Overdue

So I see from the date of my last post that it's been almost 6 weeks since we've blogged. Really I didn't have to look though, I could tell by the emails from my parents complaining about our lack of reporting. So lets see...what's happened the last 6 weeks.

About three weeks ago we went out to a potluck for missionaries at Christian Aid Ministries (CAM). They have potlucks occasionally and this one served to say farewell to our neighbors the Sacras as they head back to the US for a couple years. CAM provides support for medical clinics and has a feeding program for orphanages. To facilitate all that support they have a large warehouse with pallet racking. But pallet racking can be used for more than storing pallets of rice and medical supplies, it can be used for climbing and jumping off. Which Kobe did, and broke his wrist.

While it was hurting that evening Kobe decided he didn't want to bother Dr. Sacra as all the missionaries thanked him for his medical care over the past 15 years. We actually waited two days until Monday to go get x-rays and confirm that it was in fact broken. Don't worry though, it hasn't slowed him down.

One thing you see everywhere are children (and adults) walking around with baskets of various foods and goods to sell. One of our favorites are what the Liberians call "flour chips". I like to call them funions though because they vaguely resemble Funions with a slight onion flavor. One of the girls who sells them, Jackie, was sitting by my office looking very sad about a month ago. I stopped to buy some and she, almost in tears, asked if I could help her find somewhere else to live. Over the next two weeks Jamie and I met with Jackie a few times and learned her story.

Jackie's story is very common in Liberia. A child from the village is sent to live with relatives in the city so they can get an education. What ends up happening is the child becomes a servant for the family in the city. Instead of getting to go to school Jackie was walking around selling flour chips so her auntie could go to school.

Jamie and I were trying to figure out a better option for Jackie. We talked with some friends but were having a hard time finding somewhere safe for a 14 year old girl to live. We were just about to give up looking when we found out that a Liberian friend was just moving into a new house (and had some spare room). We tried to call this friend a couple weeks ago, but our cell service was down due to a lightning strike. It turned out, this friend was also trying to call us the same weekend to talk...she didn't know why, but just thought there was some reason she needed to talk to us. We ended up driving to this friends house and she agreed to meet Jackie and the two hit it off almost instantly. Jackie moved into the home last week. Here she is standing on the porch.

To show appreciation to the friend for taking Jackie in we helped to provide some furniture and shelving for the house. Jamie and I put together some shelves for the kitchen and a bookshelf to take out this weekend. You will also note the new license plate in the windshield. After living here for 15 months we finally have a license plate that isn't paper.

Work has been busy too. We've started to build a fence around the ELWA campus for security. Here the guys are mixing the concrete. The drum in the middle of the picture is the water.
The contractor wanted to pose with the footing.

Jamie working on Blessing's hair.

Blessing continues to grow and is 10 months old now. She's crawls faster than I can run and is on the verge of walking (running?). We are trying to start the process to adopt her as a special needs case but progress has been slow. I think I will leave that post for Jamie. One of the highlights of our time here in Liberia has definitely been our visits to a couple local orphanages. It has also been challenging though as we go through the ups and downs of international adoption along with a dozen +/- other families who are trying to bring children home. Maybe I can get Jamie to write a little about that journey too...