We have been here in Liberia for seven months. I realize I have practically abandoned my blog in the last seven months, but I did not expect to be hit in the face with the adversities of just trying to survive life. I never would have expected that things like preparing meals, doing laundry, dishes, shopping for food, getting water (because we have no running water), and cleaning absolutely everything (especially during dry season when the dust is insane) would take up the majority of our time most days. In the states most of these things are done with machines and take a fraction of the time they do here. Just living is a full time job here!
Liberia is one of the poorest countries in the world! After living here I can honestly say they have surpassed the third world status. Liberia is truly a fourth world country! Their infrastructure was destroyed by 24 years of civil wars and coos. And today, 15 years after the war’s end, they are still struggling immensely! Living here is almost like living 80 years ago, with one exception, cell phones. Many Liberians have cell phones, and often at the expense of buying food for their families. We personally know Liberians who virtually starved their family just so they could purchase a smartphone. That may sound ludicrous to you and I, but there is a rational to why they made that choice. It was done so they could make connections with people outside of their Liberian circle. For one individual family that we know of, it paid off. That is how we met one of our Liberian pastors! No joke! My husband connected with him over Facebook. This pastor is in charge of a large compound and school. By virtually starving his family, he changed the course of life for not only his family, but for the many families that live on the compound and attend the school. Desperate times call for desperate measures. But not all Liberians think this radically. Most Liberians settle for surviving one day at a time and not planning for tomorrow. They eat the very seed that they should be planting to harvest a crop for future meals. Many say “why starve today when there is seed to eat?” It takes radical thinkers and those who are willing to put hope in tomorrow to reach outside the here and now and invest into a tomorrow that may never come. Here in the fourth world, tomorrow is truly just wishful thinking. They don’t plan for tomorrow because they might not survive the hardships of today.
This way of life is so unimaginable to most westerners. We have never had to decide between today’s meal and a chance to survive tomorrow. We can’t understand, we have never felt that degree of poverty. For many of us, we have never even seen it, other than the occasional commercials and pictures we see on television. But even, that is not truly tangible to us. It’s nothing we have touched or seen in flesh and blood. It’s easy to walk away from the scene we see on television, but let me tell you, it’s far more difficult to walk away from the flesh and bones standing right in front of you with eyes of desperation piercing your heart. Everywhere we go there are needs, real, evident, legit needs! We are continually bombarded with people asking for help with this need and help with that need. It’s overwhelming. Before coming to this country I had a family member, who had been a missionary in Africa for 52 years tell me “you really need to know why you are called there, because if you don’t the needs of people will distract you from your calling.” Oh boy, is that ever true! If we tried to help every person who came up to us and asked for help we would miss the reason we are here completely. We would find ourselves frustrated and discouraged. Please don’t get me wrong. We do not go around refusing to help people who ask, but we have learned to ask “Lord who would you have us help.” And yes, at times that means saying no to the voices who are asking for help. Sounds cruel right? Well, let’s take a look at Jesus shall we.
There were times even Jesus could not help people, not because He did not want to, but because the circumstances did not allow Him to act. Matthew 13:58 says “And he did not do any miracles there because of their lack of faith.” If the people of Nazareth (Jesus’ hometown) would have believed and had faith, Jesus could have helped, but their lack of faith kept Jesus from helping. Jesus also said in John 5:19 ...“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Jesus did nothing without hearing from the Father first. If he did not hear, he did not act, or speak.
We truly believe there is a specific reason we are called to Liberia. The longer we are here the more clearly we are understanding that calling. Now as people come asking for help, we are more inclined to run it through the filter of our calling. If it lines up with our purpose, we feel more freedom to help. If it doesn’t line up at all, we do not act. This has given us great peace about when to help and when not to help. It’s not that we don’t care and love those we don’t help, on the contrary, we truly do, but we can only do what God has called us to do, anything that does not line up with that calling is nothing more than a distraction. This has been a hard lesson to learn, and one that we still fail at from time to time, but we are thankful that the Lord is a tuning our ear to his voice in this time.
The saying goes, “give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” We are learning to walk the line of giving verses teaching. We desire to see the Liberians not only learn the art of “fishing”, but to have those Liberians teach other Liberians to “fish” as well. In other words. We desire to see Liberians become self sufficient and reproductive. We want them to pass along the knowledge and skills that they have learned from us to others. We have known from the very beginning that we wanted to work our way out of a job. We want the Liberians to not need us anymore because they have the skills they need to be successful. We realize that this is an investment of much time and many years, but that is part of the calling.
Lord, it has been a challenging road here in Liberia, but one we know that you have called our family to. Father, I pray that each one who reads this post will search out their calling in the kingdom and walk it out with boldness and confidence. Thank you for knowing the plans and purposes for each one of us (Jeremiah 29:11). Let us not grow weary in searching those plans out. Jesus, let your will be done in our lives, and in the lives of our family for your honor and your glory. We pray this in the precious name of Jesus Christ.