Met the Chief

This morning, Nils Wang, Emmanuel Gaye and I went to Camp Four, a small community outside Yekepa, to discuss our www.LovingThroughLiteracy.com library project with the town council and community leaders.  Among the leaders were the town chief, secretary, finance officer and several council members.  There were about 30 people total in attendance at the meeting.  Many more than we had thought would be there.  The 3 of us were placed up front sitting at a table in front of the church where the meeting was held, and all of the town people in the pews.  A bit intimidating to say the least but there were also a number of familar faces as well.  Anthony and Betty Jonah from the orphanage were there, always fun to see them.

The meeting was fairly formal with a call to order, introductions, project overview and questions.
Our concept seemed well received and all spoke encouraging about the project and how it would help the community.  After discussion and feedback, we were nicely dismissed so the council could talk amongst themselves and determine how they were going to address with the community.  We asked if they could come back to us with a decision and a location before I leave next week.

Part of our decision to place a library in Camp Four is based upon the fact the Randy Godfrey school has been using the Read ABC program LTL taught in July 2010 and Emmanuel Gaye has been consistently working with the teachers and students on the program.

Next week, Emmanuel and I will have a similar meeting in New Yekepa as we plan to place a library there as well.

Following the meeting, we went around to each classroom at the Randy Godfrey School and took pictures of the classes and the teachers.  It is always so much fun going to see the children learning.  The kindergartners greeted us with their ABC song

My time here has been some of the busiest I have experienced, unfortunately much of this has been my work back home.  Looking forward to next week being a bit lighter from a work perspective, as most will be taking time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I plan to go to the orphanage on Thanksgiving with Emmanuel Jonah to take photos of each of the children.  This is needed to update the photos included in the sponsor packets.  If you are interested in sponsoring one of these great kids, go to www.liberiachristian.org .

Tomorrow I am speaking in Chapel and Nils and I are putting on a business seminar for th students in the afternoon.  Excited to see how both turn out....will let you know.