Liberia - Part 3

[Okay this looks to be the last one again I hope that you will forgive me for posting another one of these letters but I wanted to share something that I recieved via email from a former Westsider named Sheri Warren. She has left Westside to serve as an international HIV/AIDs director with Samaritan’s Purse, an international non-profit Christian organization that provides aid to the world’s poor, sick, and suffering. She recently left Liberia and sent multiple e-mails describing the reality of life in Liberia. I know that each of these have been long but please take time to read it and please lef the spirit touch your heart. The world that most of us consider reality is not the world in which most people live. While you may never visit a 3rd world country, I invite you to step into life outside the U.S. by reading Sheri’s last e-mail from Liberia. I want to say thank you to Sheri for letting me post these last three emails, they have been life-changing.]

I’ve arrived in Monrovia, Liberia. This is my last full day in Liberia, tomorrow after church I begin the journey home. A few of the staff in this region spent their Saturday taking me to visit beneficiaries of the orphan care program. I asked them if they’d be taking the day off if I wasn’t in town trying to see everything in a short amount of time. They told me they would be working on Saturday anyway, this isn’t just a job for them but a ministry. These two men escaped Liberia during the war and took refuge in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. They have only returned in the last couple of years, for one of them it has been a matter of months. They have decided to invest their lives in rebuilding their country, they want to see Liberia rise from the ashes. Many of our staff fall in to this category - they had taken refuge in other countries in Africa and are returning with a passion for making a difference in their homeland. That is so important to the work we do, that kind of passion is what changes the world.

It takes a lot of time to drive from place to place for these visits so we only made it to a few homes. The cities we visited all border Monrovia. They were also Congo settlements. Meaning, the freed slaves built homes in these areas. I learned the Congo people worked during the week in Monrovia and owned plantations in the Congo settlements where they would visit on the weekend. Today, post war, it is a mixture of Congo people and indigenous families. I was told there is a lot of intermarriage going on in these areas. We also went to Congotown where the freed slaves had set up businesses they ran during the week. Our purpose was to visit a few beneficiaries of the OVC program. All of the beneficiaries of this program are affected by HIV. Some have lost parents (one or both), for some it has been passed to them through birth, some have been forced out of their communities when it is discovered they are infected due to stigma. At one home, the kids are living on their own. Their father just passed in the last couple of weeks from AIDS. All four kids are HIV+ and taking ARV’s (treatment) in order to stay healthy. Our staff are helping them obtain the necessary medicines, ensuring they stay in school, and looking for a home to keep the kids since they are now alone. These kids are so vulnerable to the world without an adult to protect them. While we were visiting a neighbor was making dinner for them. At another home, the family had just relocated. In the community they were in before neighbors had found out she was HIV+ and they forced her and the kids out. Their current residence is tiny and the roof is basically plastic pieces. She said at least 15 times in our short visit, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for what you are doing.” At another stop the mother gave me a big embrace and kisses. Our last stop of the day was in the area between the airport and the staff house where I’m staying. I’ve mentioned the bleakness of this area before. It was my first exposure to Liberia and it nearly brought me to tears. I came full cirlce at my last home visit in this country. There are two women living in one home with their 5 children. Our staff asked them about their safety. I thought this was an unusual question, they hadn’t asked that at any other stop. When we got back in the land cruiser I inquired about that line of questioning. They told me these ladies, who are HIV+, had recently been raped. They were both raped in one evening by eight men, that isn’t a typo - that’s right, eight men. They were also robbed. The staff were able to put some stuff together for them, clothes and things. It was all so matter-of-fact. Tomorrow evening I begin the long journey home. It will take me at least that long, and certainly some time afterward, to process all I’ve seen in the last few days.

On this trip I often thought of the most powerful line in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” The country was experiencing genocide and one man pleaded with the foreign reporters to stay and tell the story so the world would get involved and come to their rescue. The reporters response was basically - they will see it, they’ll say, “that’s awful,” then they will pick up their fork and continue eating their dinner. I don’t want to be someone who hears about the suffering of others, watches it from afar and then goes on with life as if nothing happened. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t forget it and I am compelled to do something. When we conceptualized this project we thought we had thought of most everything children would need - we cover the need for clean water, housing, medical care, nutrition, income generation and education. Our target number of children was 1,800. This program has only been running 6 months and we have quickly realized that the needs exceed our resources. Our plan will only make a small dent in the enormous needs. I can’t possibly meet all the needs of these communities, but I can do something. While I was here I worked with our fundraising department to submit a proposal to a private foundation for additional monies. It is our hope to provide an education for 30% more children than originally intended. That will cost approximately $80,000. We don’t have that money in our budget, everything we have is allocated to other needs around the world. I’m going to do my best to give more children in Liberia the education they need and an opportunity at a brighter future. That isn’t where it will end, but it is where I can start. I hope you will also do what you can to make this world a better place. I don’t expect that everyone will travel to the developing world like I do. I don’t expect everyone to give to my causes. What I’m asking is that you be a little kinder to the people you encounter, that you look around you and see how you can make this world a better place. All of us have the power to change the world - our world.

I leave on my next trip the Monday after Easter. Next stop: Eastern Europe - another first.

[ASK ANYTHING IS ON FIRE!!! I would love for you to take some time and ask me anyhting for the upcoming sermon series in the Westsdie College Ministry. Just click on this and leave a comment!]

~ by Jon Nelson on March 13, 2008.