A Little Orphanage in Yekepa...: A Day at the BJO

I want to share with you all what a typical day looked like for me over the past few weeks.

Almost everyday since June 25, I have woken up tired, brushed my teeth without running water, taken a cold shower, and dressed myself in smelly clothes. I packed my backpack daily with some balloons, bubbles, crayons, paper, and a multitude of brightly colored lollipops. On my way out the door I would grab a roll for breakfast, say goodbye to Martha (the woman who cleans the houses at ABC who also happens to be the sweetest, most joyful person I know), and hoped on the back of Remington’s motorbike to set out for the orphanage. As Remington drives and I take in the African wind in my face, I close my eyes and pray. It almost always started out as “God please don’t let us crash!”… our back tire spun out on the muddy dirt too many times for me to take this prayer for granted! Somewhere along the way, Tim and Shane race past Remington and I pretending everyday that it’s a race they must win. Once we reach the checkpoint between Yekepa and Camp 4, we eagerly wave to the police who wave back with even more enthusiasm. A few minutes and large potholes later, we arrive at the Mother Betty Jonah orphanage.

As I gracefully fall off Remington’s motorbike, I’m greeted by hugs, handshakes, and more “good morning Sis Bekahs!” than I can ever count. The kids are usually wearing the same clothes than we saw them in yesterday, but are never ashamed. Only moments later come Ma and Pa with glittering eyes and sincere smiles. They know exactly how to make a person feel valued, loved, and wanted. We exchange a quick “Ba-voo-oh… Como-e-pee-ay?” and “Im-pee-ay-la-say”. Usually two of the youngest girls, Pauline and Edigae, will then grab my hands and accompany me on my rounds through the orphanage, kitchen, clinic, and school building to say our “ba-voo-ohs.”

Some mornings I wonder to the Randy Godfrey Elementary and Middle School that is attached to Redeemer Baptist Church. Here, was able to help for about a week helping the schoolteachers to fill out (by hand) the end of the year report cards. Though I am the youngest in the room, I was always given the best seat as we all crowded around the child-size table. And though I messed up the reports cards time and time again, no one ever showed signs of annoyance or frustration. As the 12 teachers passed around one calculator and shared red and blue pens for grading, each teacher poured themselves over their work – though at least one person in the room was always sharing some kind of joke or story. Though some of the teachers are not “properly qualified,” and one even have 78 small children in her classroom, I was blown away by each teacher’s love and passion to teach. Their true desire is to pass what they know on to the children in Camp 4 in the hopes of bettering the lives of the kids. I wish I had a solution for problems like no textbooks, not enough copybooks or pens, and a lack of teachers (and pay) for the subjects needing to be taught – among many other needs the school has. Please join me in praying for the school, that God would bless it and provide for each of the needs they have. This school is working very hard to offer hope and a better life for people who have next to nothing. Take a walk through their community and you will immediately see the pressing need for better education! It is one of the biggest hopes for them to break the cycle of poverty!

After a few hours at the school it was usually time for lunch. Tim, Shane, and I definitely ate like royalty while we were there! Though the people here usually just eat beans and rice everyday, Ma Betty (who is a wonderful cook, even in her old age), insisted on making us all the different kinds of “soup” – potato greens, cassava, pumpkin, okra, peanut, palm, cabbage, beans, or bitter-ball. Our soup always had either fish, chicken, pig, or goat in it… skin, bones, and all… and we usually had bananas or the world’s greatest pineapple. Lunch was always relaxing and a good time to catch up with Shane and Tim and whatever projects they were working on for the day.

If it was a Monday, Wednesday, or a Friday, I spent the next hour and a half in Bible study with some of the sweetest, most joyful and incredible girls you can ever imagine meeting. We played games – their favorite was hot potato – sang songs, prayed, and studied topics such as joy in suffering, being fearfully and wonderfully made, Psalm 23, the importance of sharing our testimonies, living vertically, and others. It’s kind of funny how the Lord had me pick topics I struggle with in order to teach others because not only was I learning from preparing, but I also learned so much from the things the girls had to add to the discussions. The maturity of these girls is unreal – but I guess you have to grow up fast when you’ve been through some of the things these girls have had to endure…

Besides these things and helping Shane and Tim with an occasional project, all of my other time at the orphanage was spent with the kids. Sometimes it meant piling on the older girl’s bunk beds and laughing until we were crying. Sometimes it meant washing clothes or dishes, helping to cook food, or taking walks throughout the community (which was really fun until we started to run into the man who was constantly drunk and would always follow us asking to meet me…). But more often, my time was spent playing games with the kids. Sometimes it was soccer, baseball (what we call kickball), or volleyball (we cleared and built a court! A BIG “thank you” to the DCA volleyball team for donating a net. The kids and community was beyond ecstatic!). Sometimes we would play hot potato (with my speakers blasting classics from N’Sync and Backstreetboys, this is definitely their favorite!) four corners, relay races, steal the bacon, telephone, meow, duck duck goose, hopscotch, museum, or any of the African games they taught me that I don’t know the names of! The kids would also chase balloons and bubbles tirelessly. I definitely wish I would have brought more bubbles. You would think I was throwing money in the air rather than blowing soap bubbles! Funny note about the bubbles – the kids don’t stop running until ALL the bubbles are “busted.” So if we are on the soccer field and it is windy, they can be running for yards and yards – sometimes into the bushes – just to chase the bubbles down! Other times it means picking up rocks and hurling them into the air until one lucky boy or girl hits and pops it. This is sure to be following with roaring cheers of delight and a stampede of little feet running back for more.

I loved playing the games with the kids, especially when the kids from the community would join us. It was a great time to spend with all the kids and was guaranteed to bring smiles and laughter. However, the biggest challenge or me was trying to facilitate games in the midst of a culture that uses raised voices, harsh words, and their fists/feet to solve problems. In Liberia, especially at the orphanage where kids don’t have parents looking out for them, all the kids learn very early to fend for themselves. They have learned that to survive they have to protect themselves and their own. During games, when disagreements occurred, there was almost always a giant mob of screaming kids pointing and yelling at one another and there was bound to be at least of a few kids “beating” one another. It broke my heart to see kids treat each other this way, but to them it’s what they have to do to survive. There is only so many times you can stop games and threaten to send kids home for fighting when they have been raised to think it’s okay… But praise the Lord towards the end of my time there I at least had some kind of order and there were far less fights. I’m sad to say I don’t expect that to carry over too much now that I’m gone…

Finally, sometime around 5 or 6, we would head back to ABC for the evening. Sometimes it would just be spent relaxing and doing things that needed to be done for the following day, but other times we might go to on a walk/exploration, to a someone’s house, or have some of our friends over for dinner (I got pretty good at cooking spaghetti and the local store knows we really like eggs! Yekepa has been officially introduced to scrambled eggs, courtesy of Chef Tim). All before the power goes off around 9 or 10 and we head for bed and another night's rest.

So if I had to describe my time here in a few words (because even though I’ve already used many and of course I could never pick just one) I would say: exhausting but fulfilling, stretching yet refining, hard but perfect, simple yet enthralling, and giving always receive back even more.