The Trapani's in Liberia

This is Janu and Zelia.  They are good friends we made in Timor Leste.  They were both volunteers that helped with the English classes.  Janu was the president of a company that implemented some of our humanitarian projects. Like most couples in the country they were living together without marriage because of the expense and difficulty of the customary bride price. On July 27th, 2019 they were able to get married. All marriages were required to be performed in the Catholic Church. We were chosen as their godparents. The next day they were baptized. The church was not organized then in the country. It consisted of just a handful of members that met together under the authority of the mission president who was located in Jakarta Indonesia almost 2000 miles away. During the COVID years the small group of mostly new members of the church was left almost entirely on their own, receiving leadership and guidance from the mission president over the Internet. This little group al...

It is difficult to anticipate all of the construction requirements of our larger projects when we are developing them. We always end up adding something in the middle of the project which requires additional approval. In this case we discovered that a seasonal stream ran between the building and the bathrooms that we constructed. This wasn't evident until the rainy season which occurred during construction. The government civil engineer said that the running water would undermine the foundations of our new structures so we had to divert it.  We had to add this drainage canal which ended up  costing  costing about $9000  .  This is Wein Town Public School on a Saturday. Government testing is occurring soon and this is an extra exam preparation class the school holds. There's got to be more than 100 students squeezed into this hot classroom.  There were four of these simultaneously being held at the school. We do a lot of scanning. Usually it's for our projec...

 There is always a lot of people outside here. It may be because there's not much to do inside and it's usually uncomfortably hot inside. Most people live without utilities. That means no TV 's, computers or air conditioning in their houses. Not many people are lonely here. Most people are always with somebody else. When you travel you either walk with a group or you are on a motorcycle where there can be a couple more passengers or you are in a taxi where there could be six other people crammed next to you.   This is one of the major tire repair shops in town. I went there yesterday because our rear tire had a leak. They had to put a plug in it. Whenever they have to take a tire off of a rim they use a sludge hammer and a wedge to break the seal and to eventually get the tire off. I haven't seen an automated tire changing machine yet. We had 50 desks delivered to the Wein town school this week. The principle was really anxious because a lot of the students have to stan...

On Sunday on our way back from Togo to Ghana the bus driver thought his brakes were overheating so he pulled over.  As we were getting off the bus there was a loud bang and one of the tires blew out. We were so fortunate that we were right in front of a restaurant that had a nice outdoor patio. It was perhaps the best place to stop along the entire route that day. We were so blessed.  We could have been on the side of a dusty road in the middle of nowhere in the heat for hours. Fortunately there was a repair shop close by and so we stayed in the restaurant for 2 hours and then got back on the bus. We stayed overnight in Ghana at the Dunn's apartment. Our fellow humanitarian missionaries. They were the ones that organized the trip.  They are the same ones we went on the safari with and will be going to Victoria Falls with. They are really nice people. Two days after Our trip to Benin we had an overnight senior missionary Activity at the La Basa Resort which was about an ho...

Just a few yards down the street from where we held our farm training class last week a fuel truck veered off the road and turned on its side. Fuel began leaking from the tank. Because of their poverty the villagers came over with buckets to collect the leaking fuel. For a reason that has not been determined the fuel exploded. Forty one people were instantly burned to death. About another 100 have life threatening burns. The pictures that were sent to me showed charred skeletal remains and many people with 3rd degree burns. Liberia is about the last place in the world you would want to have a serious burn injury. There is no real medical care for them. Already a week later the death toll has almost doubled and is expected to rise significantly. Maybe 180 people when it's all over with. Even though only two members of the church were injured  the church ended up being the first response to the emergency. We arranged hospital care, found medicine, arranged transportation to the hospi...