Gbarnga Mission | Liberia – West Africa

After church this morning I met with Tumamee to review my financial projections for the potential poultry farm. The numbers look encouraging and I wanted to see if anything was missing or completely off mark from the Liberian perspective. We walked the property for a proposed site that is convenient to our just-brushed road for easy feed/delivery transport and egg customer access, close to our security guards for good surveillance, shielded by distance for minimizing noise at the school and guesthouse, and close to our water system to lower the cost of piping in watering points for the flock. Additionally, our undeveloped land will hopefully become fields of corn that we can convert to chicken feed, both for our own chickens and to sell to other poultry farmers (most chicken feed comes from neighboring Guinea and in our initial meetings BRAC has already indicated interest in buying corn from us if we harvest sufficient quantities).

When Tumamee departed, I helped set up chairs for our inaugural OTS meeting. I feel like back at Mt. Calvary setting up in the Parish Hall…I can’t escape it! I’m happy to say the meeting went much better than I expected. There were many parents (and stand-ins for those who couldn’t attend) that filled the Library. Sumo led the meeting after some Kpelle singing and an opening prayer. After introductions among all attendees and school staff, he began the process of building a PTA leadership team. Various parents were nominated and elected for chair, co-chair, secretary, financial secretary, treasurer, and chaplain. Then various topics of concern were raised including firewood for cooking school lunches, campus cleaning, having children arrive on time each morning, and gardens to provide greens for lunches. Committees were formed and a leader for each chosen. I was very pleased to see a strong representation of women leaders. Parents then had questions addressed and the meeting was adjourned with prayer. Sumo runs a meeting that even my father-in-law, Bill, would be proud of. I think they’ve just taken one big step towards independence from us- I hope they follow through after this “honeymoon period”. Here’s the entire leadership team:

L-R: Helena Sumo (Cleanup Chair), Lorpu Spencer (PTA Treasurer), Nowai Mulbah (PTA Chaplain & Gardens Chair), Esther Sando (PTA Financial Secretary), Junior Kollie (Wood & Coal Chair), Matthew Logan (PTA Secretary), Jemimah Peters (PTA Co-Chair), Stephen Sackie (PTA Chair), and Sumo.

And here’s a photo of our teachers: Patrick Henry, Kebbeh Coleman, and Nathaniel Sumo.

A brief update on Moses, the man with the blackened fingers…. He went to the clinic (a shoebox-sized pharmacy) in Gbarnga which gave him two types of oral antibiotics and began a course of injections for a total cost of $10USD. Today he’s having “surgery” at the same clinic to “drain it” for about $27. Although still severely swollen and infected, his hand has already regained the look of living flesh instead of something chiseled from anthracite. Now if he can just keep it clean and dry afterwards instead of soaking it in a bowl of water and leaves it might actually heal.

With only two full days left in Deanville, my brain is finding it difficult to focus with many administrative balls still up in the air ranging from adding bank account signatories and following up on the truck registration to photographing children for sponsorships and ordering more school furniture. 

Focus, focus, focus.