The following posts are a sort of blog I kept while in Liberia, they describe a trip that in many ways changed my life. For those of you who don’t have time to read through everything I’ll tell you in short right now what our trip entailed. We were in Liberia for 17 days to help design a plan for African Dream Academy. This plan includes both a school for 2,000 students, Housing for 300 orphans, vocational training, medical facilities, housing, play areas and much more. Our specific focus on this trip was to design in detail the school and orphan housing. I was in charge of drawing up the plans for the classrooms. It was amazing to work together with a team made up of Architects, Civil Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Structural Engineers and more. Not only that but to work together with people who had taken their time and resources to travel half way around the world to help others! The work was hard and we had some setbacks and unexpected turns in the design (as you’ll find below) yet we were able to achieve an amazing amount of progress in the short time we had. The bonds we formed with the people there were amazing. We were able to come alongside the Liberian people more specifically Samuel Enders as a partner to help orphans and vulnerable children gain a high quality education. For me, God worked amazingly in my life and confirmed that my heart will always be with Africa. I felt when I stepped off the plane that, I was home. Please read on if you have time, I wrote these so you could know how much this trip meant and all that was accomplished.


FIRST DAY, Friday June 4th
We awoke in the morning to find that our Liberian hosts are ridiculously hospitable. I find it humbling and hard not to want to cook for myself or help clean up after a meal but, as part of what EMI does it’s important that we use our time well and culturally it’s important to accept their service. We had a wonderful breakfast as people involved in the local ministry came in and out. I don’t think I’ll be able to get everyone’s names in right away, assuming I heard them correctly in the first place. I was warned before I came here that Liberian English often doesn’t sound much like English at all… this is very true.
On to more important things. Samuel Enders is the man who runs African Dream Academy. The more I hear about their ministry the more it amazes me. They run bible camps for thousands of kids and share Christ these children. Their desire is to have a more permanent home base. This land will be a sanctuary for learning and a place where children, especially orphans can be taken care of and learn about God. It will be a place where dreams can be conceived and made a reality. I am still amazed that God has blessed me in allowing me to be a part of this ministry, of this dream of Samuel’s. I think all of us are encouraged by it. Despite this encouragement today was also reality check. As we visited the site by dugout canoe we realized this dream will be no small task. The island is a thick jungle, navigable only by the apt machete wielder, not the clumsy Jess Libby in long skirt and rain boots (trust me the long skirt is not my dress of choice). Surveying will be difficult but as the engineers found out today, not impossible. Get several Liberians with machetes and you’ll have a path cleared in the blink of an eye. Praise God we have help. While the rest of the team was surveying Carissa (EMI Architect Long-term Volunteer) Tim (EMI Architect Intern) and I took a canoe ride round the whole island looking for suitable sites for a bridge. The suggested place would still require a very major undertaking as the bridge would have to be over a hundred feet in span. Tonight as we debriefed we talked about some of these challenges and brainstormed a bit… I don’t know what these few weeks will hold but I know that there is an almost inhuman amount of work to be done… good thing we have God!
I wish I could phone home and tell me friends and family all about Liberia, it hasn’t taken my heart long to break for this country. The war lasted so long and put a halt to all things good, everyone is in poverty here… not the kind of poverty where you don’t have a car or you can’t go out to eat as much as you like. The kind where they can’t find work because there are no jobs, the economy is devastated. Good sanitation systems and clean water are rare, clothes are never new and often aren’t fit for wearing, shelter is of the simplest construction to put it nicely (in reality many houses have trash for walls and rusted tin roofs). One of the most profound things I saw was a rock quarry where people sat, breaking down massive boulders by hand into small golf ball sized rocks. Painstaking work that I always envisioned slaves and prisoners would have done… but these people are “free”. That is when I realized poverty is slavery, and we should fight against it as an injustice.
I could write more but it’s time to sleep.


FOURTH DAY, Sunday June 6tb
I met little Sarah, Laura, Benita, and Shirley today, they were all still a little shy around me but I enjoyed sitting with them on a rock as we talked and I attempted to teach them some games. My heart was so alive and living through them, I love these kids so much! What a blessing they are from God… but here, many are seen as an inconvenience. The young ones run around in rags, little ones as young as five carry around their brothers and sisters on their backs. They have rags for clothes and often might be missing half their wardrobe. God, they deserve to be treasured, to be bandaged up when they fall, to be cleaned properly, to be read stories as they drift off to sleep... I can’t judge their parents but, truth is they are probably doing all they can. There is a cultural difference in the value of children here as well.
After Church (which was amazing) we went for lunch at Samuels mothers, my throat closed down slightly after taking a large bite of Cassava Chicken with some serious kick in it. I’ll need to be more careful!
I talked with Shirley today, the wife of Wiom who runs Carver Mission, our home here in Liberia. She shared with me and encouraged me so much in my faith. She told me how she met William and how prayer was so much a part of her every decision; she is a woman of faith and a prayer warrior. It was really beautiful to connect on such a deep level with someone who has had such a different life, who has lived with nothing compared to our standards yet to hers, she has been beyond blessed. The generator is going to go off in a few minutes so that’s all for now!




DAY TEN Saturday, June 12th
Many things have happened since I last wrote, it seems that God has been testing this team, seeing if we are really willing to follow his plan and not our own plan. Oh God how wonderful you are! God has used us to come here for his kingdom purposes. When we arrived we were already unsure of what God had for us, last minute plans to focus primarily on African Dream Academy instead of another mission were beautifully confirmed as we came to know and be familiar with the vision of Samuel Enders. God knew all along. Samuel has a great passion and vision for educating the youth of Liberia. The more I see of Liberia the more apparent it is that God has us here because the need is here. It’s been said (and in looking is confirmed) that in most of Monrovia people are literally living off each others trash. The slums never really end they just become more spread out. Once in a while along the road a worn out sign indicates some school started by some mission or another. This land is barely held together by the good will of others, and by the strength and joy of the Liberian people. War tore this country apart and left it with nothing, no power, no electricity, dirt roads with massive holes which turn to lakes in the rain. Every one lives in makeshift houses, construction here is very basic, which makes our design job difficult.
I want to share with you more about the man who has a dream to change Liberia, starting with the education of its most valuable people, the children. Samuel Enders was born the 8th child out of 9 into a poor family, yet things went from bad to worse when his father died. Samuel was two at the time and as he grew up he had to work selling what he could on the streets so he could help his family survive. Through a turn of events that God brought about, Samuel was able to be sponsored by a local missionary to go to school. Although he had gotten a very late start he did two grades a year to catch up. He eventually made it to America to gain a college education. He didn’t rest there, he had a dream to return to Liberia to labor to give kids the opportunity of an education so they could live out their dreams as he did. Samuel told us one of the reasons the war in Liberia was so destructive was because most people were ignorant and easily persuaded to believe whatever the warlords told them. With education Samuel wants to change that so it will never happen again. I can’t explain to you how amazing it is to be here to help Samuel help his people. Tuesday he’s organizing a VBS for us to see, Tuesday is also “The day of the African Child”. I can’t wait.
Once we understood Samuels dream the Architects sat down to discuss specifics. Samuel Enders does not dream small, he wants the best and believes the best can happen for ADA and for God. We have since been designing many different things for Samuels dream. We are doing basic designs for the whole of his dream but really focusing on where it will begin: homes for orphans to live in and a school for them to go to along with other impoverished children in the area. There will also be a multipurpose hall for the VBS camp to run in, food to be served, games to be played and services to be held. I’ve had the opportunity to design the actual school blocks. Four classrooms make up a block with an empty space in a 5 unit block for outdoor class to be held or just for congregation for the grade. Each grade has one module, K-5 in phase one and all the way up to high school as ADA progresses. I’ve been learning so much as we think about classroom space, the size of desks optimal ventilation… etc. James, the lead architect has thought of a way to have a truss supported roof floating above the classroom ceiling by a few feet on a 5 degree slope to allow the hot are to ventilate out of the classroom providing a passively cooled classroom.

One thing that has been so astounding to me is just the lack of infrastructure hear, we have had to be very concerned within the design process with making the buildings as simple as possible. It seems the basic construction is no more than mud brick and tin roof. Variations include bamboo walls, tarps strapped together and trash looped through walls. Really, there is no way that Samuel could achieve his dream without God sending us here. Even now, the work that EMI is doing will be a huge tool that Samuel can use to further fundraise for his dream. Once people see the dream that we have seen I know they will want to support it. This is different than many of the other ministries in this area, Samuel does not want to fence in his school, he doesn’t want to let it fall into ruin or neglect, he is directly connected with the people here and knows Liberia better than many of the NGO’s which come in and try to run things according to their systems. He has a shot at creating the best school Liberia has seen since the war, and doing it for the name of Christ. I get to be a part of that? Wow.


DAY 12, Tuesday June 14th
Well, as it turns out, the challenges I talked about with the site God knew about all along and set before our path to guide us to a greater need, a different path. After surveying the land and finding almost half of it was unusable swamp we were able to save Samuel from buying the rest. Also in search to find a better way to access the site than building a massive bridge we were led into a more rural place. That was when God showed Samuel hundreds and hundreds of people isolated and living without clean water, paved roads or medical help. Hundreds of children as well without a school for miles. Once Samuel talked with the elders and chiefs their enthusiasm to give him land for the school was another confirmation that God had led him to where he needed to be. All this to say, we thought we knew what we were doing but God had a better more perfect plan. The previous site, although beautiful was difficult to get to due to the water, it also was close to several other ministries and although the need was still great, God showed us a greater need. So now we design for a more notional and adaptable site, we’ll see how it goes!


DAY 14, Thursday June 17th 2010
Little time tonight but we did the presentation, what an amazing response and blessing! Everyone seemed so excited for this dream. To be able to show them our work and play the video with the 3d model really gave them hope that this project can become a reality. All for now!