Journal of Our Trip to Liberia

David has had all the fun with the blog since we've been home learning how to post some of our trip pictures, but now it's my turn to do the talking, or in this case the writing. We've wanted so much to share with you our experiences in Liberia but just haven't had the time as our beautiful girls, Maria and Suzanna need all our time and attention. As I have some time now because David is working a security job tonight and the kids are all in bed, I thought I would tell you about our trip. We know you are anxious to hear how things are going now that the girls are at home and we are just as anxious to tell you. However, we want to start with the trip because it is vital in understanding what we will share with you about the girls and also we want to tell you about it while it is still so fresh in our minds and hearts. This will be a long post because I plan to try to tell about our whole trip so you might want to read it in parts when you have the time.

Because I know it would be cruel not to mention anything about the girls, I will let you know that they are fitting into our family wonderfully although not without some issues as is to be expected. They are eating and sleeping great. They have beautiful smiles and laughs most of the time. The girls continue to be very loving and affectionate with David and I. The interaction between all the kids gets better with each passing day. We are dealing with some health issues with both girls. The worst right now and in need of your prayers is that we found out Thursday afternoon that Suzanna has malaria. She has been sick all week with high fevers, shivering, and headaches either in the afternoon or evening. We will start her on a medication that should eradicate it tomorrow morning. The medicine could make her feel nauseous and possible cause vomiting, headaches, etc. Please pray that she will experience little to no side effects so that she can enjoy her first Christmas with her new family. We promise lots more on the girls and what it's been like with them home soon after Christmas when I will have time to post again. Thank you for your patience.

One last note: You have probably noticed that I'm spelling Suzanna's name different. This is because this spelling is how we were told she spelled it and so we had it this way in our dossier. The way it is spelled in the dossier is how they wrote it on her new birth certificate, court decree, visa, and passport. We have to spell it the way it is on those documents for insurance, social security, etc. purposes. We will decide later if we want to change it back to the way it is spelled on her original birth certificate. Sorry about the confusion!

Sunday, December 2 After leaving Houston Saturday, December 1 at 8:15 am we finally arrived in Monrovia, Liberia on Sunday, December 2 at 7:40 pm via Dallas, New York, Brussels, and Dakar. Liberia is six hours ahead of CST. We never got off the plane in Dakar, just sat on the ground for an hour to unload and load new passengers. As we took off from Dakar we knew we were in for the trip of our lives when the airline attendants walked up and down the aisles spraying insect repellent and making the announcement not to worry because it wasn't toxic to humans! It was dark and raining in Monrovia when we landed and even more humid than Houston if that is even imaginable! We deplaned on the tarmac and walked to the very small, old, and run down terminal building. When we got to the entrance a man was standing there holding a sign with my name on it. We found out the next morning that PLAN didn't tell ACFI that David was coming too. Just another miscommunication in a very long line of them! Anyway, it felt great to be greeted. The gentleman worked for immigration and was asked by Lillian, who works for ACFI and met us at the airport to take us to our hotel, to help us. He showed us what to do and helped us with our luggage. He then took us out of the terminal where we met Lillian and our driver. So many young men were there just begging us to let them help us with our bags but we were told NOT to do that and both Lillian and our driver were very stern with these young men. We got in a very old and small foreign car and headed out of the airport. We had only gone a few yards when the driver pulled over and got out of the car to pull up his headlights! As he got back in the car he introduced himself like this, "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Young, I am Isaac. That is Isaac, son of Abraham and father of Jacob!" As we drove in the rain and stifling humidity along the very dark roads (remember there is no electricity in Liberia accept for those who can afford generators) he would honk his horn almost continuously as would the other drivers on the road. We were told that Liberians do not use their horns in anger as most Americans do; they use them just to let others know they are there. Isaac definitely knew what he was doing, passing lots of slower cars, swerving to hit all the holes in the road that he had memorized. God blessed us with Isaac because we felt safe and comfortable immediately! We noticed lots and lots of people both young and old walking along this road from the airport into town. The airport is about an hour from town.

I know this post is going to be exceptionally long so I need to stay on track as much as possible, but I do have to stray just a little for a minute just to show you how small our world really is even when you are traveling half-way around the world! We had deplaned in Brussels and were looking for a bathroom when two women we recognized from the plane came up to us and asked us where we were going. When we told them Liberia they said they were, also. One of the ladies was going to pick up her two adopted daughters from the Acres of Hope orphanage. The other lady was a friend helping her. We told her we were doing the same and then I asked her where they were from. They were from Albuquerque, NM where I was born and raised!!!

Monday, December 3 Seide and a new driver pick us up at the hotel at 10:00am. Seide works for ACFI and is the lady who had our power of attorney to do the adoption for us on the Liberian side. She informs us that we will first go to ACFI and then we will be taken to the orphanage where we can meet the girls. We tell her that PLAN had told us we could take the girls with us for the week. She says no that we cannot have them until after the girls receive their Visas on Thursday. Our driver is John Arkoi (the "r" is not pronounced). Besides getting our daughters, Maria and Suzanna, John is the best part of our trip. I will share more about him as we go, but for now I will tell you that God undoubtedly put him into our lives that week. We were truly blessed by a God-loving man with a huge heart. We will never forget John and miss him terribly already.

John drove us all week long in a small yellow 80's Nissan. The back seat was torn and we could feel the springs under us and again no air-conditioning. John had one handle for the four windows. When it would rain he would grab it off his dashboard and roll his window up enough to keep most of the rain out but not completely so we could breathe, then pass it back to David so he could roll up his and mine. John would then have to pull over, get out of the car, open Seide's door and pull her window up with his hands and then took a stick, which he also kept on his dashboard, and wedged it between the window and the rubber to keep the window up! As we drove all over Monrovia that week we noticed most of the taxis looked pretty much the same!

As we drove the few miles to the ACFI office the first thing we notice is the large numbers of people, including children, walking up and down the streets. The roads are busy with mostly taxis all honking and swerving to keep out of all the huge craters in the roads caused by mortar shots and landings during the war. Some holes could not be missed and we felt every single one in that tiny old backseat! We cannot do justice in our descriptions of Liberia; it truly is something you have to see to believe. Most buildings are burned out and are full of bullet holes, yet people are living in these. It is dirty with trash piled high in lots of places randomly along the roads. Everywhere you look there are lots of people, again including children, selling everything under the sun. We saw people selling items such as Q-tips, washcloths, gum, bagged water and milk, shrimp and crawdads in a hot sauce, all to earn enough money to buy their one meal for the day. Women and girls walked along carrying huge water coolers, bread, lemons, and much more all on their heads! Some of these women were also carrying babies and small children on their backs in lapas. We even saw a couple of men walking around carrying a small artificial Christmas tree completely decorated on their shoulders! What a sight! It was loud in the city with all the honking and people yelling to sell their goods. Sadly, we saw way too many young men walking on crutches with one leg gone or an arm gone. These men had their limbs brutally amputated by the rebel forces during the civil war.

We arrived at the temporary ACFI building behind small dwellings right on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean. As we drove up people people were cooking outside and children were running around and playing. The building was long and rectangle in shape built with only thin sheets of plywood. Each office had a small square hole cut out for a window to let in both the only light source and the only air! Seide took us to her office first and told us to have a seat. A few minutes later she came back for us and took us down a thin hall to another office where we were introduced to a Reverend Kaye. Without looking at us he told us to take a seat. Seide sat on a bench behind us. We sat there for a few minutes while he looked through some paperwork. Finally he began to talk to us or should I say reprimand us for writing our letter to the President of Liberia in August. Both David and I sat perfectly still and quiet as he told us how shocked, embarrassed, and upset they were about the letter and the fact that the President sent her sister to ACFI to investigate. He explained that our case took so long because they had so much trouble finding both of the girls' families. This was the first time we ever heard this explanation! I won't go into all he said because it's just not important enough. We will end this by saying just this--we both felt like kids in trouble with the principal and the darkness we felt had nothing to do with the fact that there was no electricity. Another important note--all of the paperwork we received concerning the adoption is dated in September--after the President received our letter!

I didn't say a word the entire time! I know it's hard to believe, but I knew I could say nothing that would make a difference, and that I couldn't take any chances on getting our girls out of there. David was absolutely wonderful! He explained that we wrote the letter out of desperation for Maria and Suzanna who had been our daughters since we chose them from their pictures way back in August of 2006. He explained how much we loved them and that we had to do everything in our power to protect them and get them home. Reverend Kaye shook our hands and accepted our apology.

John then drove us with Seide to the orphanage which is about an hour drive into the bush of Liberia. We crossed the only working bridge in Liberia, the other one is broken into a "V" in the river it crosses. As we left the city, we also left the paved roads. We just thought those were the bad roads! These roads had huge craters and were full of water from the rains. We also left behind buildings and began to see little villages with huts made of mat walls. We still saw so many people walking up and down the roads selling their wares. Also, people had little tables, some with mat coverings, set up on the side of the road and in front of their houses selling all kinds of items. Again, the sights, sounds, and smells were amazing. We saw laundry hanging on trees and walls and lying on the roofs of these small houses. We saw women and children sweeping their dirt floors with homemade brooms. People were cooking outside. Children and babies were playing in dirty water and unimaginable filth. Anywhere there was a large amount of water, even a puddle, you would see young men filling buckets with the water and using it to wash taxis and motorcycles. The women were washing their clothes with water in a bucket and a washboard or down at a river or creek where you could also find lots of naked children swimming. As we drove we saw lots of groups of children in different school uniforms. These children mostly go to private schools. All schools end at about 1:00 p.m. so they don't have to feed the children.

At long last we arrived at the orphanage! The buildings are made of cinder blocks all painted a bright turquoise. We came to a building with a porch on it. Here we met, "Mama Brown," who is the head of the orphanage. She was a large friendly woman who hugged us both. Children started gathering around us as we stood on the porch looking out on the large dirt yard with the dorms surrounding it. We had just been there a few minutes when we noticed off in the distance a woman walking towards us holding hands with a little girl with a huge smile who we knew instantly was Suzanna. The minute she saw us recognize her she ran up to greet us with a hug that nearly pushed me over! We were hugging and kissing Suzanna when out of the corner of my eye I caught the sight of another little girl brush past me and then began hugging on David's leg. It was Maria!!! Words cannot describe what I felt those first few minutes or even hours of meeting our daughters for the first time. It was absolutely joyous!!! My heart was so full! It was just as special as the births of Riley, Luke, and Aubrey! They both just loved all over us. They hugged us, touched us, played with my hair, put their hands up to mine!!! Oh my gosh it was amazing!!!

After a while each girl took me to their dorms and showed me their rooms. As we were walking I noticed lots of foam mattresses lying on the dirt yard smelling like urine. The dorms were dark and bare. Most of the rooms had one set of bunks and one twin bed or two sets of bunks. There were no sheets or pillows on the foam mattresses in most of the rooms. Each girl showed me where they slept and introduced me to their friends. In one of the dorms I noticed the children were being fed a bowl of rice with a few beans on top. We then walked back to the main building and sat on the porch steps and took some pictures and just hugged on each other!

David and I brought a suitcase full of balloons and suckers for the kids so Mama Brown came down to us and gave us two bags of suckers for both Maria's and Suzanna's dorms. We then walked back to the dorms and proceeded to hand out the suckers to the girls. So many hands just desperately reaching out for one small sucker! Most said thank you. Then a few girls came out with paper and pencils and started asking David and I to write our names and addresses down for them so they could write us. We did this for quite a few girls. While I was signing one I felt a girl pulling at my arm and calling me Mom. She asked me to come in because she had to whisper a secret to me. Suzanna and I followed her in and she began to tell me that her mother had been killed in the civil war and that something happened to her dad which I couldn't understand. She then begged my to find her a family. I asked her to write her name for me and promised I would do my best. As Suzanna and I were leaving the dorm she ran to me and grabbed my arm and said, "Mom, please don't forget me! Please don't forget me!" I will never forget that moment or that girl. All I could find out about her from Seide is that she is 11 years old. If any of you reading this or if you know someone who might be interested in becoming Comfort's family please let us know!!! Please pray for Comfort and the thousands of other orphans still in Liberia.

We met Suzanna's grandmother who works at the orphanage and both of the girls' dorm matrons. We were back on the porch with the girls when Seide announced that we could take the girls back to hotel with us to spend the night since our meeting the next morning at the Embassy was so early and we wouldn't have time to drive out to get the girls. She made it very clear that we would have to bring the girls back Tuesday afternoon and wouldn't be able to come back for them until after we had their Visas on Thursday. The girls were very excited about going with us and Suzanna pulled me back to her dorm to one of the bedrooms where there were several small trash bags hanging on the end of one of the beds. They were full of clothes and she reached in to grab some. I explained to her that we brought clothes for them so she didn't need any. Everything about that place just broke my heart.

While driving back to the hotel the girls just continued to touch us and examine us. They also were very interested in all the sights on the way. Seide told us that except for their medicals for their Visas they had not been away from the orphanage. Since Suzanna had lived there since right before she turned three she was especially interested. She eventually sat on David's lap to see better and Maria laid her head in my lap. All I could think of was how much I loved these precious girls and I just kept thanking God over and over for getting them to us at last!

When we arrived at the hotel the girls were full of smiles and giggles. They jumped on the bed almost immediately. I then took both girls and had them shower. They did this very fast as they were just used to someone pouring a bucket of water over their head as they washed themselves. They were thrilled with their new clothes! The sandals were too small for their feet! Suzanna is the largest of the two, but the youngest. We were surprised at how small Maria was because in all the pictures she looked bigger than Suzanna. They quickly put on the sweatshirts we brought them for they were way too cold in a room with air-conditioning! We then took them to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We ate pizza!!! We then went back to the room where we showed them their backpacks and the coloring books, crayons, stickers, and magnadoodles we brought them. They were so excited about everything. Marie wrote her name on her magnadoodle and at one point heard one of us say the word, little. She immediately popped up on the bed and said, "Little, l-i-t-t-l-e, little!" After changing into their pjs and brushing their teeth we laid in the bed and I read two bedtime stories to them! We tucked them into the twin mattress the hotel provided for us. (The hotel only has rooms with one large bed or with two twin beds. When we explained that we would be needing a bed for our girls they brought us a twin mattress from one of the other rooms! The hotel was so wonderful to us and so accomodating to our every need.) They both fell asleep quickly and slept the entire night. I didn't sleep much at all. I spent most of the night just staring at them and just praising God for His faithfulness! Everytime I would doze off I would hear one of them move or make a noise and I was wide awake starting all over staring at them and praising God! It was one of the most wonderful nights of my life.

Well it is past 1:30 am and I've been typing since 10:00 pm. I write like I talk...way too much!!! I must go to bed now for I am exhausted. I promise I will finish with the trip as soon as possible! There is so much more to share!