The Last Day

Redeemed and her relatives

Rose (a cousin to Redeemed) makes a “plain cake”

Spoke briefly with Ellen on her last full day in Liberia. Redeemed’s aunt and uncle came to the orphanage to hold a little party for Janice, Christie, Rachel and Ellen.

 Ellen said that is has been good to stay this long in Liberia but she is also looking forward to coming home.

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Liberian Independence Day

Thursday was Liberian Independence Day. Ellen said everyone in the orphanage attended a long service. There is a deaf children’s orphanage and those children came to the service, too. Ellen sat with them. After the service all of the children filed out of the chapel and received some combination of treats: glowsticks, teddy bears, small toys. Then they all went back into the church for a “huge plate of food”. Ellen said the kids all got a can of pop and a plate filled with jalloff rice (rice fried with red oil, egg and spices), macaroni salad, a bag of popcorn, a package of cookies and a sucker. She said the children were so excited.

Some other children from Dixville showed up to get a share of the treats and food so Ellen said she had to be “security” when they tried to get in line. A few kids from the orphanage tried to get in to the line a second time and Ellen had to watch for that, too. She said it was hard to turn those kids away.

When we spoke today, Ellen had just returned from town where she did some shopping. She was on a mission to find a drum for our friends at home who are adopting from the orphanage. When the kids get to Bellingham, they will have a little piece of home waiting for them.

In town Ellen had a chance to read this blog. She said she made a mistake about the “paypay” peppers – she didn’t realize that they aren’t called paypay, it is just the way it sounds when the Liberians say ‘pepper’. Oops 🙂

As we were speaking I could hear the most lovely, melodic singing in the background. Ellen said it was the choir practicing. The choir is made up mostly of older girls from the orphanage. They sounded beautiful  – singing a cappella. 

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One week to go

Ellen isn’t ready to come home! She talked to Eric today and expressed disappointment that her trip is over in a week 🙂 

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A lot on her mind

I sent out an email the day before we received Ellen’s (below). Among the things I said was this:

As expected, [Ellen] has seen and heard some difficult things. She seems to be handling it well, though. She understands that sin and depravity will be found anywhere she might go, and even so, she is encouraged by the precious people she is surrounded by. I thought that perhaps by this time in her trip she would have complained at least once about heat, bugs, dirt…anything you might expect a fourteen year old to be bothered by…but her attitude is as positive and enthusiastic as ever.

When I talked to Ellen today, she and I had a good laugh that it would be a spider that was the catalyst for the tears she described in her email. I assured her that there is a difference between complaining and being overwhelmed with emotion (and who wants a spider of any size crawling up their leg, anyway!).

She said it was too rainy today to go in to town as they had talked about doing. It has been raining “lots and hard” and the water levels are high. When it rains like that the kids stay inside or sit under the building’s overhang.

happy for the Ovaltine

They got another jar of Ovaltine today and enjoyed it very much. She said, “Hot Ovaltine or cold Ovaltine or any Ovaltine: we like!” She said she got “two cups of rich, creamy Ovaltine”.

Fufu

The food they are eating is very spicy. The cook uses lots of hot peppers called Pepe (spelled? pronounced “paypay”). One favorite snack is fried doughnuts with pepe sauce. She is really enjoying a food called Fufu. She didn’t actually know what was in it so she asked Redeemed several times to help her describe it. A dough made from cassava (which tastes “sour and floury”) is covered with okra, bitter ball (a plant) soup and pepe sauce. She said they don’t chew it, just swallow it.

a meal for seven people?

The food situation has been hard for her in a way she didn’t expect. I won’t say too much about it – I’ll let her explain more when she gets home. But for now, I will say that they their meals are not consistent. Sometimes the food is abundant and tasty and other times quite the opposite. Although it can be this way for the kids much of the time, the American missionaries bring money to pay a cook to provide them food and other supplies like soap, disinfectant,  etc. It provides work for a Liberian and ensures the Americans do not shift too abruptly from their eating patterns (at least that is what I understand the reason to be, I could be wrong). I edited out quite a bit, but here is some of what Ellen said in her email:

Chocolate and Esau

If you could pray about our food situation that would be greatly appreciated. Dinner is [a] substantial meal, but there is not very much of it. (If we do have any leftovers we invite select kids from the porch to come in and finish it off. Last time we invited a boy named Chocolate and a boy named Esau, I love the names here!)  We go to bed hungry lots of times, and I just don’t get it. And then I get confused because I feel like I’m being ungrateful and look what everyone else in the country is dealing with, a lot worse than just going to bed hungry. It’s like a battle in my mind.  

Ellen said there is a lot on her mind but she can’t talk about it all right now. She will have much debriefing to do when she returns home! She said she is grieved by the evil that she is aware of. It is hard to see/know about what horrible things people to do to children without consequence. She said despite the difficulty, the power of God is evident. She indicated she will have a very hard time leaving.

Ellen had a story about going to “witness a movie” at the theater – which is the schoolhouse where a fellow sets up a tv and vcr. She said she saw an African film called “A Kiss From a Rose” which “isn’t what it sounds like”. She said it was ‘cheesy’ but fun to experience. It cost 25 Liberian dollars to witness the movie.

Ellen had a fever today and was trying to rest. She gave an update on the kids with injuries that she mentioned before –

Benu

Benu’s thumb is healing

Moses

shin is healing

Moses’ shin is almost all better

Mercy

Mercy’s toe has some dead  skin but looks like it won’t be lost

Henry is immobile with his broken leg. It has been ‘set’ and is propped up by a pillow and mat as he stays in bed waiting for it to heal.

She is encouraged that these children are getting well.

After describing a situation where one of the girls at the orphanage “got vexed” with her, Ellen said, “This is such a different culture, mindset and way of thinking. You can’t go into this as an American. You have to learn to be Liberian really quick.” 

Please pray that: Ellen’s good health will continue, that she will make the most of the opportunities she has to be influenced spiritually by the faithful Christians she is with (both the Americans and the Liberians), and that she will keep seeking daily what God would have her do while she is there. 

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a second email from Ellen

Hey mom and dad…here in Monrovia again today.

Since Rachel [one of the missionaries] and I realized that we were the only ones in the group not helping with [some things at ACFI headquarters] we decided to come to the internet cafe, so lovely and cool and internet right at your fingertips.

Margaret and Naomi

Before this, Naomi [one of the girls] and I went to the beach, which is super close to headquarters. The water is beautiful, we played along the coast for a while then went “wave jumping” except I’m not a very good wave jumper. I got almost all the way wet from an invisible wave that came out of nowhere and got my skirt soaked. I realized that Naomi wasn’t very wet and went to help her out, but just as I tried to shove her into the oncoming wave she whirled around and pushed me into the water! At least she evened things out a bit–I got completely and entirely soaked from head to toe. Naomi thought that this was hysterical, I had to admit it was pretty perfect. Luckily its a hot, sunny day and I’m drying out alright. (but the sand is everywhere.=)

mosquito tents

Yesterday I was so overwhlemed with so many things. Then, when it got dark I opened the door and a big fat old spider (a BIG one) crawled right up my leg. I started crying and shrieking, just let out all my emotion and had a good long cry. Janice and I layed down to gather and had a good talk and I cried some more and then I crawled into Christie’s mosquito tent and we talked and it was great. I felt a lot better after that. Oh, yesterday was just long and tiring and disappointing and it seemed like all the hard things I’ve seen rolled up into that one day. All the rest of my time here has been blessed and wonderful, I know the Lord has been giving us many things that I’m so grateful for. You see a lot of hard things but  a lot of healing and the power of God shines through over here. I’m learning a lot about Him. I’ll probably have to tell you  when I get home about things, I can’t tell you a lot of things over here.

I am having a blessed time. Redeemed is so funny, she said one morning “I got up and my heart was just filled with joy!” She’s hilarious, and goofy. Christie and Rachel are too, so we’re having a FUN time together. The other day we had a funeral for Ovaltine. We videotaped it and wrote a song for Ovaltine and everything. We got a jar from the cook, we ALSO got powder milk and sugar so we made some delicious rich creamy Ovaltine. I’m told that all of those things together at the same time is basically a blessing from God.

Love from,

xoxoxoxoxox

Ellen

We asked Ellen about the “funeral for Ovaltine”. She hasn’t lost her goofy sense of humor – once they had finished a jar of Ovaltine (every last bit…even all the dusty powder from the sides of the jar), they mourned its passing and had a little funeral. -Lindsay

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