LIBERIA (WMC) Last August Deb Moore, chair of missions at Reed City United Methodist Church, received two exciting invitations. The first came from Brethren missionaries Debra and Jeremiah Moore . They asked Deb to come to Kenya to help with the birthing of Baby #8. The second invitation was from Camphor Mission near Buchanan, Liberia, a United Methodist project providing education, healthcare and agricultural training. There Deb would serve as a sister midwife, improving maternal-infant health through nutrition, prenatal care and childbirth training.

Deb’s experience as a TBA (traditional birth assistant) started in January in Kapenguria. Here are some first-hand accounts from that month in Kenya…

• On Saturday the children all participated in the weekly washing, the boys doing most of the “dashing” (plunging up and down with a plunger) and the girls more patient with the wringer and the rinsing. 
• Went to church in Ortum yesterday. The praise music was mostly in Pokot, with clapping, repetition, and enthusiasm! (At the compound there are several Swahili songbooks. I can “read” the words and sing what’s printed but there are no printed Pokot songbooks.) The music in Ortum was a Bible reading from Exodus. Jeremiah preached from 1 Peter 4 about how to live while we wait for Jesus.
• On Monday I went shopping in Makutano. We walked about ½ a mile to town. The shopping list included avocados, bananas, mung beans and 2 x 2 sterile dressings. (Local children know that “Grandmother” wants to see their bloody knees and put green salve on them!) Fruits are cheap and they do have mung beans but they think it’s funny that I sprout them and eat them raw. (Another opportunity for nutrition education.)
• I prefer not to eat meat so when I was offered goat stomach, I was polite. I have spent the last week enjoying the ironing, reducing the mending pile, washing dishes, and teaching CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) Bible stories. God is so good!
• Baby Jotham Courage Johnson arrived early Jan. 15, his mother’s birthday! What a lovely present!
• I am learning about malaria fast; so many people suffer from fever, chills, and anemia…People here live on cornmeal flour cooked fry (ugali), whatever meat (nyama) they can get, greens from the garden, and fruit only when they’re waiting for the “real” food to cook…Children wash the dishes in large metal bowls outside. This morning I saw the tom turkey IN the wash dish! I’m very thankful I know the value of soap and hot water!
• Yesterday we went to church at the new Kpsaina Brethren Church. Nadine and I walked three miles before Jere and Debra picked us up, then in an already full van we crammed another 8-10 people at the next stop along the way. The service was about 2 ½ hours, with music, a short sermon, singing, a longer sermon with the children out for Sunday School in the shade of the little tree, then more singing and clapping.

On Feb. 1 Deb flew from Nairobi to Monrovia, Liberia. She will be at Camphor Mission through May.  More excerpts from Deb’s first days in the country…

• Here everybody speaks English and 17 major languages, with many more ethnic tribal dialects. Many things look very similar to Kenya with some big differences. I see a lot of coconut and banana trees but not the amount of sheep, goats, cows and donkeys running loose on the roads…The exchange rate is 70 liberian dollars for 1 U.S. and I’m having trouble with paying 150 dollars for a pineapple until I convert ($2 US). 
• Today I visited the school in the West Point Ghetto…The Illinois Great Rivers Conference gave $25,000 to build the school and the church and community did the labor. Everything had to be carried on people’s heads because the space between houses is narrow. Now there is a 3-story building and a well that will be dedicated on March 3. President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson (herself a United Methodist) is expected to attend the dedication. They will ask her for a generator that will make night school available for adults…To rent a car and driver is $125 a day, the same price as a year of school scholarship for West Point school for beach children. 
• We are at the Liberia Annual Conference. Many people, pastors, bishops from everywhere (including Norway), a delegation from West Texas,  and a retired bishop from Liberia. You don’t appreciate hot running water until you until you’ve washed in water dipped out of a garbage can and carried in a bucket and sluiced over your body. Keep praying for all of God’s children.

Deb Moore is serving as an Individual Volunteer in Mission, an opportunity available through the General Board of Global Ministries. Her Advance Special Number is 982465; your gifts, payable to the Conference Treasurer, will go into an account in New York that Deb can draw upon in Liberia. If you want to receive Deb’s blog entries by email, contact her at [email protected]. For prayers and all support, Deb says, “Mungu Akubariki” (“God bless you!”)

Last Updated on February 2, 2024