Happy New Year!

This morning, at 5:00am, God treated us to a marvelous display of His fireworks! Liberia had their first storm of 2009, complete with heavy rain and an awesome lightening show, accompanied with grand, booming thunder. When I went to open the dining hall at 6:15am, the rain had lessened, and the sounds of drums and singing were coming from one of the nearby the villages: the locals were officially welcoming the new year!

Our youngest cook wandered into the kitchen at 6:30am. She had been to an all night prayer meeting at her church and did not go to bed until 2 am this morning. Of course, the thunder woke her up earlier than she had planned to awaken this morning. Hm-m-m-m...three hours of sleep. Ah, youth! Many churches in Africa celebrate the beginning of the new year with all night prayer vigils. A pretty cool way to start 2009, but difficult to manage if you have to work New Year's Day.

We have discussed what we would like to see happen this year: Dave is praying that God will grow this village with more children and that we will be instrumental in doing what He has planned. I would like to get some curtains hung in the clinic and lose ten pounds. Yes, I am shallow and Dave is a much deeper thinker than I am! But we all knew that! But we both agree that as hard as it is sometimes to be away from dear family and marvelous friends who support this head-scratching adventure we are living...as confusing as it is sometimes to be separated from everything we know as "normal...this is where we are supposed to be right now. We have full assurance that God is "the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas" (Psalm 65:5). And with that hope, we are O.K.

So we wish you all a Happy, Blessed, Full-of-adventure, Hope-filled New Year! Please excuse me now; I need to go hang curtains in the clinic!

Dave and Babs

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town"

Monrovia is getting into the holiday spirit. The city is full of people, as folks pour into town from the "interior" for the Christmas season. Purveyors of decorated artificial Christmas trees carry them down the street for easy shopping. Dave is pretty sure this is the perfect way to purchase a Christmas tree...right in the comfort of your car! Don't have to go into any Christmas tree lot and look at 50 different trees before settling on the first one you saw. The trees come to you! Talk about customer service!
Christmas decorations are hawked on the sidewalks and people with tinsel around their necks walk through the massive traffic jams, selling some holiday cheer.

This Santa looks a little different than jolly ol' St. Nick. Makes one wonder what he has in his bag.

Most churches here will have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship services, and later in the day on the 25th, the beaches will be full of people.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, as the birth of the Savior of the world is celebrated everywhere, in many different ways.

Dave & Babs

"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (that's us, folks!)

1 Timothy 1:15

And We're Back!

It has been three months since Dave pulled the plug on the old satellite dish and began the simple five hour project of assembling the new dish.

Three months, three receivers, two BUCs, two modems, and a partridge in a pear tree later, it is finally up and running! Yea!

It is nice to have Internet access on site again. Although we will miss having the weekly excuse to go to the Firestone Rubber Tree Plantation

Country Club to use their Internet. That visit usually included dinner. We will miss the Chicken MaraBelle (yummy baked chicken on a bed of

Liberian spicy rice), but we will trade chicken for connections with the States any day!

Here is a picture of Dave battling his nemesis. This picture will make any OSHA safety inspector go into full cardiac arrest, but here, in Liberia, where

it is not uncommon to see four men sitting on the hood of a speeding car or two men perched atop a 30 foot metal frame, no ropes, just welding away

without goggles, Dave's safety violations see rather tame. Still, though, we do not suggest you try this at home!

Wishing you all safe day!

Dave and Babs

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things we are thankful for:

--for dry beds at night.

--for English teachers who expected us to use proper annunciation and grammar.

--for children who actually seem to miss us! (or at least fake it well)

--for the ability to read and write.

--for wonderful family and good friends.

--for the health to work hard.

--for a rich Christian heritage.

--for the occasional Pop Tart.

--for hair coloring (thanks, Diane S.)

--for ministers, Sunday school teachers, catechism instructors, Bible leaders who taught us Truth.

--for avocado trees that are actually growing.

--for nationals who like us even when we do something really stupid.

--for internet access.

--for eyesight to enjoy the awesome Liberian sky.

--for the laughter of children.

--for air conditioning at night.

--for Liberians who model such humility and honesty in prayer

--for plenty to eat.

--for indoor plumbing.

--for sunscreen.

--for Adirondack chairs.

--for the assurance of salvation and the joy of life now.

Hoping your Thanksgiving Day is blessed and full of thanksgiving to our wonderful God, the Great Provider of all good things.

Love, Dave & Babs

On Being Healthy...

I have been blessed with a germ-impervious body. I rarely get sick. It is a hearty Dutch model, and has served me well. When I was a kid, friends of my parents would say about my sister, “Oh, she is so pretty” and then they would look at me and remark, “And she is so healthy-looking!” Yes, that summed it all up!

When you are 6 years old, healthy-looking is good. And useful. I did not have measles, mumps, or even chicken pox, even though my siblings were hit with those illnesses. At 16 years old, looking healthy was certainly NOT the goal, but so it goes. What do ya’ do?

I am not bitter…really!

But now I find that, at my current age (you guessed it, 42!), healthy-looking is a good way to be. Except since we have arrived here in Africa 6 months ago, I have been sick 5 times! Last week, I had the opportunity to visit a couple of orphanages to screen some children. Two days later, I was sick. Like for four days! This sturdy Dutch body is apparently no match for sneaky African germs. Guess it was the flu….again. I was given a malaria-detecting test and tested negative. That is good.

Malaria is a constant concern here. Most of the nationals know right away when they have it, because it is not their first bout with it. Some have nausea, some headache, some achy joints. A fever is present, but it might be constant or intermittent. That’s one of the the problems with malaria: symptoms can vary so from person to person.

Malaria is a big killer. World-wide, it will kill millions of people again this year. Almost half the world’s population is threatened by this disease. Young children, older folks, and anyone with a weakened immune system are at greatest risk. Malaria comes up in the course of a conversation regularly, as it is a part of life here. Right now, we have two guards suffering through it. That brings the number to 14 of people (staff and children) that I am aware of who have battled malaria since we arrived in May. And it is just the beginning of mosquito season!

This Thanksgiving, be thankful that you live in a malaria-free part of the world.

And pray for those who don’t.

Babs

The Little Truck That Could (Almost...)

Here in Liberia the contractor who built this village is finished with this phase of construction and is finally moving his equipment and left over material. All of us at the site are glad that we can say good bye to the construction crowd and the mess that has seemed to accumulate as a by-product of their labors. One of the things that needed to be removed was a container. It was used to lock up tools and valuable items. It has been an eye sore for as long as we have been here, prominently positioned in the middle of the facility. Today all that changed! We got the word that the truck had left Monrovia (10 a.m.), and would arrive to pick up and move the container to the contractor’s main office on Bushrod Island. Bushrod Island is the harbor area next to Monrovia where all goods are unloaded off the cargo ships. Everything comes into this country by ship! Bushrod Island is always bumper to bumper with trucks and cars.

So the truck finally arrived at about 4 p.m. The drive to Bushrod usually takes about 1½ hours by car. Of course it would take a little longer with a truck, especially when the driver does not want to chance getting a ding in his paint job or bumpers. Maybe someone can help me figure out exactly what year this truck is (or was), but my best guess is that I was about 10 years old when it was new.

This fine vehicle (‘58-‘60 Dodge?) came with a driver and 3 attendants. One of the fellows worked the crane. He sat behind the cab, in between two huge gears that were part of the crane that was mounted on the back of this trusty vehicle. One of the other guys would crawl underneath and engage the power take-off when needed. The third fellow was responsible for hooking up the cables. A well oiled machine!


Finally it was backed up to the container and cables were being hooked up. This was an arduous process as the turning radius is huge because the front wheels do not turn very much. Also, the clutch was wore out, or maybe it was because of all the oil going past it; anyway, six of us had to push when it was in reverse because the truck could not move on its own power. Woe unto you if you were down wind when the engine was put under a load; the smoke was breath-taking!

O.K.! We got it now. Small problem though: now the truck will not go through the sand with it’s load. Every able man on the site had to push to get it this far. Well, except for the three helpers! They had to sit on the front bumper in an effort to keep the front wheels on the ground. At this point, just when one thinks this is not going too bad, the truck runs out of diesel. Not to worry, there is more in the can behind the cab. The main fuel tank is sitting on the passenger side floor board. Why it doesn’t get filled before it runs out is a mystery; nobody knows! Now the injector pump needed priming; a 30 minute ordeal.

Well, it’s only 6 p.m. and the truck is cadillacing down the main street of the village, heading toward the main gate. The security guys have the front gates opened w-i-d-e. We are close, so close, to getting rid of this thing.


After a 16 point turn through the gate, it is on the road. Note the wheel that is off the ground as they pull onto the county road. That is the tire that had all the cords showing. This is how they will most likely keep it from wearing out on the way back to Bushrod Island.

This silhouette of the container going down the road is a pleasant sight for us. One has to wonder though, with it going to be very dark in one hour, and no lights on the truck or container, what are they thinking? Two weeks ago, Babs and I were coming home from the internet café and came up behind this very thing in the dark: an unlit container on a truck. Fortunately, the car in front of us saw it and then we saw their tail lights. If per chance one of his three tires that were down to the second layer of cords blows out, they will park it in the middle of the highway, since there is no shoulder to pull off on, and return in the morning to deal with it. Such road hazards are the norm here.


The Rest of The Story:

After months of talk, we were promised that by Sunday the container and all the debris would be removed from the village. The container left Saturday evening, and most of the debris had also been hauled off. It is now Sunday morning, and after church we left town, and headed inland out of Monrovia. The joke was that I should be careful not to run into the back of a blue container that may have been dumped in the middle of the road. Well, sure enough, we were not quite to Red Light Junction, (named for the red stop light that used to blink there before the war) and there it was! They seemed to have had some tire issues and now the truck will not start. They made it half way home (10 miles) in 18 hours. I have no doubt they will make it the rest of the way. The people of Liberia are hard workers and very resourceful with what they have to work with. My heart goes out to them; this has been a hard way to make $200, but that’s trucking. Been there, done that!

---Dave

Bed, Bath, and Way Beyond... (or, "Babs Decorates")

Finding the perfect piece of furniture...
This store is great! Note how one can even purchase fish for dinner here.


A done deal! (The lady behind me is not happy that I would not buy her bananas, but I was totally focused on buying my towel shelving).


Doubling the purchase price.
Never before have I painted against such a beautiful backdrop.


Perfection! I love it!