To put down thoughts regarding our mission trip to
Liberia resembles telling people of a great painting by only showing them one
square inch of that painting. But words and stories are all I have to hopefully
inspire and drum up more interest in what God is doing in Liberia. It is in this
feeble attempt to express what God did that I hope His Spirit intermingles with
our souls and brings vitality and passion where our souls too often slumber.
I'm going to deal with the biggest achievement of
the trip. But in doing this, I realize that God often turns what we thought was
an insignificant moment into the most significant event, while the things we
thought were great and amazing become a passing footnote to our lives.
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| Don Winters (left) and John Bennett (right) |
Last year, our small Hope 2 Liberia team of four
people, traveled to the Heart of Grace school in Lower Johnsonville, outside of
the capital city of Monrovia. What we saw there was amazing. This place was
different. It was kept up. It was clean. We are part of Hope 2 Liberia, but
this place, on the outskirts of Monrovia, was really a place of hope for
Liberia. Something was happening here. It was a city on a hill. It was a beacon
of hope in the darkness.
But there was also a great problem. A problem we
wouldn't have known about except for a random, divine encounter in the airport
that eventually led us to Heart of Grace. The school and the surrounding
community lacked water. The school had been given a well by a Rotary Club out
of Lafayette, Louisianna, but the well had dried up. A man in the neighborhood
had spent days hand digging a new well, only to never hit water. The only water
they could get was down a steep cliffside. A journey they would make every day,
bucket after bucket, because water is life.
So we saw the situation, but we did not have the
pumps and equipment to do something incredible. I remember the feeling in that
small group that something would be done. And one of our group members, Jon
Bennett, said, "I'm going to come back here and fix this problem." So
he went home, 5,000 miles away from Lower Johnsonville and the Heart of Grace
school, but that community stayed on his heart. He worked out a plan. His
passion to help Johnsonville and his commitment to work hard to meet the needs
of those who did not have the ability to meet their own needs, combined with
the engineering know-how of John Pierce, brought eventual change. As you are
reading this, someone from the community in Lower Johnsonville is probably filling
her bucket with safe, purified water. Water that was unsafe to drink at the bottom
of the cliff, that traveled through lines laid, and was filtered prior to
reaching a spigot at the top of the hill.
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| Eric Wowoh |
Eric Wowoh, a Liberian, founder of the Heart of Grace school, the executive
director of Change Agent Network, and a servant of God of the sort I have never
before encountered had this to say:
"We now have plenty of water flowing through our school and community here in City View, Lower Johnsonville. Water has always been a major problem for us in this community, especially during the dry season or summer months. We have never had a public system for running water, which has meant everyone had to travel many miles for their water. In our case, this has meant walking up and down a very challenging, rocky hill to get to a well. Heavily pregnant mothers journeying up and down to fetch water each day has been very normal since people have lived here."
"This is now history as God sent twenty-four members of the Hope 2 Liberia team to help bring an abundance of fresh, safe, clean drinking water to the thirsty in this 17,000 strong community of Lower Johnsonville, including all of the students and staff that use our school, the Heart of Grace."
"We now have plenty of water flowing through our school and community here in City View, Lower Johnsonville. Water has always been a major problem for us in this community, especially during the dry season or summer months. We have never had a public system for running water, which has meant everyone had to travel many miles for their water. In our case, this has meant walking up and down a very challenging, rocky hill to get to a well. Heavily pregnant mothers journeying up and down to fetch water each day has been very normal since people have lived here."
"This is now history as God sent twenty-four members of the Hope 2 Liberia team to help bring an abundance of fresh, safe, clean drinking water to the thirsty in this 17,000 strong community of Lower Johnsonville, including all of the students and staff that use our school, the Heart of Grace."
"Thanks for your continual support and
prayers! We are very grateful to all who have helped. This is a huge moment for
us - real development and real change. Water is, indeed, life. May God water
and refresh your life as you have helped to water the lives of others in such
need."
All of this challenges me. And I hope it
challenges you. All too often we see the world off kilter from what God has
designed it to be, but we just turn a blind eye and unleash our apathy. We say
it's a fallen world and things will be this way until Jesus returns. But those
teachings weren't given to us so that we could be complacent. They are an
acknowledgment that we will always have a mission to accomplish.
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| People from the Johnsonville community waiting in line for water. |
But do you see what happened here? Thousands of
people now have clean drinking water because of the passion of one man. John
Bennett - not a pastor, not a plumber, not an engineer - founder and owner of
Cool Cayenne Authentic Printed Shirt Co. in Muncie, Indiana. He made a
difference. He would be the first to say that he couldn't have done it by
himself, but what is happening in Johnsonville right now, as we sit in the
comfort of our own homes, wouldn't have been accomplished without his
faithfulness to Jesus. When John stands before Jesus and Jesus says, "I
was thirsty and you gave me a drink." John will humbly say, "When did
I see you thirsty? When did I give you a drink?" And Jesus will say,
"Johnsonville."
May we each find our Johnsonvilles. May we each
strive to make a difference. Instead of pretending we don't have to do anything
and that God's plan will magically get done, may we take seriously God's call
to be His hands and feet. We have to get busy being faithful. We are surrounded
by the hungry, the thirsty, the immigrant, the naked, the sick, and imprisoned.
And in loving them, we love Jesus. Let's love Jesus. Let's love our fellow man.
