Grace in Mission

Liberia Mission Trip - Grace Team as Teachers

In addition to the A+ program, the team shared information/education on HIV/Aids, Conflict resolution and Family Planning. 

Imagine a classroom with woven palm panel walls, no overhead light, and dirt covered concrete floors. 

Imagine students so eager to learn they all want to sit at the front of the class. 

Imagine both teachers and students speaking English, but with differing accents and making listening by both parties key to understanding.

Imagine students role playing out the reality of their lives, negotiating and knowing that decisions they make could easily be life and death in the world of HIV/Aids.

Imagine students sharing about the reality of growing up in war and trying to cope with what they have lived through and how to be positive productive members of their community.

Imagine a young women asking what will happen to her child, if the child has HIV and  answering compassionately, but truthful.

Imagine sharing information about our body’s systems and the students understand and you must dispel myths of a campus teacher.

Imagine students that stay for more than hour after class ends to copy poster information completely on their own, as they want to know more, learn more.

Imagine students greeting the team with beautiful music.

Imagine a classroom where children of the students nurse or play outside while class is being held.

Imagine the best “recess” anyone could witness; youth proudly wearing their new uniforms, sharing their soccer skills.

Imagine 40-50 students in one class.

Imagine shouting HELLO to get the attention of students and they reply hello and immediately going on with presenting information,

Imagine the opportunity that Grace UMC of Olathe has provided to team members to share and grow in their faith through out the World.

 

JUST imagine the possibilities that lay ahead for each of these students as they continue to learn skills at BFC and CESPRO under the guidance of Frido Kinkolenge and his staff,

JUST imagine.

Contributed by Cindy Hahn

Liberia Mission Trip School Visits

The United Methodist Church is known as a champion for children and the poor.  Education is a hallmark of many a United Methodist mission.  True to this calling, The Liberian United Methodist Church sponsors several schools in and around Monrovia, the capital city.  The Grace mission team was able to tour four of these schools. 

Imagine a classroom lit by a single bulb, blackboards so overused that chalk is almost unreadable, no library, no playground equipment, and a cafeteria consisting of tables set up under an open air thatched canopy.   The John Lewis Morris Memorial School serves approximately 1,000 students in pre-kindergarten through grade twelve in a poor neighborhood near Monrovia.  Of the one hundred twenty-six seniors in the class of 2011, one hundred six passed the national exit exam, earning their diplomas, and eligibility to sit for college entrance exams this fall.  The school also provides after school hours classes two days a week for neighborhood children who cannot afford the school fees.

After bidding JL Morris Memorial farewell, we traveled to the JJ Roberts School in Monrovia.  Arriving, we were struck by the brilliant yellows and blues of the campus.  Classrooms were bright, desks in generally good repair, blackboards, while still overused, were readable, a library was well-stocked, and plans for a computer lab were underway.  Under the guidance of Principal Samuel K. Sagbeth, JJ Roberts has risen to be the premier UM-sponsored school in Monrovia.  Similar to JL Morris, JJ Roberts serves approximately 1,000 students, pre-kindergarten through grade twelve.  90% of the students graduate and 95% of the graduates go on to college.  Students at JJ Roberts are expected to do international travel and benefit from a unique relationship, forged by Principal Sagbeth, with the United States Embassy.  US Embassy personnel come to the school weekly to teach conventional English pronunciation, American culture, and provide resources to the school.  Like the JL Morris school, the JJ Roberts staff provide afterschool classes three days a week for area children who cannot afford to enroll.

The third school we visited was the College of West Africa on the campus of the United Methodist University of Monrovia.  This was the premier high school of the United Methodist church until 1995, when JJ Roberts opened its high school department.  The College of West Africa now has an enrollment of approximately 460 students.  The class of 2011 graduated one hundred seventeen seniors.

Hope School for the Deaf is United Methodist-sponsored and led by Rev. David Worlobah.  After the government-run school was destroyed in the war, Bishop Innis challenged Rev. Worlobah in 2008 to do something to educate the deaf students.  Housed in a room about the size of a two car garage, fifty-two students from pre-kindergarten through young adulthood attend academic classes in the mornings.  In the afternoons, approximately eleven students stay for vocational training, which currently consists of shoe-making.  While the school has practically no resources—no books, few desks, one shoe-making machine; they have great dreams—dreams for a library, dreams for computer-based instruction, dreams for sewing machines, and, of course, they have lots of  hope for the future of Liberia and Hope School for the Deaf.

Contributed by Robin Olson

A+ Curriculum for Liberia

The idea for using computer-based literacy curriculum arose from seeing it work at our Mission Center, Center of Grace, for high school completion.  Since Liberia’s schools were inactive during the war due to the violence overwhelming the population, there is a generation of children who missed their chance at education – many of whom were forced to fight in a horribly inhumane war.  Frido’s programs are helping approximately 250 children at a time to reclaim a future by learning a trade.  There is some literacy training, but classes are large and geared for the whole, not the individual student.  A+ Curriculum is a natural fit so that many can learn at a time and at a pace they set.

God provided the funding of over $28,000 through Grace members and Grace Extravaganza plus the help of our friends at Step-Up Diploma Program at Center of Grace.  The curriculum was taken to Liberia on two small flash drives as well as loaded onto two new laptop servers purchased for this purpose.  God provided the team members who could do the technical work as well in Aaron Norton and David Love.  Thanks to their work and computers donated by Kansas Social and Rehabilitation Services and sent in the container that arrived in 2010, plus four other refurbished computers from Dr. Nevin Waters, Frido’s dream is being fulfilled.  As he quickly learned how to work the program and saw the possibilities it presented, he began to plan how to implement the education.  First his teachers will all be asked to complete the 1-8 grades of reading, vocabulary, language arts and math; the students will be next.  The future is opening up to these young people because of Grace UMC.

Contributed by Lois Waters

 

Grace Team travels to Liberia

A team of 13 traveled to Liberia on July 19 and returned home on August 5.  The team consisted of persons from three United Methodist Churches, led by Rev. Dr. Ken Lutgen of Blue Ridge Boulevard UMC in Raytown, MO.  The five persons from Grace UMC were Rev. Nanette Roberts, Cindy Hahn, Kyle Reynolds, Patty Baker and Lois Waters.

The team led workshops for young adults in three locations:  Kakata City, about an hour outside of Monrovia in a program for street girls; in Buchanan to Brighter Future Children Rescue Center to a co-ed group who are ex-combatants and most are homeless; and to Camphor Mission, a United Methodist boarding school and home of a project to work with girls who are trying to escape a tribal lifestyle.

Three teachers in the group led teacher training workshops, while the two pastors in the group led training for District Superintendents.  Other workshops led by the rest of the team were on HIV/AIDS education and prevention, family planning and sex education, self-sustainability, and conflict management.

The reality of what war can do to a country and its citizens was very evident in the students.  Education was suspended for 15 years while the country was in the midst of brutal conflict; infrastructures and families were destroyed.  The students the team worked with were between the ages of 15 and 22 and were learning to read and write.  Most could write their names but few were capable of fluent writing.  They were bright and anxious to learn but had few resources.  Classrooms had chalk boards and desks that seated three to a bench with a board for a desk top.  All notes were copied from the chalk board onto notebook paper.  The school at Camphor Mission had textbooks but they were kept in the school library.

As Grace UMC begins to work toward having a Peace Academy, beginning with 7 year old children, the impact of seeing what a war can do to a society is crucial.  Humankind cannot be kept down, but the reality of life is that it will take a generation to rebuild what formerly was successful and produced a good life for most citizens.  There is currently 85% unemployment, half the population was killed over the span of the war, and few are over the age of 25.  There is no electricity or water system, however the remains of both are evident.

As is usual with Mission Teams, we returned with determination to help as we are able, to assist the church to build a new future.  The force of Jesus Christ was apparent in the programs being produced, the worship attended and the work of UM missionary, Frido Kinkolenge, a former Missioner of Hope from the Congo.  There is hope because of Christ and Christians all over the world.  Hope in a hopeless place is a miracle to behold.  We are grateful to God for letting us see it and the opportunity to participate in building a future for those in Liberia.

Lois Waters
Grace team member