Otiero

I’ve been meaning to write an update for a few days now, but things have been a bit busy. And I just can’t seem to get Otiero off my mind. So the update will wait until next time.

Otiero Reeves, formally Samuel Reeves, son of the late Deacon Samuel Reeves, nephew of Pastor Sam Reeves of Providence Baptist Church, came to live next door in June. I was not fond of the nine year old, in part because he was in my space more than usual, trying to get me to buy or give him something, and nine years old or not, I need people to hold back and get to know me a bit before I am interested in acting like pals. He was in love with Hannah from the first week, and in typical boy fashion he showed that love by continually annoying, teasing, and hitting her. He was relentless, and a few times I had to come out of the house to tell him to lay off. He would typically run away and when I had gone, return and start up again.

As the months passed, I noticed Hannah laughing with Otiero more and as he gave me required space, I began the inevitable process of softening up. He began regularly getting books from Renita and hanging out on our porch, reading them. I knew it was just a matter of time before I would begin letting him in my heart a bit.

Just a matter of time.

Last Saturday at around 5:00pm, Otiero’s sister Patience gave him an errand. She needed to return an article of clothing to a friend who lived near the beach and she wanted him to take it to her. Otiero and the friend did not know each other, and likely passed one another on the road. Otiero apparently used the missed opportunity to do some swimming at the local rain-fed lagoon.

At 9:30pm, the Reeds received a knock on our gate from one of the neighborhood boys. Otiero had not returned. This was serious, because after dark in Liberia means everybody is at home. More ominous was the news that his clothes and the clothes he was taking to Patience’s friend, had been found at the edge of the lagoon. I felt sick, because this almost certainly meant something terrible had happened.

I immediately headed to the Oceanside lagoon with our flashlights and about twenty five family friends and neighbors. We debated for a bit about what to do, but when Renita arrived, we both knew we had to at least try to find him. If it had been one of ours, no one could have kept us out of the lagoon. Most of our neighbors are afraid of dark, moonlit water, so only two joined us. The four of us waded through the chest high waters, feeling for signs of a body with our feet, but we knew we did not have enough people, so after twenty minutes, we called a halt to the search.

At sunup Sunday morning, Otiero's father Othello found the body of his son, which had returned to the surface after resting on the sandy bottom all night. On Monday we buried him in a cemetery that lies between his home and the place he died. Children are buried quickly in Liberia.

I have been thinking about Otiero and his last moments. The lagoon varies in depth because of the rains, but usually returns to wading depth quickly. Otiero was an active boy who loved the lagoon. He could not have known that what was a few feet deep last week was now well over his head due to recent rains. The water gets deep quickly; eight feet out is waist deep, but twelve feet out it is five feet deep. In my mind’s eye I see him, a naked little boy rushing out with expectation, finding the water warm but refreshing, happy to be away from older kids telling him what to do. But just ten steps out, an alarm sounds in his head. The water has never been so high before at this spot. He reacts instinctively to stop, but his forward momentum has already taken him over his head. And he is all alone. I imagine his surprise evolving in an instant to shock, then panic, then terror. I imagine after a few frantic seconds coughing and trying to shout at the surface, he disappears. The water settles down immediately and becomes smooth. A bird calls from the bushes. A passer-by notices some sort of clothe and flip-flops on the sand and nothing registers. He enjoys the ocean breeze and moves on.

Later on Sunday, Renita and I were asked to be a part of a "community coroner's panel," a custom that asks a community jury to examine the body and give its observations about the condition of the deceased. It was a sad task. There was no mischievous smile, no hopeful glance. Just the naked body of a little boy. Already gone. I am having difficulty getting around it.

It is interesting to watch his family go through the grieving process - life seems to go on so quickly again, probably because it has to. Maybe it is because tragedy is more a part of normal life here. Drowning happens a lot. There were two in our area last weekend. The children who lived and slept with Otiero seem to have moved on. By the next day they were laughing and playing like normal. A week later, nobody says his name. Already gone.

As a Christian I do not grieve for Otiero as those who have no hope. Deacon Reeves probably greeted his grandson upon his arrival and then introduced him to Jesus. The soul that we named Otiero is fine. But he is gone from this place, and already passing from thought, soon to pass from memory, except for a handful. I think about how long it was taking for me to let him in, and that he never quite got there. I wonder who the next one will be, and will I have let him in by then?

A Lil' Visit from Some Homeys

So the Tigers lost. Enough said about that.

We had the opportunity assist in hosting a group from the Pebbles and Stones ministry, which includes three friends from Madison Square Church—our home base. Mary Springer, Cheri and son Jeffery Niemeier, along with P&S founder Kathleen Trock, came to do some children’s ministry workshops for Providence Baptist Church. While here they visited our neighborhood and local schools and orphanages. Later in the week, we all went up north past Kakata (about and hour and a half on decent roads, then off road a bit) to see one of LEAD’s businesses, a new plantain/banana plantation. Zhaye and Emmanuel Garpue were our Liberian hosts. Emmanuel runs a church in Kakata and a taxi business in Monrovia, while Zhaye teaches in Monrovia. They hope the Kakata business will provide them with enough income to focus on one sustaining activity.

Here are a few images from the West African bush.

This part of visit begins just north of Kakata, with Emmanuel showing Renita, Jeffery, Cheri, Katleen and Mary the church. Zhaye is on the right.

Always, there are spectators.

After the church visit, on their way to the plantation, Cheri Niemeier, Kathleen Trock and Renita Reed.

Off road now, driving through the bush. Whenever possible, let somebody else lead on these trails. This is the Providence Baptist Church car. Note the clouds ahead. We met up with those rains just as we arrived at the plantain/banana field.

The jeeps can go no further, so we hoof it for the last few hundred yards. Jeffery leads his mom and the rest through the undergrowth.

Arriving at the banana field, Jeffery finds a lovely grasshopper he must share with the ladies.

Zhaye and Emmanuel amid their field of dreams.

Looking a bit more damp, Renita and Yers Trooly make it back to the vehicles and head back home.

1968

The rainy season is finishing, as the Liberians say, and life here is going well. The "Foster Town Community Development Association" is hammering out its fifteen page constitution and offering workshops (last week's was on HIV-AIDS and was attended by over a hundred), Renita is providing support there while she teaches a LEAD class and home schools, and I am still teaching at MPCHS and offering input to the Ministry of Health through its Mental Health Task Force. But I'm a bit homesick...

Back in the US, the Detriot Tigers are having a World Series rematch with the St. Louis Cardinals (1968-- a classic series), and I am missing every pitch. I get on the internet twice a week, so all I get is the results of the games. More than simply frustrating me, missing this series is taking me back to that other series so long ago. Kaline, Lolich, McLain, Cash, Horton, Freehan, against the Cards' Wilson, Gibson and Brock--what a series that was. The Tigers came back from 3-1 games behind to win it. What a season it was. And then I find myself going back beyond the '68 series. I find myself reliving 1968. What a year that was.

Remember? Of course you do, if you are old enough. With the sexual revolution in our faces, "Laugh-In" on our new color TV, and the Beatles in our heads, we watched as Martin Luther King was murdered, our inner cities erupted in racial violence, Walter Cronkite reported weekly death tolls from the Vietnam War, Bobby Kennedy was murdered, antiwar students shut down campuses, Chigago police beat protestors at the Democratic convention ("The whole world is watching" they cried amid the clubbing), the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, Richard Nixon was elected president, Apollo 8 orbited the moon, and the Tigers won the Series. I was a lad of 13-14, and I knew the grown ups had their hands full.

I will never forget those times, or that year. It lives and breathes in me today. The events occurred exactly at the time I was trying to make sense out of life, out of the world, out of myself. Those times informed me, shaped me.

Of course, subsequent events continued to shape me, and shape me still. I spent the next few years searching for the meaning of it all. Much later-- seven years later-- I met the Holy Spirit and believed the Good News of Christ. I finished grad school. I got married, had kids. Liberia. But the sixties, and particularly 1968, remain prominent in my soul. It must be part of His Plan for me to be formed out of the sixties without knowing Him, and then waiting until later to introduce Himself to me. I don't know the why of it, but for some reason I cannot explain, I'm glad He did it that way.

Anyway, I miss those crazy times.

And I hope the Tigers beat the Cards. As of today-- Friday the 27th-- they are 3-1 games behind. Deja Vu, anyone?

Oh, here are a few pictures.

Morning has broken on the Reed's front yard. We know you've seen it, but this view from our porch has come to mean a lot to us.

In that yard, water wars are common. Eastman, Enoch and Trokon with squirt bottles, Noah with a Supersoaker.

I try not to see this as a metaphor for Americans in the developing world. But Eastman never stood a chance.

Truce time. Reading in the yard with Enoch, Trokon and Jackson.

We visted our neighbors the other day and Hannah had to connect with their monkey. Hannah is on the right.

In the Reed house-- the new community development group for our neighborhood meets. Very exciting, and quite different from community development in the US. We are learning much.

On to Monrovia and Mother Patern College. Yers Trooly teaching 13 social work students in the senior class. Yers tells me he is getting quite fond of these folks-- he also taught them in the spring.

A Penny for Her Thoughts x 2

Renita Reed here. Bob keeps asking me to put my “two cents worth” into this publication, so here they are.



First Penny: Looking for Home
As many of you know, we sold our Grand Rapids home and the majority of our possessions when moving to Liberia.

After being here for fifteen months, and knowing that our ‘term’ is to be three-five years, it is inevitable that we begin to think about, “where next?” What will God have in store for us two years down the road? If we sense a call to stay here for five years, the question will be put off for another two years. But if not, how do we proceed? Bob and I occasionally will have conversations about this over our morning coffee on the porch. And we have come to the realization that no matter where we will end up, we may not have a place on this earth that will feel like home.

That anticipation of homelessness may surprise some, because after all, we have been here long enough to get adjusted, and we both come from deep roots in north central North America. Yet we cannot see being comfortable living in the US or Canada, nations of such great wealth when so many other live in staggering destitution. And we can’t seem to feel at home here, in a nation not our own, especially one with great needs that press in on every side. So, for right now, it is truly difficult to imagine a place on this earth that would feel like home.

We recall the Bible text that tells us this world is not our home, so maybe we are not supposed to feel at home anymore – our home is in the world to come.

Of course, we have no idea where God will lead us and what it will look like or feel like when we get there. We are open to His leading and in the meantime, trying not to think about it too much.


Another Penny, another Thought: The Bad News and the Good News
Those of you who know me know I’m a fairly driven person. I tend to have two predominant, repeating thoughts: “what do I need to do next” and “I’m not doing enough.” A major shift in this thinking happened in 1995, when I realized that I could never do enough to please God – I finally realized it was a free gift and the only thing that could reconcile me to Him was through the death and resurrection of His Son. So I stopped trying to earn my salvation and instead tried simply serving the Lord out of gratitude and love-- but still with the same two driving thoughts.

Now, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will always be in the company of the “What next?” question. But I really thought that coming to Liberia would take care of the “I’m not doing enough” mantra. Surely I would be doing enough if I immersed myself in the deep poverty and suffering of my Liberian neighbors. The bad news is that I discovered that in a world of overwhelming need, the feeling of not doing enough is actually multiplied. Imagine seeing teenage boys pleading with you to help them go to school, and having to tell them no because there’s just not enough money to help everyone. “Should we have given more?” Imagine saying no to mothers coming to you asking for help because they have no food, no bed, and poor shelter for their children. “Should we buy another mattress?” Imagine watching your next door neighbor and dear friend die from an illness treatable in the West. “Should we have tried harder to get him the help he needed?” I see more clearly that I can never do enough, and I feel it.

But that brings me to the good news. I have come to believe that it truly doesn’t matter where you live; there is kingdom work to be done. No matter where you go, you will find that there is more need than you are able to meet. People in need will be disappointed in you regardless of how selfless you may live your life, because it is not enough. That may not sound like good news, but it is. God is in charge here. He, for whatever reasons, allows the inequity, and the need, and the suffering. He allows me to know I cannot ever, ever do enough. That truth keeps me humble and keeps me going back to Him, reminding myself that He is in control – these are his children, and asking him to let me participate in His work as best I can, and then to rest in that.

I’m not too good at the resting part yet, but if I keep looking to him in the midst of “never enough,” I find myself able to join Him in a “spiritual breather” every now and then.

I’ll take that breather. It is better than the alternatives.  

Church Roof Goes Up, Pastor’s House Goes Down

Renita's mom Marrie Kranenburg has been busy. After she and Renita's dad visited us in April, she decided that she wanted to support one of our neighborhood churches in a tangible way. The church pastored by Augustine Zar and Sam Befolon is the church the Reeds attend most often. It is a woven reed mat structure on the sand, and since we've been here, it had only leaky mats and tarps for a roof. The tarps were vulnerable to theft, and were stolen once. When she returned to Georgetown, Ontario, Marrie mobilized. She got her church and friends involved, and raised enough money-- about 750.00 US dollars, to put corrugated zinc on the roof. The church rejoiced that now its sevices can be held in this very rainy season drip-free. A big thank you to Marrie and the good neighbors of Georgetown.

Then last week, Pastor Befolon's joy was tested. In about fifteen minutes Wednesday morning, his house was gone. He was trying to build a cement structure, but it was still mostly reed mats covered by zinc. A guest left a candle burning and the resulting loss was total. His baby was inside, but he and the baby's mother were out. A nine year old neighbor girl went in a rescued the infant-- literally seconds from certain death. When he arrived on the scene, Pastor Befolon praised God. Of course, there is no insurance for the Befolons, and the church could not afford to pay him a salary. They were poor before, they are destitute now.

But they are not devastated. It is almost surreal to a Western guy like me, but Liberians seem to be so adjusted to catastrophe that they immediately pick up and start over with an almost casual matter-of-fact determination. The Befolons are sad of course, and they are suffering. But in a country where suffering and loss are part of the culture, they have learned how to continue.

Yet still, I find myself wondering for Sam Befolon, and seventeen year old Trokon Garway who I mentioned earlier, and so many others in Liberia: "When will the grieving end? When will the 'days of the storm' be over?"