Challenge..

When we got to our third African Country : Liberia, we discovered another of the poorest countries, recently rebuilding itself from its civil war. I desperately needed to find a way to restock my energy and motivation level...The artificial African attitude of the big cities was wearing me thin when it came to my social capabilites and I wasn't sure what to expect of the challenge team I was going on.
I ended up doing on a 5 day challenge team with Ross Hickling (Canada), Daniel Hardie (Wales) and Ben Shutz (Switz.) at a missionary's home (2 hour ride away).
It turned out to be awesome!!! The vision of James (Libieria) and Kathleen (Canada) Ngenda was motivating and refreshing. The work involved some plumbing, but most of it was carpentry which was nice for a change! Not to mention that the Ngenda family had four kids at home (and one abroad) : with about the same age range as my brothers and sisters. This family environnement really boosted me and gave me courage to keep going, we eventually ended up extending our stay there a two extra days to finish helping out!


That also meant that I got to have my birthday at their house where they had accepted me as one of them.. =) With Josh, Joy, Noah and William (the youngest) whom gave me a carved girafe, one of his personal possessions.. it reminded me so much of Wesley back home!!! (the action not the girafe..)

When our time had come to an end we had built the second story primary floor and put in all the window or wall frames to mark out: two offices, a small bathroom, a small kitchen, the hallway and a nice sized conference room. (other small installations such as a drain, roofing and windows were also put in place)
The "Grassroot Center" will be used as a place for people to meet, talk, read (yes, they have a nice library) and educate themselves, with a vision for adults whom haven't had that privilege... yet!

Well, that's the end of West Africa, thinking of all we were able to experience of this wonderful continent, the Logos Hope gently pushed off from Monrovia... On its way to rejoin Europe after a full year of the Carribean and Africa. Fare thee well Africa and God bless.