Camp!

Last Saturday morning at 6 a.m., Shane and I left from the orphanage with 13 kids to go down to Monrovia for five days for Ignite Liberia’s first youth camp! And what a crazy, busy, exhausting, fun, blessed, and mosquito-filled these past few days have been!

About 2 weeks ago, some of the older boys and girls from the orphanage approached us about wanting to go to a camp in Monrovia that Emmanuel was putting together. We got permission from Ma and Pa, but the problem was the cost: the registration alone was about 750 Liberia dollars – a huge amount for the people here, much less for kids at an orphanage

For those of you unfamiliar with the exchange rate in Liberia, that equals $10 a kid total for a 5-day camp… room, meals, the whole shebang.

Tim, Shane, and I decided that we wanted to help the kids get to camp, but asked them to show initiative and prove they were willing to work to get there (not just going because the Americans agreed to pay for them) by finding ways to raise some money for themselves. Between the 13 of them, they raised a little over 2,000 Liberian dollars in the next few days! So we agreed to help pay for the rest of their registration fees as well as help find transportation to and from Monrovia. God also opened the door for Shane and I to be camp counselors! We would be sleeping with the kids in their dorms and helping in any other areas that we could. (Tim was invited to come as well, but we all three decided that he should stay in Yekepa to complete some projects as well as visit Remington’s village)

We were able to get a hold of a van from ABC to use to transport the kids to and from Monrovia. However, the week leading up to camp it was still in the process of being fixed. This wasn’t a problem until we learned that it was still in Ghanta (about 2 hours from Yekepa) getting fixed the day before we were supposed to leave! So I sent out a massive prayer plea to many of my friends and God must have heard the prayers cause at 11 p.m. on Friday night, the van rolled back onto campus! Praise the Lord because our plan B was pretty much non-existent!

So Shane and I, ABC’s driver (Jonathan), and 13 kids piled into the 14-seater van at 6 in the morning on Saturday and started off! We arrived in Monrovia 8 hours later with only one flat tire, 4 battery fixes, a shampoo explosion, and the door coming almost completely off the car! This is Africa. But all in all I would say it was a pretty successful trip. All of us spent the night at Emmanuel’s house that night (5 boys in one queen size bed bed, 8 girls in another) and eagerly awaited the first day of camp the next afternoon.

Sunday morning came along and about 10 minutes before I was supposed to go teach Sunday school at Emmanuel’s church I suddenly got very sick. Apparently I had accidentally drunk some well water the day before that didn’t agree with me at all. I honestly can’t remember the last time I have felt that sick. But praise God for Shane because he stepped up and volunteered to teach Sunday school last minute while I stayed back and rested. I definitely think that God wanted to use Shane that morning to speak to the kids instead of me. So as I rested I prayed that this sickness wouldn’t keep me from being at camp with the kids. God definitely came through because right as everyone came back from church a few hours later and we were loading up the van again God healed me almost as fast as the sickness came over me! God is good! And I just want to say that being sick in Africa really made me appreciate the luxury of being sick in my own home…

So here is the gist of the camp.

There were 42 kids total at the camp, which was pretty cool because it was Ignite Liberia’s first camp. Ignite’s mission is to equip Liberia’s youth for evangelizing to the nation. So the whole theme of the camp centered around evangelism. Even the topics that weren’t necessarily about evangelism (peer pressure, relationships, teen pregnancy, etc) had a focus on how to live in a way that sets ourselves apart from others and can open doors for evangelism.

Besides having relevant, interactive teaching, the camp offered 3 meals a day – something almost none one in the country gets. In addition, of the campers were split into four different groups, Manchester United, Barcelona, Arsenal, and Chelsea, and participated in games, activities, discussions, and Bible quizzes within their groups all week (I regret to inform everyone that my team, Barcelona, came in last place… but I assured our them that the last shall indeed be first haha).

At first, to be completely honest, I was very uncomfortable with the living situation. All of the girls stayed in one big room with about 15 bunk beds in it – most of which were broken and unusable. There were only 3 mosquito nets total (which the girls made me sleep under one – bless their heart’s), and I think I saw two mice by my bed within my first five minutes there. There was only one light bulb in the middle of the whole room (which only worked when the generator was on). There was also no windows or screens in the room – only special bricks that are made with wholes in them to allow a little bit of light through during the day. The bathroom had two toilets, which didn’t flush, and one giant bath area. I caught myself starting to wish I was back at ABC, but was reminded that the trip is not about my comfort. Looking back, though I was literally eaten alive by mosquitoes (I told all the kids that the mosquitoes like “white woman blood”, to which they all roared in laughter) and despite feeling the dirtiest I have ever felt, and though I was put in some of the most honestly awkward situations I have ever been in, living in this dorm with the girls turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was fun to be their “mom” for a few days, waking them up, shushing their laughter in the middle of the night, walking around spraying their blankets with mosquito spray, making sure the room was kept clean, praying with those who were sick, encouraging daily devotions, and staying up late into the night talking and laughing. And even though I am grateful to be back in Yekepa and at ABC now (mostly because I don’t feel like a walking mosquito meal anymore), staying with the girls and living in a situation which, to them, was completely normal gave me a little better taste of what it looks like to get down and dirty and really invest into people in their every day lives. And while it is a huge blessing to be able to come back to ABC every day and rest after a long day of working, I am hoping that next time, Lord willing, I can learn the art of being even less comfortable a little better.

Now to be honest, as much fun as this camp was, it was also a huge challenge for me personally. I don’t want to go into details, but there were a few times when I was angry and frustrated and the Lord good enough to humble me. There was also a few times where I was discouraged and in tears and the Lord was faithful to encourage and lift me back up. But despite the frustration and tears, and even though sometimes I found myself wishing I had stayed back at the orphanage with the younger kids, there were a few things that made this whole trip really worth it for me.

The first was more of a compilation of the gratefulness the orphan kids expressed to us and to God for making it possible for them to be at camp. I know that many of them walked away with a better understanding of God and refined tools of how to share the Gospel more effectively. Many of them made new friends. And many of them got to spend a few days away from the orphanage – something a few of them haven’t had a chance to do in years.

The second was the look on the kids’ faces when we took them to the ocean. 9 of them had never been to Monrovia and even more than that had never seen the ocean before. Wide-eyed and in awe, they stared with smiles and screams of delight. I couldn’t believe their reaction when they got too close to a breaking wave as they ran away screaming as fast as they could. We even had to tell one of the boys not to drink the ocean water! Eventually a few of them got the courage to sit down and let the waves soak them. I don’t think a single one of them stopped smiling the whole time they were there! As we left, one of the boys, Alvin, came up to me and said a sincere, “Sis Bekah, thank you. Now I can go back to Yekepa and tell my friends that I have seen Monrovia and the ocean.” The look on their faces and the happiness that filled them for the short 30 minutes we were there is something I will never forget and something I am so incredibly grateful to be a part of. God could have used anyone to take these kids to the ocean for a little while, but for some reason, He chose Shane and I to partake in that blessing… and for that, I am so incredibly grateful.

The last was the few things that the Lord taught me throughout the week... The first is that God doesn’t always work with smoke screens, flashing lights, or a giant speaker. Often He works without us even knowing it. As humans, this can be frustrating because we judge success based on results, data, statistics, etc. But during the week, I reflected a little on the story of Job. I was reminded how he had no idea of what was going on in heaven when the Lord suggested Job to undergo Satan’s tests. Job wasn’t there. He didn’t know that the Lord and Satan were discussing his faithfulness to God. And though all Job was seeing trials and hardships, I imagine that God was sitting in His heavenly home, proud of Job for not cursing Him as Job’s wife and friends suggested. I guess my point is that we don’t know what’s going on in the heavenly realm. And we shouldn’t have to see results, miracles, or anything else in order for us to be faithful to the Lord. On this earth, we might never see the full harvest for the work we have done. But we are still called to plant seeds. God’s plans are being carried out, with or without us and I would rather be apart of that without partaking in the harvest than arriving in heaven and shamefully telling Him I did nothing for His name. 

There are still a few things that God has been continuing to teach me but I am again racing the generator, so hopefully I can update soon.

I'm also sad to report that tomorrow is our last full day in Yekepa. I've ignored that this day is coming for too long and I still can't believe it's here... Needless to say, tomorrow will be a very sad day.