Liberia Stories (Part 7)

Our team arrived in Liberia on Friday evening, spent Saturday shopping, hanging out, and adjusting. This means that Sunday, only our second full day was a head-on introduction to the Liberian Christian Community. Baker and Tony have been to African church before, and have witnessed the power of the community, but before that Sunday, I had only been exposed to Western Hemisphere Christianity. Most of this post will be about that exposure. P.S. Tony will be sampling bits of this post to send to people who supported him, so the language will be a bit less personal, and more team-oriented.

The church service was amazing. I already talked a bit about it. It was just so humbling to see the thankfulness that everyone had. It really spoke to my lack of thankfulness for all that I have been blessed with. This was a recurring theme through the trip. One of the greetings that is exchanged among some is "How was the night?" "Praise the Lord". We were told that this is an expression of the thankfulness for waking up that morning. 

One of the most exciting things that we saw was the growth of the church. The church we were at, New Life Bible Church, Jacobtown, was started in a house. It grew very quickly, and is now meeting in a regular building.  Following that same model of housechurch to meeting in a public building, NLBC now has 5 other branches, and our team got the chance to go visit all but one of those branch churches as well. Very inspiring. One of the congregations was meeting in a schoolhouse, at least 15 yards away from any kind of road. Really IN the community. To get to it, we walked past a huge mango tree, which had a guy lounging underneath in his lawn chair. It was so interesting. Another church is growing, and recently had some land donated where they will be able to build a building. A much needed building, as currently they are meeting in a breezeway between two houses. Swelteringly hot. Really made stark how blessed our church is.

The VBS was totally overwhelming. When we arrived, there were 68 kids waiting for us, which was a bit of a letdown, because we had planned for about 225 kids. We started our different sessions, and about 30 minutes later, a large school let out class, and our ranks swelled to around 300 kids. Next day, 325 kids, next day 400, last day 450 kids. All these numbers are approximate. Even with the margin of error, that's a lot of kids!! We found out that only 250 kids or so had signed up from the church, or through the church, and the rest were children from within the community. The children were so much fun to be around, really just amazing. Smiles, laughs, love, joy, great attitudes. We felt like celebrities, all the children jostling and competing to sit next to us, grabbing our hands whenever they were available, and showing us every little thing they drew, or cut, or glued. As we were talking about it later, a very interesting idea surfaced. In our treatment of the kids, and how they treated us, we could see Jesus. The kids just wanted to be with us, to hold our hands, much like how we are called to be with Jesus, and we tried to be like Jesus, just holding their hands, and loving them, and telling them their picture was beautiful, like he does for us. Being back here, it is challenging to keep both of those mindsets a part of our daily routine.

One of the most interesting things we heard was about evangelism in Liberia. Shepard told me that Liberians have "itchy ears" for the Gospel. (I love this imagery!!) Lots of Liberians told us about sharing the Gospel with total strangers, but the most amazing idea was actually sparked by something we saw by the side of the road. We asked there was such a large group of people along the the side of the road, circled up. One of the possibilities.....someone preaching the Gospel, for whoever would listen. Later we asked someone about, and their reaction was fairly calm, as if the idea is commonplace. I am still flabbergasted by the thought of going out, and just standing on the corner, preaching boldly. As we were talking about, we realized that in most places in the U.S. such an attempt would result in mocking at least, and a lawsuit at most, not conversion of by-passers. 

Part of the appeal of the location for the VBS was the neighborhood. Aside from the church attendees, the neighborhood was almost entirely Muslim. (We asked if there are people who aren't anything when it comes to religion. The looks we got for that question were the best answer possible.)  We got to be the face of Jesus to these kids who have never heard about Christ, and we got to see one of the Liberians share the Gospel with them. It was pretty powerful to see.

The last thing that we really saw happening was in our own hearts. All of us felt challenged to take information, either about the poverty, or the religious climate, or the VBS, or something else, and take it back, and share with others. We also had to chance to take back experiences and ideas and information, and have that inform our actions through the rest of our lives.