A village called Bonlah

I'd like to start out by saying I'm sorry for all the typos and run-on sentances! I'm racing the generator right now as it's about to go off any minute, so I will fix it later... could be as long as a week since we're taking the orphan kids to camp tomorrow in Monrovia! Don't know what the camp will be like but I will update soon if I can! Please pray for travel mercies and for everyone involved with the camp that God would move and speak!

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Tim, Shane, and I had another exciting adventure yesterday! There is a village about an hour “into the bush” from ABC called “Bonlah.” This village is nestled right up into the mountains and has quite a lot of farmland. However, because it is so far away from any local market, they don’t have a real need for as much of the land that they own. Because of this, Bonlah has agreed to donate 500 acres of farmland to ABC!

For ABC, this is a miracle that this non-Christian village would donate land to a Christian university that for centuries has been set aside for their own religious practices. In addition, by planting Rubber Trees and Palm Trees (no, they don’t have dates here!), in 6 years this will allow ABC to be almost completely self sufficient! Dr. Amos, the president of ABC, was sharing with us his heart and dream for his school and the village throughout this process. He is excited to expand his school to Bonlah and is planning on creating an agriculture department there so that before every student graduates he/she can spend time there and learn skills like farming. He is also excited for his students to get to see first hand a village with absolutely no way to get power, internet, running water, etc. and experience for themselves, “the real Africa.” He believes this will give them a better appreciation for the conditions in which they live in at ABC (limited power, usually running water, etc). Now honestly, I laughed a bit to myself that the Dr. Amos is trying to expose his students to a world that is less fortunate than themselves when I look around Africa and think everyone he is the poorest of the poor. It’s just a reminder no matter how little we think we have, there is always someone with less.

Bonlah is also making a very good deal by giving their land to ABC. As I said before, they don’t have a use for the farmland because their village is too far away from any large markets to sell their produce to other villages (and if they hadn’t given it to ABC, Dr. Amos told us the Chinese in the area would have just come and taken it). So ABC has agreed to employ the villagers to clear and farm the land, creating jobs this village otherwise doesn’t have. Additionally, he has promised to help improve their roads (which, by the way, make the road from Monrovia to Yekepa look like a highway in America… hard to believe… again, as Dr. Amos kept saying, “this is the real Africa”), making it easier for people to go to and from Bonlah. This will also allow the village to take more of their produce from their remaining land to other markets. Dr. Amos and ABC has also told the village they want to help improve the village’s education system. Bonlah has an elementary school, but if the children want to pursue education past the 6^th grade, they must leave their village entirely and go live somewhere else. This creates a very high dropout rate, but the villagers also told us that it makes it very hard to keep the educated amongst them because once kids leave and experience the “outside world,” they don’t want to come back to their own town.

If all this wasn’t enough, Bonlah, like I said, is not a Christian village, but Dr. Amos has high hopes that they will be able to minister to this village and their chiefs. He has very strong hopes that if the chief of the village becomes a Christian that the rest of his village will follow. How amazing that God is working here to meet needs for Bonlah and ABC as well as allowing opportunities for people to hear, share, and learn about Him! I know that the students at ABC will be shining lights to these people as they invest long-term into this village!

Well so anyway, the 3 of us, Dr. Amos, our driver, and Remington all traveled to Bonlah and two other small villages along the way. It was a VERY bumpy, slow ride on a path through the forest. About the only next step down would have been us weaving in and out of trees to get there! In our land rover, we rode through streams and rivers, over boulders, through muddy ditches, and over bridges made of a couple logs or some plywood… every bridge we passed over was finished with a sigh of relief from me and a carful of laughter from the Africans… they do this kind of stuff often I’m learning. I definitely felt like I was playing the part from a scene of Jurassic Park though. The only thing we were missing was the T-Rex!

Once we arrived at the village, we sat down with all the elders and the chiefs as they welcomed us. We expressed our “thanks” for welcoming us so warmly and then we set off through the jungle to see the farmland they gifted to ABC. Now, when I think of farmland, I picture relatively flat valley ground with a few overgrown bushes here and there. Not a thick, bushy forest. But they were all very excited about showing it to us so I just smiled real big and nodded my head in excitement. However, all I could think about was “I’m sure glad I’m not the one clearing this land” haha.

After about thirty hot, humid, and sweaty minutes of walking around and seeing the farmland, they took us through the rest of their village. This was definitely the coolest looking village I had been in. It’s right smack in the middle of the mountains and is absolutely beautiful. All the houses and huts are very close together, giving it a very strong “community feel” to it. We walked a little ways to the river where they wash and get their water from. There, we got a chance to walk over the “Monkey Bridge” as they call it (I’m sure there is a story behind that name, but I didn’t ask). This massive bridge reminded me of the Swiss Family Robinson or the Tarzan Bridge at Disneyland. It was mad completely out of bamboo and vines! I jumped up and down in the middle to shake it a bit and realized that probably wasn’t the best idea…

At this point, I had 3 or 4 kids from the village that were following me around, so I pulled outa bottle of Bubbles from my backpack. At first the kids just stared at me in bewilderment. I realized they had never seen bubbles before. So I started to chase and burst my own bubbles to show them. Somehow, in about 3 minutes, I had the whole village’s population of children swarming around me trying to pop bubbles. I can only imagine what they thought of this “white woman with the magic pipe that blows clear, flying balls.” None of the kids spoke English, so it was really entertaining hearing them all scream, laugh, and chatter in their own language. It was a weird feeling thinking about how none of those kids knew Jesus. I was wondering if they had ever even heard His name… And without being able to talk to these kids all I could do was pray that through my simple gestures they would somehow be able to see Christ.

Another heart breaking thing that happened while we were there… Almost as soon as we arrived, Shane had a little boy practically attached to his hip. This boy, named Joseph, was probably 7 years old. Once Shane held his hand, carried him around on his shoulders, and let him wear his hat and sunglasses, this kid never left Shane’s side. As we were leaving the village, Joseph’s parents approached Shane and were very excited that Shane would be “taking their son and offering him a better life.” Taken back, Shane had to explain to them that taking their son wasn’t his intentions, and while he would love to offer Joseph a better life, he simply couldn’t separate him from his family.

When this first happened, I honestly wasn’t too shocked. Many of the kids at the orphanage have parents, but their parents gave them up so they could have shelter, food, and education. Wanting a better life for your children isn’t all the bad right? But what kind of place is this where parents freely offer their own children to complete strangers? It’s no wonder we hear of so many horror stories about child trafficking where strangers come, promising hope and a better life, only to shamelessly exploit innocent children… My heart breaks for this world where parents feel like the best choice they have for their kids is to give them away, no questions asked. I keep wondering what us Christians are doing to try and help. I guess a better question the Lord keeps asking me is, “what are you going to do about it?” Honestly, it’s moments like this that I struggle with anger and resentment. I try to rationalize what is going on by pointing fingers at others around me who I don’t think are active in speaking out and seeking justice for the oppressed. But ultimately I know that one day when I stand before God, I will not be held accountable for the acts of others, only my own. And after seeing what I have seen, and knowing what I know, I don’t have any excuse to sit and do nothing…

God, help me to never sit back and do nothing. 

"And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor."

Isaiah 61:1-3

The village chief at New Yekepa

Got stuck in the river. NBD. 

Bonlah!

Nice Farmland... right?!

A few of my new friends