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The first week of our workshop is finished! Monday 3 of our students will begin teaching lessons. It will be good for us to see what they have learned and to practice before we leave! They eagerly completed their homework yesterday, and have more for the weekend! Praise God for their willingness to learn and develop their teaching skills even further.
This afternoon, we took the mobile library out to a rural community for the very first time ever! As we drove in, a few children began to filter into the school yard, and from there MANY children came. While our book camps on campus have held about 30 students or so, this first ever mobile library trip had about 100 children sitting quietly, learning a few phonograms, and listening to a story. The MOST exciting part of the whole afternoon was the looks on the faces of those children when they got to hold, what might well have been their first book! They looked with awe and wonder on the printed page. A new chapter in their lives has begun with this mobile library which will head out into their community twice a month. Books open doors! The goal of LTL would be to make this available to multiple sites, that will depend on funding. If you are interested in supporting this great cause, please go to lovingthroughliteracy.com
I saw today, really for the first time since arriving in Liberia, the face of extreme poverty; it now has a face and it has a name. I held a small boy of two, and looked into the eyes of another small one who was extremely sick. We drove through the village and saw houses that have no running water, their main well isn't working properly. It is devastating, the conditions in which these people live. It has always been bad for the rural communities here, but I imagine it has gotten worse since the war.
The mother of the small boy I held, Manu, asked me to take him with me; how heart breaking is that!
I am beginning to see though that just giving aid is perhaps not the answer. The answer lies more in investing in teaching skills, training in the areas of hygiene and nutrition, ensuring there are Liberians in leadership that value people and life enough to lead with integrity.
I looked into the eyes of extreme poverty and was not comfortable at all.
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Barry Benson Well said.