July 2012

 We are into July, the wettest month of the year.  A tough time to start a construction project, but here we are.  Monrovia averages more rain in July than Seattle gets in an entire year!  The contractor has managed some progress though.  We were blessed with 4 days of sun this week and work has begun on the security fence for the new hospital.  The Kitchen/Laundry building will start in the next week or two...if the weather cooperates.   

In an effort to raise the level of quality we have introduced a few construction methods and materials that are not typical in Liberia.  The contractor has done a good job of producing a new style of block and adjusting to the changes.

Work is also continuing on the orphanage project.  The work should wrap up by the end of July.  Here a worker is constructing some toilet partitions in the boys bathroom.  The original layout didn't provide for bathrooms...so we had to cut what was supposed to be a bedroom into two bathrooms.

We also made another trip out to one of our favorite orphanages.  We decided to add a little public speaking to the boys school curriculum, and have them each tell a bible story while we were there.

The children were good listeners, and afterwards they got freezer pops and candy necklaces.  Sara doesn't have either in her hand...but I had to get a picture of one of my favorite orphans.  She was in an accident shortly before we returned in February when the motorcycle she was on crashed (don't ask me why she was on a motorcycle).  She has recovered nicely though.

 More pictures of Christopher and Rusty's trip on the SP helicopter next!

Father's Day 2012

A second team is here this week from eMi to work on the design for phase II of the hospital.  A total of 7 architects and engineers made the trip.  They will be working to have floor plans completed for the out patient clinic, primary healthcare, admin., pharmacy, typical ward and chapel before the end of next week.

We went this morning to the Philadelphia Central Church where my project manager Gentry Taylor is a pastor.  Right before the end of the morning service a wave of men in suits started fanning out in the church and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's President (and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner), came in and sat down in preparation for the second service.  Before we left I was able to briefly meet her and say hello.

Afterwards we got to witness an Operation Christmas Child discipleship class graduation. After receiving an OCC box the children are invited to come to a 12 week class and when they complete the class they are given a certificate and new Bible. Today 34 children graduated at Christ's Church in the Soul Clinic community.

Some of the children listening to Pastor Owen's message

Colton, Christopher, and Paul (who is an engineer from Nigeria here with the eMi team).

Love this little guy praying!

After receiving their new Bible and certificate

OCC is organized so that the shoe boxes that are filled in the US and other western countries are distributed by the local churches, establishing a connection between the children an the local pastors.  A number of the children that participated in the program at Christ's Church have been attending church and some have even brought their parents.  The program has been very effective at introducing God's love to the children of Liberia and the rest of the world.

You are invited! Sorry for the late notice.

Here is the radio promotion that was run on ELWA radio for the ground breaking ceremony for the new hospital, which was held June 2.  I added some pictures to the audio file of the ELWA hospital over the years including some of the original hospital being constructed in the early 60's

To promote the ground breaking ceremony Gentry Taylor (the project manager) and I were on ELWA radio for an hour program and on a local TV talk program.  Here's a picture I snapped of Gentry waiting for the TV program to start.  At minute 30 of the 35 minute program the host opened up the phone line to take calls.  The first caller said "thank you for the new hospital but you need to turn up the mics because we can't really hear you"

There ceremony went well.  We are in rainy season and the week before the program it rained almost every morning.  Saturday was sunny with just a few clouds.  Here 's a picture from my camera phone of Gentry giving some remarks.  The Vice President of Liberia, Joseph N Boakai, is seated in the black chair (my office chair!).  The VP gave his own remarks and did the official ground breaking.

Now the real work begins!

100th Post

Here's a month or two worth of updates...oh, and it's our hundredth blog, yeah for us.

We had to make some renovations to the house that we moved into.  The kitchen had rotten wood cabinets with a few residents.  We didn't get a picture with the wood cabinets, but here are a couple pictures after the cabinets were torn out (which included some comical kicking and screaming by our Liberian friend when he came across the rats).

 We decided to just put in concrete counters and shelves.  Less places for rodents and roaches to hide.  We moved our kitchen down to the laundry room for a couple weeks while the work was being done.  Here are a couple pictures post renovations.

The outside needed a little work too.  We had to replace the metal "rogue" bars that protect the windows.  After that was done we repainted...

I am sorry to all of my UW friends.  I didn't realize we were painting it Wazzu colors until we were done.  I am so...ashamed.

 One of the other projects that is going on is the completion of an orphanage.  Samaritan's Purse was asked to complete an orphanage that was started a couple years ago but has been sitting due to the owner's lack of funds.  I've gone out a couple times to take pictures of the project for the donor.

Here are a couple neighbor kids checking out the progress.  The older girl has a jug of palm oil.  A very commonly used oil in Liberia from palm nuts.  Just about the worst oil there is when it comes to artery clogging.

The walls were done when we started but the building wasn't back-filled.  The last couple days we have been back-filling using wheel-barrels and "head pans", metal pans that are used to transport concrete for block and plaster work usually.

Last week I was able to get some old pictures of the ELWA hospital from former missionaries and MK's.  It has been fun going through these old pictures.  Although, sometimes I think things haven't changed much in Liberia.

And finally, this week we posted a signboard on the new hospital site showing the proposed layout.  Here I am explaining things to John Vokpo and Samuel Minikollie, two of ELWA's security supervisors.

6 Weeks?

Hard to believe 6 weeks have already gone by. We're all starting to get into the swing of things here. The boys have started home schooling, Jamie is supervising house renovations and Rusty is working on the preliminary steps for the hospital construction process.

The seeds for the project really started about a year ago. Franklin Graham was in Liberia for the festival put on by the Bill Graham Evangelistic Association. He took a tour of the ELWA hospital and saw the poor shape it was in and need for drastic improvements to the facility. In October of 2011 Samaritan's Purse committed to constructing a new hospital for ELWA. The advertisement went out for a Construction Manager to oversee the construction and Rusty applied...and here we are. That's the CliffsNotes version at least.

Rusty has been visiting with Liberian contractors who have submitted to be pre-qualified to bid on the project. Almost 50 contractors submitted their portfolios for consideration. That list has been whittled down to about 10 contractors that have constructed large enough projects to earn a site visit.

The contractor below is building a gymnasium at a local Catholic trade school. The next two pictures demonstrate just how much effort has to be put into construction here. They are mixing the concrete on the ground in a gas driven concrete mixer, hoisting it up about 3 stories, dumping it into a large cart, pushing it across the wooden bridge they've built, and finally dumping it onto the zinc roofing to slide down to the location of the pour for that day. In the US you'd just call the concrete pumping company and...well that would be it.





The first floor of the gym will be for classrooms and admin, but now it's home for a couple saints...

Blessing last week wanted to get out some lip gloss her aunt Jeanna sent with her. Next thing I knew she had covered her eyes in it. Pretty.

Last week a group came out from Auburn University. Here are the players and coach with some of the SP kids. Lots of fun.

The team from EMI came for two weeks to start the hospital design process. They've been gone for a couple weeks now but they left behind a bag full of toys that they didn't get a chance to take to any local kids. We went and visited one of our favorite orphanages last week and delivered the toys. The glasses were a big hit...

Although Blessing had a hard time understanding why she didn't get any toys :(
That's all for now

Back in Liberia

We have arrived safely back in Liberia. This time to work with Samaritan's Purse for 3 years as Construction Manager on the new ELWA Hospital. We'll post more soon about the past couple months and how all of this came about once we get internet to our house, but for now, a couple quick pictures.

The boys have quickly crafted homemade ocean hunting spears and caught an octopus. They cooked part of it and gave some to our guard to carry home.

The Ministry of Public Works has already been out to perform soils testing.

A team from EMI will be out for the next two weeks to start the hospital design. We have a rough schematic from a previous group that was out a few months ago. They left us with a floor plan and this birdseye view...

More in the weeks to come

The forgotten blog

We've been back a little over two months now and I've sat down to post an update many times... Life is just a little more...boring here. No line of people needing money for school fees, no cockroaches and ants everywhere, not quite as many crazy drivers.

To finish the story from my last post, it was a crazy last week in Liberia. We were scrambling to get all the paperwork finished for Blessing before we left. The week was filled with trips to the embassy, doctors office, and various other government offices. Everything came together and we were able to get the last two signatures we needed on Tuesday, the day before our flight left. Our flight left Wednesday evening so we were planning on spending Wednesday finishing giving away some of our last things and saying goodbye to friends. We ran into town around noon to drop our luggage off at the SN Brussels office. That's when everything fell apart.

The SN Brussels luggage checker told us she could check all of our luggage...but Blessing couldn't fly with us. After all the meetings and signatures and waiting and appointments, now a airline employee was telling us they couldn't let Blessing go. The problem was she was traveling on a Liberian passport and she couldn't leave the international wing of the Brussels airport and go to the EU wing. After numerous phone calls and even a quick visit to the Spanish Consular to see what he could do, we changed Jamie and Blessing's ticket to fly directly from Brussels to Chicago. It was an expensive last minute change, but fortunately there was ONE seat left on that plane. So the boys and I said goodbye to Jamie and Blessing in the Brussels airport and they beat us back home flying straight to Chicago and onto Seattle.

First, a couple pictures from just before we left.

Jamie having her hair platted. She managed to avoid this until the end. It was an unplanned event that she just couldn't say no to. The whole process took about 4 hrs. for them to do all Jamie's hair in tiny little braids!

Some of the precious kids we had the pleasure of knowing and helping while we were there.
Kobe and Christopher doing some last minute shopping in Red Light while Jamie had her hair done.

Now a few pictures from our first 2 months back. Here are Jamie and Blessing working on hair. Not Blessing's favorite thing, but her hair is starting to get long enough to create more options.

(Jamie's hair post tiny braids.)

Here she is with more of an American look (or maybe Canadian?)

Blessing playing with her brother and cousins and Gma and Gpa's house
Christopher with 4 of the Perry cousins....Now
And the same five 15 years earlier.

All three of the boys are playing football. Here's Kobe yesterday against Blaine.
Colton a couple weeks ago.
And Christopher against Friday Harbor.
Blessing and Gma and Gpa cheering on the football game. (with a little more current view of Blessing's hairstyle)

Back Home

A quick post to let everyone know we made it home safely. It was a crazy last two weeks in Liberia. Amazingly we were able to get Blessing's Liberian and US paperwork finished a whole day early...just to find out on the day we were leaving that our return trip was a route that Blessing couldn't fly due to her Liberian passport. We were able to change Jamie and Blessing's tickets 30 minutes before leaving for the airport and they came back a different route.

We'll try to post a little more and some pictures from the last week later this week.

Rusty