Recently we have been looking over the thousands of photos we have from our 2006 trip to Liberia when we went to visit our adopted girls and serve in their orphanage for three weeks. It brings back such sad and sweet memories.. We wanted to share some of the photos with you.. there are hundreds more that we would love to post.. and so many more stories we wish we could tell.. but already this post has gotten a lot longer than I had planned! :-)
(I am not sure why some of the photos uploaded with a black band on the side but I will take what I can get! :-) ) This is the best I could do.
~Mission Trip to Liberia, West Africa 2006~
Our Fellow Travellers
First glimpses of Liberia, West Africa
The civil war from 1989-2003 had left the country totally destroyed. Bullet holes riddled everything and upon our arrival in summer 2006 there was still a long way to go in restoring and cleaning up Liberia. The U.N. had a huge presence there, trying to keep the peace and upholding the disarmament..
The U.S. embassy where we would end up spending a whole day.. trying to get some
paperwork through. It was *air-conditioned*
A typical gas station.. these are gallon jars filled with gasoline.. they would
Fill by hand with a hose..
As we got further into the bush, banana trees, palm trees and broad leaf plants were the common vegetation.. breathtaking!.
As we left the capital city of Monrovia, we saw houses like this one, made of rusty sheeting
~Meeting Faith and Agnes~
The main reason for us travelling to Africa was to meet Faith and Agnes..our adopted girls. They were sisters, the older being 18 which meant soon she would not be able to be adopted. We all knew that we were working against the clock.. after a child turns 18 they cannot be adopted. We travelled in September and she was turning 18 the next month. The week before travelling, all of the adoption paperwork in Liberia was finished and they were McDonalds according to Liberia! Now.. we just had to wait for the U.S. to complete their side of things.. The oldest girl, Tina had asked us to give her a new name. We chose Faith since she had been praying for 9 years for an adoptive family and never gave up praying!
We arrived to the orphanage at around 9 pm and all of the dorms were locked down for the night. However, one of the matrons let me (Mom) sneak into Agnes's room to give her a big hello hug! She of course couldn't sleep after that and followed me back out into the courtyard.. her little brother Emmanuel followed us out as well. It was so precious to finally meet the young lady whom we had been getting to know from a distance. For so long.
We weren't able to meet Faith until the next morning..
She was my daughter from the first time that I spoke with her on the phone.. 6 months had passed since we had first heard each other's voices for the first time..
(I need some tissue)
We had such a nice time over the next few weeks getting to know the girls! They travelled around Liberia with us, serving others and going on trips to town. They saw it as a great privilege, getting to drive around and away from the orphanage. No one feels important or special in an orphanage. To have such freedoms were rare. What a blessing to get to know them!
The Orphanage
The morning after we arrived, this was the scene we saw out the window..
there were SO many children.. so many that just wanted to be touched.. and noticed..
and loved. Grady was so overwhelmed that throughout the 3 weeks we were there he would retreat into our small room every half hour. The environment was so filthy. The children were so forlorn and
shell shocked. Someone told us that everyone in Liberia suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome. The 14-year civil war left more than 200,000 people dead. Mostly innocent civilians were murdered, and hundreds of thousands became refugees or displaced throughout the region. One of the tragic consequences of the Liberian-Civil war was the use of children as soldiers. An estimated 15,000 children fought in Liberia's civil war. Another most horrific consequences is that Liberia was left as a country of children.. I believe the statistic in 2006 was that 80% of the population were children. A huge percentage of women had been raped and murdered and the majority of men had been slaughtered. Which meant a whole lot of orphans and not many people to care for them. This particular orphanage had a handful of matrons and security workers (some of them being less than desirable men) caring for over 350 children in 5 dorms. The need was utterly overwhelming.
All of the children have a pose and a smile for the Americans..
There was always much excitement when a mission team would arrive because that would usually mean letters from America.. for the blessed ones who were being considered for adoption.
All of the children work hard at the home. Here, the matrons and teen girls harvest some sweet potatoes. We noticed that out of necessity the Liberians would use the whole plant.. not just the potatoes. That was the same for all fruits and veggies.
Grady, Emmanuel and I head to the nightly service. 350 orphans in attendance with one of the older girls delivering the message. There was singing and praying and a stiff 'whack!' with a rod to any child not obeying and sitting still.
Nap time in the boy's dorm
Mama in the little girl's dorm
Ok, these children are actually ours in Liberia. They live behind the orphanage in a small village in a 12x12 cement house. They were blessed to have both parents.. we loved them so much that their mama agreed that we could call them our own children in Liberia. :-) Seriously, they were some of the very sweetest children that we had ever met. Normally they were barely clothed and fed but they were happy and contented.
Visiting with another precious family from the village
Grady loved this little fellow. I cannot remember his name.. but I remember his sweet smile
Oh, I remember now- Wesley
The children loved the books we brought with us!
I would find the children all over the orphanage with them (sneaking them out of our room! :-)
Even Faith, who was almost 18 was enthralled with them. In Liberia books are an absolute luxury. Amazingly some children had never even seem one before. Here I am reading a Bible story book to Faith and her brother Emmanuel.
This sweet precious daughter Pauline had almost reached the age where she would be moved out of the orphanage. She had been born in the middle of a war.. she had been abused and had watched her family members murdered. Soon she would be asked to leave her only security and home. What would the future hold for her? "Mom Kelly, what will happen to me?" I remember her asking me.. what do you tell someone with no hope? We spoke about how the Lord could deliver her from following the evil around her in groups and demonic cults.. how she could remain faithful to him even under the most horrific circumstances. But I remember thinking.. how easy it was for me to say.. I didn't have to live it. She was such a wonderful young lady.. I wish I knew how she was doing.. (if someone reading this knows, could you email me at libertyjoyforme@gmail.com
Grady with our great friend Obediah. He was such a blessing and showed us around..He really helped us when Grady and I agreed to take a young lady who was on the mission trip, off the compound and into Monrovia to find a different orphanage where her baby adopted sister resided. There was a bit of competition ( or strain.. or something we could not quite pinpoint) between the orphanages so the organization who was hosting us did not want to help us find the other orphanage. So Obediah found us a ride into town.. off to find this small residential orphanage. Faith came with us that time so that helped also. While we were driving through Monrovia, she pointed out an old burned out 4 story bare cement building (it kinda looked like a parking garage) where the children from the home had fled to when the rebels took over the orphanage in 2003. She told us how the children had lived on dry baking soda for 30 days before someone found them hiding there. No, really.
Here we are at the small orphanage in Monrovia. This little girl was desperately sick. I am not sure if she survived or not. There were quite a few children that we saw and helped care for who ended up dying. I remember in one village, a mother came up to us, saying that she had not had milk for days.. and needed formula and money for a hospital visit for the ill (starving) baby. We gave her the needed money but by looking at the gray lifeless baby knew it was already too late...
Look at these precious babies! The little one on my lap was one we had prayed about and had seen on this particular agency's website.. we had decided that the older children need homes just as much as the younger ones did and so decided on Faith and Agnes.
This girl Tata never let me out of her sight. She had a huge herniated belly button (you can see it poking from her shirt) It was so embarrassing to her but there was no one to pay for her to have surgery. We felt so sorry for her.
These are our very good friends..Abel is the young man. We had the opportunity to sponsor him for quite a few years after our trip to Liberia, helping him with schooling and housing. A few years ago he helped start up an NGO named Guardian Care Inc in Liberia, helping children. http://www.guardiancareliberia.org/We are so proud of the godly young man he has become. The sister on the far right is darling Nellie, Faith's best friend. And the girl in the middle is Sherry. She passed away a few years ago from Malaria. I remember getting an email from Abel begging for money to take her to the hospital. Our wonderful friends here in our small fellowship paid for her hospital stay and medication. Sadly she died a few months later..
Here is Agnes with darling Destiny
The workers left this metal ladder laying around after working on the power lines.. in a thunder and lightening storm the night before(!!!!!!)The children were always drawn to anything out of the ordinary. They would make toys out of garbage and old flip flops and tin cans. Oh, I wish I had some pics of some of the cars the deaf boys made out of those cans.. they were amazing.
Oh here is the photo of the maintenance workers, trying to work with the electrical lines, standing on a metal ladder, in a lightening storm. Grady was practically beside himself when he came across this scene
Hey! I found a picture of one of the cars! Can you believe the ingenuity? Toys were close to non existent there .. so they would improvise! We saw this car at the deaf home, made by one of the little deaf boys.
Sweet Faith
This next picture has a story behind it. Remember the village children I mentioned up there? Well this sweet baby was from that family so remember, she is honestly my baby. (her mother said that I could call her that! :-) Well, minutes before this photo was taken (see below) Grady had taken a photo of me with our digital camera. When she saw the digital image she asked him.. "Dad Grady, could you take a picture of ME with your miracle?" So that is when I snapped this shot:
Isn't she just the sweetest thing?!
Here I am with one of the cooks. I just love that smile!
Here is her kitchen.. it was amazing to watch the cooks make rice and one small plantain doughnut (fufu) twice a day for each child. Sometimes there was no doughnut.. and often only one very small bowl of rice.. if they were blessed enough to have enough donations for food.. the Lord really started changing our worldview on a lot of things on this trip. I mean, really changed our worldview.
Grady, shaving with a broken piece of a mirror. There was no running water in the bathrooms. Rebels three years before had trashed the orphanage.. leaving it in practical ruins, sending the children fleeing through the bush and away from their home.. the attack left just a shell of a compound. Upon our visit, the bathrooms had toilets but we had to pour water down them to flush them. It was smelly and filthy. But the Lord was so gracious to help us work through our initial shock and recoiling and it wasn't long before we were eating dirty bread and old meat along with everyone else (everyone else on the mission team who was spoiled enough to have real food) The hardest thing about meals.. which was spectacularly prepared by SisTee, the overweight sassy cook.. was that the children would look through the windows at us.. salivating at our fancy fare. Most of us smuggled our plates out to the children instead of eating ( of course. :-) I think I literally lost 10 pounds in 3 weeks. Probably also having to do with the 95-105 degree weather!
Cook SisTee
One of our agendas on the mission trip was to evaluate how well the matrons were handling their jobs and what we could do to bless them and help. Most of them were paid hardly anything more than room and board and had an absolutely impossible job. I wont go into some of the details of what they had to deal with. Grady and I both helped with the meetings with the matrons to get an idea of what would help the chaos and distress. They pleaded for an American family to come and help run the home.
Our team all agreed to bless the matrons and workers by having a foot washing ceremony. Liberia is a nation of freed slaves (the country is named for Liberty.. Monrovia after President Monroe) and they treated us almost like we were superior.. it felt to us like what we had heard described in regard to the dynamics between slave and master. Grady and I hated it! It was such a cultural hurdle to jump! So we were all hoping the foot washing service would be a symbol of our desire to serve them, like Jesus.
It was the most moving part of the trip for us..There was such a presence of the Lord there that night.. Thank you Jesus for letting us serve
Another way that the team leader decided to bless the home was by holding a party for each of the dorms. We served 'trink' which was like tang, treats and EGGS! Grady and I travelled to the neighboring village to purchase 10 dozen hard boiled eggs for this teen girl dorm party. The girls were so excited to have a party!
If it seem here that Grady and I are almost hysterical it is because we are almost hysterical! :-) Being around so much crime, need, filth and abject poverty.. watching children die.. we were pretty overwhelmed on this particular night. I can't remember what happened here but I do remember that we needed this much enjoyed belly laugh! :-)
Party by candlelight.. the party kind of ended in a frenzy! The girls were singing/chanting.. drumming and laughing. They would drip some wax from their candles onto the linoleum floor and stick the candlesticks onto the melted wax to stick the candle in place. They sang late into the night in eerie voices.. We were devastated later to hear how many of these precious girls were involved in black magic and terrible occult practices. I have a testimony of a demon-possessed girl that I would love to share but maybe not here. We would love to share it if you ask us in person about it. Jesus delivers from sin and darkness, Praise God!
Most people in Liberia claim to be Christians. Sadly though, many practice witchcraft, voodoo and black magic also. The Lord gave us so many opportunities to witness to both children and adults who claim Christ but who were involved will all manner of evil. I think this was the first time that Grady and I started considering that truly just because someone says that they are a Christian does not necessarily mean that they are a true follower of Christ. Oh, may we all be missionaries, both here and afar to those who do not serve the true Jesus!
The Wedding
One thing we were warned about before visiting Liberia is that the common motto was 'Why do today what you could perfectly well do tomorrow!?' We were warned to try and leave the American mindset behind.. There were so many times we were ready to go, on time.. sitting in the van.. all 13 of us.. waiting.. and waiting.. and waiting. One time, the driver went to start up the van and.. nothing. Oh right! The battery was being used elsewhere! So we had to wait for an hour while they tried to locate the battery! :-) (it was being used at the well to pump the water) But the funniest of all was the time we were told that we had to leave at 11:00 am to attend a wedding in a nearby village. Well 11 came and went.. 12 came and went. By this time we were all somewhat accustomed to it.. but when they decided it was a good time to replace the tie rods in the van some of us about lost it! Late to a wedding?! How rude! Because we were visiting 'missionaries' it was seen as a great honor to have us attend.. and here we were running so extraordinarily late! Sometime around 3 pm, we approached the director of the home Pastor Mike, asking if we should try and hurry along to the wedding.. 'Oh, no worries!' He exclaimed.. 'They can't start without us.. I am officiating the wedding!'; Oh my! All that we ladies could think of was a very anxious bride! Waiting for the minister to come! :-) And come we did.. about 4 1/2 hours late!
The girls braid my hair for the wedding
Faith helps me wrap my dress, getting ready for the wedding
All in our 'African'
Our driver is in his 'African' too!
It seemed that the whole village came out for the wedding!
~Sunday Church Meetings~
Mama and Faith, in our 'African'
Cloth is fairly inexpensive in West Africa.. so even the poorest person normally wears traditional African attire for Sunday's church services..
Sitting with Emmanuel and little Destiny, waiting for the van to leave for church.. Pastor Mike was the pastor of the church we would be attending.. so again, no worries about not leaving on time! :-)
The choir
In Liberia, most everyone dances up to the offering box during the offering time. Even if the person is too poor to drop anything in the box, they dance up there and pretend to do so.
~Serving at the Deaf Orphanage~
In Liberia, if a baby is born with a birth defect, it is traditionally seen as a curse on the family. Many babies are left to die once the defect is detected. The organization that ran the larger orphanage that we were staying at also had a deaf orphanage.. it was so dilapidated that they had raised funds and had just started construction on a new deaf orphanage right before we arrived. We were blessed to both visit the children in the old orphanage as well as help with construction on the new one.
Grady had such a special way of dealing especially with the deaf children. He would go through all sorts of motions and movements, trying to get across what he was trying to say! They would all laugh and grin at him.. nodding their heads. He really brought a lot of joy to the children there.
The new deaf orphanage
~The Children~
Five separate times while in Liberia we had parents come to us, offering to sell us their children for $100, $20.. "It is easy to get paperwork through fast" they would say. International adoption for an American can only be processed if the child has no living parents.. but in a war torn country where birth certificates are destroyed or never even issued .. parents, for the love of their children and out of desperation will resort to such terrible actions. And quite honestly paperwork in such a situation can be processed quickly.. not legally but quickly.. There was one girl... Jemimah.. can I admit to you that we were almost tempted to take the parent up on the plea..? Gut wrenching would be the term I would describe those scenarios.. here is a parent who loves their child.. they want the best for them and quite frankly just want a bag of rice to eat.. I remember one day.. a man came into the compound, dragging a young girl. He stormed up to Grady and asked "What will you give me for this child?!?" The girl was blank-faced.. her eyes looked up at us..empty. What had happened to her? What would cause a father to treat his child like that? We told him that we simply could not pay money for his child and begged him to speak with the director to see if she could stay at the orphanage. To be fed and schooled.. he just angrily stormed off with his daughter and money for a bag of rice in his pocket. She looked back at us with that same blank stare. Oh dear Jesus!
Five separate times while in Liberia we had parents come to us, offering to sell us their children for $100, $20.. "It is easy to get paperwork through fast" they would say. International adoption for an American can only be processed if the child has no living parents.. but in a war torn country where birth certificates are destroyed or never even issued .. parents, for the love of their children and out of desperation will resort to such terrible actions. And quite honestly paperwork in such a situation can be processed quickly.. not legally but quickly.. There was one girl... Jemimah.. can I admit to you that we were almost tempted to take the parent up on the plea..? Gut wrenching would be the term I would describe those scenarios.. here is a parent who loves their child.. they want the best for them and quite frankly just want a bag of rice to eat.. I remember one day.. a man came into the compound, dragging a young girl. He stormed up to Grady and asked "What will you give me for this child?!?" The girl was blank-faced.. her eyes looked up at us..empty. What had happened to her? What would cause a father to treat his child like that? We told him that we simply could not pay money for his child and begged him to speak with the director to see if she could stay at the orphanage. To be fed and schooled.. he just angrily stormed off with his daughter and money for a bag of rice in his pocket. She looked back at us with that same blank stare. Oh dear Jesus!
~Saying Goodbye to Liberia~
Saying goodbye to the girls was so difficult. We were aware that things with the adoption were uncertain and threatened and we were unsure if we would ever see them again. I don't know if I remember ever feeling so torn and heartbroken in my entire life.. My husband was literally sobbing in his arm quietly as we creaked and rocked our way down the red, washboard roads..toward the airport.
On our way, we found the road was blocked by a fatal car accident. We had no way to pass on either side of the demolished car and we were already running 1 1/2 hours late.. it was a very stressful trip, both because of the emotional upheaval we were experiencing as well as the stress of potentially missing our flight. At the time there were only a few flights out of Liberia every week. And we did not have travel insurance. New one way tickets home could easily cost us $3,000! Pastor Mike was not going to stand by for that! He insisted the men climb out of the van and physically pick the car up and carry it off of the road! They did and we sped merrily along the pothole riddled road on may-pop tires at the rate of 60 miles an hour! I just knew we would die on our way to the airport! But we arrived 10 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave, literally ran through customs (well we went as fast as one can go in Africa!) They had to roll the stairs back to the plane for us to board ..soon we were rolling down the runway! Liberia at the time had very limited electricity only in the city.. and so as we pulled up and our plane nosed itself toward the sky, Grady and I looked back and watched the generator-run runway lights slowly nod out, one at a time, leaving us to stare down into complete darkness.. As we left Liberia, we realized that we may be leaving Liberia.. but that Liberia would never leave us. We were changed. We were burdened. We had loved like never before and would never be the same again. As Liberia rebuilds.. there are still so many hurting and hungry souls.. with haunting memories and tragic stories.. they need the light of Jesus.
Well in the end, they did not end up being 'our girls' although just like the adorable babies back in the village behind the orphanage, we will always consider them our daughters. We had the blessing of hosting them in our home in Washington for two months in late 2006 while their adoptive parents' paperwork was being finished. It was a sad ending to the story.. but was a lovely time of blessing them and easing them into American culture. Some of the funny (sad) things they first commented on when coming to America were "Mom, who lives in that huge house? 4 families?" "No Faith, only a husband and wife with 1 or 2 children" Silence.. and another funny (sad) thing that they would comment on was the road kill.. and fallen apples on the ground.. "Dad Grady, why is all of that food going to waste?" "People are not hungry enough here to take the time to collect it" Silence. We can only imagine what those first few months and years have been like for them.
Ashley and Agnes
Amanda and Agnes
Agnes experiences snow for the first time!
Funny Faith!
A Happy Birthday Cake for Faith
Faith always enjoyed helping me in the kitchen
Agnes had gotten extensions in her hair before leaving Africa. It literally took us HOURS to un-braid and detangle all of the artificial hair which had been braided into her natural hair..
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Our Children, Christmas 2006
Please view this youtube that Ashley and Amanda created to see more photos of the children of Liberia.. most of these children lived in the orphanages that we visited.
To help please contact: Christian Aid Ministries
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