Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Liberia Journal - Day Three

*Personal Note - Today (Wednesday the 18th) has been a hard day for me...the reality of how much I miss my little Liberian kiddos has been really hard to deal with today. I find myself thinking often about what they might be doing right now and where they are (a few of them in particular). Oh, Lord...be with my little Liberian kiddos...you know how much I love them and I'm grateful that You love them even more! (see journal below)*

March 8, 2009

Today is the Lord's day. We split up into groups of 4 today and each took a cab to various churches around town.

What an interesting experience.

The church we went to was called Westside Evangelical. It was a small church of about 35 people. The people were all very welcoming and seem to truly love the Lord passionately.

The building was a small cinderblock structure with a metal roof and three walls. There was just one little window cut out of the cinderblocks and it was about 100 degrees outside today. It was truly the hottest place I have ever been. The floor was sand and there were chairs inside and a small stage up front.

At one point I really worried that I may pass out from the heat. We stood for what seemed like an hour singing songs (honestly, I think it may have been longer than an hour). My legs were literally shaking. It is so different from churches in the states. Never again will I complain about standing for 3 songs at the beginning of a service!:)

Donn gave the message to the congregation and he did a fabulous job. I am also so proud of him when he speaks!

We arrived at the church around 9:30am and we finally had to excuse ourselves at 1:30pm because we had a prior commitment at the orphanage. I have no idea what time they usually get out of their service but it was a very interesting experience.

We then came back to the guesthouse to grab some lunch and head out to the orphanage where the kids had a big service planned for us. I was so excited to see the kids again and I couldn't wait to see what they had planned for us.

Unfortunately, as life has a way of doing, the afternoon didn't go as I had planned. When I got back for lunch I found out that Eden was not feeling well (Eden is the senior in High School that lives with us and also went on this trip with us). Eden decided to stay back and rest at the guest home and that meant that one of us had to stay back also. Donn offered to, but I know that he was really looking forward to seeing the kids and I didn't want him to miss them. I decided that it would be best if I stayed back. So, here I sit...in the guesthouse living room catching up on some journaling.

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Just got interrupted as the guesthouse staff came into the living room to take a break after cleaning up from lunch.

What a God ordained moment!

The staff all sat down and we began talking. We ended up talking for hours! I learned so much about each of them personally as well as the Liberian culture! I met some amazing new friends today and God reminded me that He can redeem anything...even a day that I thought was going poorly! :)
Our new friends from the Guesthome:
(L to R) Johnson, Donn, Timothy and Friday (Front)

(L to R) Keema, Emily, Cyndie, Lovette, Lorpa, Abigail (front)

(L to R) Johnson, Donn, Timothy, Cyndie, Friday (front), Eden (front)



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Again.....isn't it amazing, (WHY, I ask, do we always act surprised????)how God is unendingly working behind the scenes that we are viewing with "our" eyes to make such unexpected and wonderful moments He sees with HIS eyes happen in our lives??? It was in the plans all along, we were just thinking OUR plans were the best.
Thanks for sharing!!! It's inspiring. :-)