Liberia

It was a bright day filled with anticipation. Rita’s faithful truck Sahara had taken us from Sierra Leone back to Guinea to greet friends and pick up our teammate Alex and then back through Sierra Leone again and now we were on the back roads of S.L. searching for another border crossing which would take us to Liberia. We were filled with anticipation but also weariness, two back to back border crossings in two days is not exactly a day in the park. This border crossing took us into the Gola rainforest with thick underbrush on both sides and many many potholes in front of us. The way was blessed ahead of us, no rain on the dirt road. We gasped and pointed whenever we saw the littlest twig move certain we seen a Hippo or a Lion… just another squirrel.  After another prolonged border crossing, we finally made it to Liberia. The road stretched out in front of us, paved and beautiful just as soon as you cross over and there to greet us, a rainbow arched majestically over our way.  In Sierra Leone, Rita and I had entered into a starvation diet, neither of us was a fan of the hot pepper soup which is apparently the staple in S.L.  We’d both thinned up a little , which neither of us regretted. But as we entered Monrovia our hearts rejoiced at the sight of real restaurants.  P.A. Ribs, love.  Real ribs… there are a few restaurants in Conakry and like one in S.L that offer “American style” food but it’s never really the same. P.A. Ribs is the real deal.  

We got to Monrovia at dusk, we didn’t have any contacts yet, just a piece of paper with outdated phone numbers for the Liberian Baptist office. So we did what we do best, we wondered. Finally we wondered past a building with the word’s “Baptist House” written on it. It was probably 8pm. We stopped and chatted with the grounds keeper, who made numerous calls and finally completely exhausted, still starving (we came in too late to try the new restaurants and hadn’t eaten all day), we  arrived at a Guest House which had been suggested previously. We were too tired to notice that much of the Guest house was still being finished or care that there was no running water, or take note that the holes in the mesh Mosquito nets were too big to keep anything out. Alex slept immediately; Rita and I ate Tuna at like 10pm and then crashed. The next morning I awoke to discover that rather than keeping the Mosquitos out, the net had let them through and then trapped them inside for their Vickie feast. Every Liberian I met after that gasped, grabbed my arm looked at me with great concern and then asked if I took Malaria pills. I do every Monday, Melfoquine Monday. The person most concerned about my bites was the temporary Guest house keeper, she was watching the place while the owners were away. She embarrassed that the net did not work, her name was Nene. After two nights in the mosquito hotel (I bathed myself in bug spray the next night) we got a lead on a cheaper place owned by ELWA, another GCC. Our new friends from CAPRO ( a Nigerian based outreach), drove us to the ELWA compound, right on the beach, real beaches, not Guinean beaches, white sand beaches. The only thing separating the Guest house from the beach was a small road. We sat  down on the couch and waited for the keeper. “Yes, the manager, Nene, will be here soon.” Really? No this town isn’t that small… is it? It was. The same Nene from the other guest house strolled in just as surprised to see us as we were to see her. After some awkwardness we expressed our desire to move into this new location, she smiled and assured me that there were not mosquitos on the beach. Quite times on the beach, beautiful.

We took a day of needed rest and continued our journey of looking for the unreached people groups of Liberia. Our first stop was to the statistics office to get up-to-date census for the people groups in Liberia and a more detailed road map. We had 6  people groups to locate and research in three area, in 2 ½ weeks. We started in Monrovia by visiting anything that looked mildly evangelical. We stopped by, Samaritans Purse, CAPRO, Baptist Offices, Theological Schools, ELWA, Churches, Bible Translators… the works. Everywhere we went we asked about their work, who they felt the most unreached peoples were and also asked what they knew of the people groups who, according to our 20 year old information were less than 2% evangelical.  In all these offices we found a commonality, each organization expressed a desire for unity among believers and an urgency to reach out to the remaining unreached people groups of Liberia and their neighboring countries.

Liberia has a unique history. Back before the civil war occurred, there were freed slaves and this posed many social issues for an America still backwards with slave states and slave trade. Some of these freed slaves had become highly educated and wanted to return to Africa. There were other slaves who were freed on the condition that they leave the states and return to Africa. But these former slaves were no longer African, they were African American, many of them had white American fathers.  Many were born in America and had adopted American culture and received an American education. This is pre-civil war so obviously American culture did not accept or embrace them. So some time in the 1820’s they this new people group landed in West Africa and founded several colonies, they named them things like Maryland and Greenville North Carolina. The settlers which became known as Americo-Liberians, knew little about West African culture and found themselves surrounded by the indigenous peoples of West Africa which they (following that American model set for them) deemed inferior. Soon the Americo-Liberian settlers were exploiting the indigenous peoples and had set up a government that excluded voting rights for the native population. This segregation remained until 1980 when a war spurred mostly by the inequality of a ruling people (Americo-Liberians) who made up only 5% of the population, suppressing the rights of the majority.  A coup occurred, surprise, surprise this is Africa, and in the 1980’s the first none Americo-Liberian president was “elected.” Fhew! Did you keep up with all of that? I don’t know how I did, I got bits and pieces of the story all along the way. In Monrovia, a local pointed to their oldest Church building, a Baptist church, and proudly proclaimed that their declaration of Independence has been signed their in 1847. Liberian culture has not only been entwined with American culture but also Baptist and evangelical culture since it’s foundation. The Americo-Liberian settlers, much like the original European settlers in America, felt it their duty to convert the surrounding tribes. Evangelical congregations are spread throughout the country. But as is common in Africa many of these new believers though they call themselves believers are at best nominal and usually still practicing traditional African religion along with Christianity.  Though the country is considered a Christian nation, still before the coup in the 1980’s (which dispersed most of the evangelical work) there were still 6 of the 17 people groups considered unreached, with very few believers and almost no congregations.