School

We've talked before about visiting Addy's Hope Orphanage. A group of people from the US have made a couple trips out this year to build a new Orphanage for them on the road to Marshall. The new orphanage is just a mile or two from a school that offered to take the children for free, if they could furnish their own uniforms. The money was raised for the uniforms and the children started attending last week.

One of the nannies asked if we could come out and take a picture of all the children in their uniforms. They are very excited to have uniforms and be attending school. I'm sure many, if not most, of the children have never been able to go to school.

Waiting for their picture...and school.

The Group Photo

Outside with a thumbs up.

It is right at the end of rainy season here, but it was really pouring down rain today. Here's a chicken at the orphanage trying to hide from the downpour.

So when we were finished taking pictures the nannies asked if I'd drive the kids to the couple miles to the school so they didn't get drenched. Here was the smaller load with only 12 kids in the car.

Week 2

Highlights from the past week.



The boys have made fast friends with our two neighbor boys. Here Kobe and Caleb are practicing synchronized sand removal. We've had awesome waves here at ELWA the past few days, so the boys have been picking sand out of their pockets, waistband, ears, etc...

Here's a picture Jamie took from our front porch of the sun setting a couple days ago.

Farm equipment along the road on the way into town. I was told these belong to an organization headed by one of Muammar Gaddafi's sons. Libya and Liberia have ties in the past... Charles Taylor and his main military officials were trained in Libya before they started the civil war.

Just like home...almost.

One of the main markets in Monrovia, called Waterside.

A view of downtown Monrovia from the bridge driving back from Bushrod Island.

Here is one of the western style grocery stores. They have most of the items you'd find back home...you just pay more. A few price examples from our most recent trip, Large Frosted Flakes box - $9.00; Pint of olive oil - $12.00; Cheddar cheese - $10.00 for about 2 cups worth; Bush's baked beans - $3.50-4.00/can. Obviously the stores have a lot of expenses though. The cost of importing the goods, generating their own power, getting clean water to the store, housing for employees, etc... Most of the stores are run by Lebanese with Liberian employees.

Randall Street just outside the grocery store. This is one of the main streets. There are a couple grocery stores, many hardware stores, appliances, furniture, office supplies and more.

Another market that Jamie buys fruit and vegetables at.

As the highlight of our week, and probably our time here in Liberia so far, we went and visited Addy's Hope Orphanage on Friday night. Through the internet we met a couple from Colorado who are adopting through Addy's Hope. They took it upon themselves to raise the funds to construct a new orphanage (right now they are renting a building). Kami is out this week getting things prepared for a team of 9 from the states that will start arriving Sunday. They shipped over most of the supplies in a container...that is stuck in the port right now. They are praying it will be cleared by Wednesday.

They have just over 50 children at the orphanage right now. We arrived just as it was getting dark Friday night. We brought with us a favorite of ours back in the states...glowstick bracelets. As you can imagine the kids were very excited to play with them. More amazing was sitting and listening to them sing when we arrived, and again in their nightly devotional right before we left. They sing many of the songs we sing back in the states so it was really cool to hear 50+ little voices belting out the songs.

Kobe, Colton and I handing out the glowsticks.

Kami and Jamie showing some of the kids how they work.

This little guy was glued to Christopher most of the night.

Jamie's hair got lots of attention from the little girls. If we'd been there longer I'm sure she would have come back with braids.

Almost everyone had fun.

Christopher and his little friend again.

While Jamie was taking this picture the boy on the left was saying "I beg you, he choking my neck". Then Jamie showed them the picture on the camera and the boy on the right laughed and said "HA, I choking his neck"

First pictures

We made it! As promised, here are some pictures

The boys sleeping on the plane. This was the last leg (Brussels to Monrovia). Fortunately the boys slept most of the 7 hours.

Here's the view out the airplane window on the way. I think this was somewhere over Algeria.

Here's the coastline of Liberia.

We sprayed the boys rooms last night before bed. We went back into Colton's room an hour later and there were these guys laying dead on the floor. Colton decided he'd rather move his bed to the room Christopher and Kobe were sharing (they only had 3 dead roaches).

Here's the master bedroom

The living room...I think Kobe is inspecting Colton's bug bites.

Jamie in the kitchen.

and the boys bedroom. Beyond through the door is a classroom that the last missionaries added.

There's a termite mound in front of our house.

And there's our house. We have a bamboo fence around the front yard. We need to install a new roof, hopefully before rainy season. It needs lots of other work, but overall it is pretty solid.

And there is the view looking south from our house down the road.

That's all for now. I'll try to get more pictures of the area and Monrovia and post them later this weekend.

Update

Wow, has it really been over a month since we've posted anything? Well here's the latest:

On the medical front, the doctors found that Rusty has an increased level of a certain antibody. They think that has been the cause of his symptoms. No MS. The condition should be pretty easily manageable with some pretty basic medications.

So with that news, we were able to finalize our plans for heading to Liberia! We'll be departing on February 24th, arriving in Liberia on the 25th! For those who don't know, we'll be working with SIM for the next 18 months. Rusty will be working with the construction services division on the ELWA campus and Jamie will be homeschooling the boys.

More good news, our car made it safely to Liberia about 2 weeks ago! It will be waiting for us when we arrive in 13 days.

Off to get some packing done...