Capturing the Spirit of Liberia

Hope these pictures find the reader enjoying their Holiday season. With the workload of this holiday time, I had decided not to post here the last few days, so I wanted to leave some photos that I have found online this last week. Enjoy. Will be back to blogging soon.

These photos are taken by photo journalist, Glenna Gordon, she currently lives/works in Liberia. She seems to be a very talented photographer. Her blog is found at http://www.scarlettlion.com.

Man with tuba in Pharmacy- part of the city symphony

The odd one out

Shoes anyone?

This is recess time

Plantian on the way home from the farm

Smily Face

The Young and the Old

Read the Words on the WALL!!!!

Hair Cut Time

Football all the time, no matter the limitations

Some guards just have to find something to do!

Welcome to the internet cafe

The bass player for the Liberian symphony!

Last, but not least, West African Pirates!

Snippets and Thought Provoking Facts

Found these three graphics on the Internet. They are interesting. Many times while traveling in the States people at churches ask me if I know a friend of theirs in a country in Africa. To which I ask what country they live in. Most often the reply is a country in Eastern or Southern Africa. Most people do not grasp the immensity of the continent of Africa. This first graph helps to see its size. When a person asks a missionary if they know a person that lives in say, Botswana, when they live in Ghana, it would be like asking someone from Maine if they know a person that lives in Tijuana. It is not to likely that they know hem, but a good missionary learns to smile at these innocent question, swallow a sarcastic answer and say no.


The second is just a amazing grouping of little known facts about Africa. It is interesting to me that it covers all sides of life here.

The last might make some groups like UN Aid or Feed the Children mad, but after six years of living in Africa I have discovered sadly that most aid groups should be relegated on a level just above TV evangelist. This is by means no condemnation of all groups, nor the temporary workers. Many short term workers are sincerely trying to help, but it is clear to see that most NGO's, aid groups, programs just put a bandage on a heart attack. This is not to mention the almost immoral level of bureaucracy that accompanies most UN works.

Purposeful Chaos- A Discription of a African Youth Activity

Tie-Dye
In the tie-dye we can see,

the way that Africans think things should be

Vibrant hues, going here and there

Seeming chaos everywhere

From the traffic jams to the clothes we wear

Tie-dye thinking is everywhere

This colorful pattern covers everythings

To the outsider's eyes it seems obscene.

But Africans like this random theme

And I am here to show what it means

And to the outsider that sees confusion

In this poem I offer a solution

Now do not let your self conclude

Though tie-dye's pattern seems undefined and crude

That this pattern has no plan,

This lie in no way will stand.

For in the tie-dye we can see,

Through its wild visual harmonies

That with each twist and turn it takes

Somehow it a pattern makes.

Though the one that views the strings,

Does not know the final look of things,

He is sure that when the end is near,

The whole pattern will become quite clear,

And though each cloth, has no mate,

He's certain unknown beauty is its fate

And from this cloth is meant to be

A lesson learned by you and me.

It wants to tell us that life was meant to be

Lived in a pattern of originality

No two patterns were made alike, it's true,

And so it is with the lives of me and you.

Let the designer make the plan,

The God, the Creator, amd Maker of each man.

Let Him tie, fold, and color each part

According to the dictates of His heart.

And like the tie-dye, we can't see

What His plan for our lives will be,

But we can trust that in the end,

A beautiful pattern will be made by Him.
___________________

Tie-dye seems the perfect way to describe our Friday night youth activity. It was fun, bright, exciting, and filled with purposeful chaos. It was at times ordered and decent, but I will admit, most of our game times fit into this last description.

Most of the teens here have never been to our style of youth activity. (Most churches here have youth meets, but the schedule is made up of all preaching and speaking in tongues, or drumming and dancing). We have many 16 to 18 year olds that have never been to meetings where a person comes and plays games!

After stating this fact, it is easy to understand why the youth enjoy them so much. Last night we played three games. Big-Bowl Hand Soccer, Big-Ball Volleyball, and Dodge ball. As, my new missionary partner has learned, simpler new games are best. If a game has complex rules it will be hard to play, and harder to enforce.

The last game that we played, Dodge ball, is our wildest game. The youth explode in energy and laughter. We always maintain control, and no one gets hurt, or offended. But, it was interesting for me to watch my co-worker as he tried to watch his side of the court.

He was the typical Western game player. He was getting frustrated that everyone was coming in and out of the game, and that the rules where only being followed in a minimal way. He did not understand that I was not so concerned with having a winner, but that the teens had a chance to enjoy themselves, and use up all their pent-up energy. Dodge ball is one of those times in our activities that are purposeful chaos.

Overall the activity was great. We had about 40 teens in attendance. They where able to hear a clear message about the ways Satan seeks to blind them, and where invited to church.

Here are a few psychadelic pictures for the reader from the activity. Sorry, our ligthening ws bad, and only our night setting would work. The long shutter delay created all the motion effects,but I figure it fits with the post!

New Creatures in Christ

Part of this post is borrowed from Patty's blog.

Today I wanted to tell you about some of our new believers and ask you to pray for them!

This is Joe. He is an Asante. He is 14 years old and in junior high school. He was one of the first people that accepted Christ near our meeting place. He faithfully attends every Sunday morning and evening. He was also one of our first converts to get baptized. He has started reading through his Bible with the church reading program. Please pray for his spiritual growth.

This is Dora. She is a Kasina, from the northern part of Ghana and was raised in an animist home. She was raised worshipping idols and going to the "witch doctor" if there was a problem. She found no peace or fulfillment in this so when she moved to Kumasi a few years ago, she decided to attend church. Sadly, she found no peace there either. She tried many churches, but felt like most of them were no different than what she had been raised in - the music was the same, the thinking was the same, the attitudes were the same. The only difference between the churches and her old ways were the use of "Christian" terms for everything! Even though she has never been to school, she bought an English Bible and started teaching herself to read with a little help from the Indian people she worked for. John met Dora while inviting some girls at a sewing shop to come for the Thursday night Bible study. She started coming to the Thursday night study, and we began witnessing to her. She accepted Christ and was baptized. Her employer recently moved to the other side of the city so she now lives very far from the meeting area. She still faithfully attends every Sunday morning, but cannot come to any other services because of the distance. Please pray for her to get a job closer to the meeting area, and please pray for her continued growth.

This is Martha. She is a FraFra from the far north, near Burkina Faso. We met her through a bus driver we used during a missions trip last summer! The bus driver quit coming, but Martha didn't! She struggled greatly with fear, a common problem here, until she accepted Christ as her Savior a few months ago. She has not yet been baptized, and right now she is very sick. Please pray for her health, and pray, too, that she takes this important step of obedience at the end of August.

This is Fred. He is half Asante, half Nzema. He is a student at the city's Community College. He was raised in a Convention Baptist church, but had never heard the way of true salvation. He accepted Christ a little while ago, but is really struggling with baptism. He is heavily involved in a Charismatic Baptist Church, and it will be a big step to break with them. He loves coming to the Bible study, and he goes out witnessing every Saturday with John and Andrew (our co-worker). Please pray that he will let the Lord work in his life, and that he will follow God completely, even though that means breaking with his old church.

This is Richard. He is Asante. He has been attending all three Bible studies weekly for six months. Richard was Andrew's taxi driver. He decided to stay one week and listen, and after he told us that he had never heard the things that we talk about before. He has attended the church of Christ for years, but had left after feeling no peace. Richard speaks English and Twi very well, and has been successful in live. He has his own home, is married with three sons in school, and owns his own taxi. We began to pray for him to receive Christ. The main fear that we had, was his church back ground. It seemed that he was learning new things, but pride was seeming to keep him from admitting that he was unsaved and ignorant of Christ completed work. Well, finally after finishing some salvation studies at church, I decided to take Richard aside privately two Sunday nights ago.

To make a long story short, after about 45 minutes Richard accepted Christ as his Savior. Had had done most of the talking, (if the reader knows me, this will amaze him). Basically he told me of all the wonderful blessing God had given him in his life, and at the end, he said, "If God has been so good to me, I have only one thing left that I can do, ask him to be my Lord and Savior". So he did. Please pray for Richard, he seems to be at peace now. Pray that he will be willing to be baptized in five weeks.

Would you please pray for these people? Yes, they are new creatures in Christ, but Satan does not let go easily! Even though he can never take them to Hell, he wants them to live a life of defeat here on earth. He doesn't want them to grow or bring others to Christ. He wants them to "forget that they have been purged from their old sins" (paraphrase of II Pt. 1:9). All of these people carry much baggage already from their past. Pray that they can "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Pt. 3:18).

Baptisms

Yesterday at the Bible Study we where able to baptize our first three converts. It was a long saga, that I will not take the time to cover, but lets just say that finally after waiting for three weeks for the public water to flow in the pipes, we decided that we just needed to find a local river that we could use.



The Lord provided a great location, and we all had a wonderful time. Our first person baptized was a young man named Inusha. Inusha used to be a Muslim (one of his jobs in the mosque was to call out the prayer calls to gather people to daily prayers). He was very eager to be baptized, and rushed out to be the first person.



Our second person was Maybel. Maybel is a young single mother, that Patty led to Christ, and has been disciplining. She is Asante, and has never been in water over her knees. We explained everything to her, but still when I baptized her, she got sacred. But everything went well, and overall her baptism went well.





The last to get baptized yesterday was Joe. Joe is a young teenage guy that I led to Christ. He lives very close to the church and is very faithful to the Sunday services.



It was very exciting to see these people baptized, and publicly display that they have put their faith in Christ! Please continue to pray for each one of them, that they will grow, make good decisions, and become committed to Christ!

Just a few pictures of the areas that we visit in our Salvation Bible Studies: