not able to take her along, so we gladly adopted her. She's a great dog!

I honestly think that if I lived anywhere else in Monrovia, I wouldn't be able to last very long here. But God knew that I needed to see Him every single day to remind me that He is the reason I am here. This past week was filled with the most GORGEOUS sunsets each evening! I wish you could all witness them first hand with me!

in your anger...

I will fully admit that Liberia brings out the worst in me sometimes. This year I have been a yo-yo going back and forth thinking, "This year will be my last year in Liberia. It's time to move on," or "Man, I love what I do... I am definitely signing on for another year!" Every week it is a different story. I'm not too concerned about making that decision now, since my contract isn't up until January, but the thoughts still cross my mind on what is going to be next.

The past 2 weeks was definitely a "Get me out of here!" attitude.

What got me so riled up? Customer service.

Or should I say the lack there of.

Two quick stories for you. I live in a house with 5 other women. We are blessed to have 24 hour power, a washer and dryer, internet at home, AND satellite television which keeps us entertained and in touch with the outside world. It may be that I am one of the "veterans" in the house, or I'm just good at finding the right people, but whenever something is broken- it could be a knob on our oven or our dryer has blown, I am the one designated to fix it, or find someone to fix it. The last issue was with our DSTV (satellite).

For some reason, our dstv is usually on the fritz... not sure why that is, but more often than not it is not working. This last time, I contacted our assistant at the office who calls the companies to line up repair men, etc. I informed her that our dstv was not working and if they could send out a technician to fix it.

That was EIGHTEEN DAYS ago.

18 days.

Ten plus eight.

Over two weeks.

We called EVERY SINGLE DAY for 18 days and they never ONCE sent out a technician to help us with our problem.

Then one EARLY morning i hear a loud thud on our roof.

Sure enough, there laid our dish on the ground. Great.

More calls... still no response.

I was SO LIVID by this point that I thought all the blood vessels in my head were going to pop. No joke.

We decided to give up on the actual provider and find a random guy who is not employed by dstv to come and fix it.

After a long and painful day making multiple trips into town (2-3 hours each time) our dstv is finally working. And yet we have yet to hear from our actual provider. All the while charging us full price.

T.I.A. (This Is Africa)


Ok story number 2 this week: I am making a trip up country this week to Malawu, and I have been promising the people there that I would bring them pictures printed out of what I have taken the past 2 years. So I burn a disk and drive downtown to the only place I know of in Monrovia that can print out digital photos.

I walk in to this lobby area where there are 6 people sitting on the benches. I stand by the counter for FIVE FULL MINUTES with no one acknowledging me, so I assume that all 6 people are customers waiting. After five full minutes of standing there, one woman looks at me with a look of disgust and says, "what?"

I replied, "I'd like to get some photos printed."

All of a sudden, FOUR of the six get up to work- FOUR of them were EMPLOYEES! I asked about prices, and of course it was going to cost over a dollar to print one 4x6 photo, but they didn't think they had enough paper to do the whole order. So I said ok, print as many as you can. How long will it take? They said one hour, but I had to leave a down payment.

Ok no problem. I'll leave half the amount.

"You need to pay us the full amount."

"But you just said you don't have enough paper to print the whole order. So why would I pay the full amount when you aren't going to print all the pictures?"

"You will get your money back."

Right....

So I get out my money to leave half the amount they want, and of course they don't have change. At this point I just needed to get out of that store before I popped another blood vessel.

If anyone wants to come and train the whole country on customer service, you are most welcome!

Proverbs 29:11
A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.

It's not easy-o...

what in the world am I doing?!

My brain hurts a lot lately.

I see this as a good thing though, because I am definitely learning a lot this year as I attempt to be a “Program Manager”. What intrigues me lately is the amount of money that countries around the world give in the name of development. Astounding amounts of money.

I say this b/c every single day I am learning more and more about being a development worker. I grew up in Iowa. I am a farm girl and proud of it. My worldview was expanded greatly when I took my very first trip overseas to Honduras as a high schooler.

It hasn’t stopped since.

After college I spent 2 years in West Africa with a mission organization. Another positive. I was not technically in the development area, and definitely not as an implementer. I had the easiest job- photographing what I saw and transfer those stories and feelings to the donors back home.

My job isn’t as easy anymore.

I’m not complaining though, because each day is a new challenge. It is a challenge to manage in a culture that is totally opposite of the one I grew up in. It is a challenge to implement projects in a society that makes nothing easy to accomplish.

What I am learning most, and is giving me some comfort, is the fact that development is not something that is already figured out.

I came into this job thinking that development had its set ways, its step by step processes that I had to follow, in order for true development to happen.

Not so much.

I am learning every day that no one has it figured out.

It’s like the 5^th grader that has a science experiment to do. He knows he has to make the volcano erupt, but doesn’t know how to do it, but that the world would be better off if the volcano would do what it is made to do. There are books that are available that tell of how thousands have tried before him, and each one makes a little change here and there in order for the eruption to happen, everyone having different outcomes. Some may have had an eruption; others may have had some other miraculous occurrence that issues it a success. But no one has it nailed down yet.

That is what development is like. No one has it nailed down. There are millions of dollars coming into NGO’s and other organizations to do this “development thing.” Yet no one knows what works. Each time a new project starts, it is tweaked, hoping and yearning for success and “true” development. Is it worth it? Definitely. Even if a handful of the community members grasp what you are trying to do, and carry it on in their own lives, it is worth it.

What is even better though, is that we offer something more than a lot of NGO’s offer.

We offer Christ.

It’s great that people are learning to read and write. It’s fantastic that they are learning to wash their hands in order to decrease sicknesses. But, are they learning about the One who gave his life for them, the One who holds all creation in His hands?

That is the real, true development we desire to see more than anything.

We are Now Raising a Teenager

I'm going to be honest with you. This has not been a great week. So instead of focusing on the negative, I want to share something that has definitely been a positive for me.

In December, Justin (our six month volunteer), was on the beach enjoying the sunshine, when a thirteen year old boy came to make friends. Now typically when you are on the beach, this is a common occurance. "You my friend, yah?" Being a friend in Liberia basically means you are now a 24 hour ATM and they hold the PIN number. So, in most cases, I reply with a simple "Not today, thanks." Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't.

In Justin's case, he started to talk to him and got to know him a little bit. Soon he was telling the same story that unfortunately we hear all too often. Parents were killed in the war, no money for school fees, etc. Unfortunately many people tell this story whether it is true or not, just to get money from the white man.

Day after day Justin kept seeing him on the beach as he walked to and from the office. Obviously not enrolled in school, Justin kept talking to him whenever he saw him.

His name is Prince.

Thirteen years old, with no parents and no place to stay. His parents had been killed in the war, and he was taken in by is grandmother, who passed away shortly after. He was taken in by his aunt, and brought to Monrovia. He was accused of stealing, and thrown out. He had been sleeping in the trees on campus for the last 3 weeks. During the last week, rogues came and stole all of his possessions from the tree he was sleeping in, leaving him with literally a shirt and one pair of pants.

One day after work, Emily, Taya and myself decided to take a quick dip in the ocean before it got dark. While Emily and I were in the water, Prince came running up to Taya to say hello. We had talked to him a few times while on the beach, but nothing too lengthy. Taya joined us in the water and mentioned how he was needing some food. We talked about how Prince was different from other kids we meet- we could see in his eyes that he was telling the truth and not trying to just get money from us.

We decided that we wanted to have a picnic on the beach with Prince that night. We trudged out of the water and approached Prince. "Prince, would you like to come and eat with us tonight?" His eyes brightened, but he seemed a bit overwhelmed. We told him we would come and get him in an hour.

That night, we had a stellar taco salad on the porch with Prince. He had to think that our food choice was crazy, never having had anything like it before (after all, it wasn't rice!). He was pretty shy the whole meal but we just kept handing him more and more chips loaded with hamburger, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and salsa! (it was a special occasion for all of those to be found at once at the store)

After supper was over, it just broke our hearts just thinking of having to say, "Ok Prince. Off to the bush you go!" We all three looked at each other and were thinking the same thing. We went into the house, gathered one of our tents, an extra mattress, sheets and pillows and headed off to the back of our house to set things up. At least this way he would be safe and not have the fear of being beaten, or eaten by mosquitoes.

We asked Prince to follow us to the back and we showed him his new temporary "home." I have never seen a kid SO happy! He couldn't stop jumping up and down and swinging his arms. His smile spread from ear to ear.

That next day, we took him to an event we were attending. Several times through that event the three of us just wanted to reach over and hug him. At one point we said that if this is what adoption feels like... it's amazing!

In the following days, we contacted our Child Services staff member at SP, asking what our options could be for Prince. Her staff soon went to work, investigating his story to insure that it was truth. They visited his home county and learned that what he said was true. His "aunt" who had taken him in, was actually not his really aunt, but a friends mom who moved down to Monrovia and moved in with a man and his child. The "boyfriend's" son had been stealing money, and Prince was getting blamed for it. In order for his "aunt" not to lose her place to stay, she was forced to throw Prince out on the street. This too is Liberia.

The Liberian Government is really pushing hard that all children in orphanages are actually orphans, and so the process to get into an orphanage is not as easy as it seems. All things except for clearance from the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has been taken care of. In the mean time, Prince continues to stay with us.

And we are loving it!

Granted, we have all realized how incredibly selfish we all are during the last month and a half. We cannot simply do what we "want" after work, knowing that we have a mouth waiting for us to feed him.

Justin paid his school fees and Prince was SO wound up by the fact that he was able to go to school, that he talked for an hour straight without any of us able to get a word in! He sported around his new green pants and white shirt for HOURS.

One evening Taya and I were asking Prince to help with something and he jokingly said no. I turn to Taya and said ,"sigh.. teenagers!"

Prince has definitely been a blessing to us, even with the challenges. This past week, all the expat staff got together and went out for Chinese food. We brought back a plate of food consisting of rice, beef and green beens for Prince. I had a feeling he was going to complain about the beans...

With nothing but the beans on his plate he says,

"What are these???"

"Green beans! They are good! You need to eat them. They will make you strong."

"But I am not a fighter. I don't have to be strong."

"I don't mean you have to fight if you are strong- eat your beans! They are very good for your body and will make you healthy."

"But this is from the Chinese? If I eat them, I will start speaking Chinese!"

"Eat your beans, Prince."

Forty-five minutes later, after much convincing and dealing, the beans were gone.

Since Prince has started school, he has taken on a new "name." He now calls himself Prince Justin. And on his Bible cover? Emily, Joni, Taya are listed as his mother.