Gbarnga Mission | Liberia – West Africa

One of the blessings – and curses – of being the ever-present face of this project is that I’m constantly being thanked and praised for the work. My efforts to deflect such acknowledgement are of little effect. I keep telling people I’m just the messenger, the steward…I get the privilege (and burden) of trying to wisely spend “the widow’s mite” and feel they sometimes forget and think it’s my money. I recently had to equate my role with John the Baptist’s – I think a few lightbulbs went on.

I had to wait 2 hours in the bank this morning to have the teller verify my account balance before approving my check because the network connection to the main office in Monrovia was down. Fortunately, she remembered me from my last transaction and knew there were sufficient funds to make my withdrawal. So after 2 1/2 hours decided to approve it and escorted men downstairs for my cash. This actually turned out to be the quickest bank encounter ever. Despite having been told an alternate procedure, the manager rejected my efforts to add a signatory to our account. I now need to write a letter, provide passport photos (which I already did to set up the account), and fill out the same account application used to open the account…very repetitive and difficult now that I’m leaving the country! Again, I leave Liberia with unfinished bank account business. Maybe next trip it will reach a final resolution.

Due to the banking debacle, I only had time to photograph our afternoon session of children. Each child was photographed individually along with one class shot. Here’s our 15 children and teachers in K1/K2: