away. Ah! Some things are learned the hard way. She would not see those toys for two more weeks, but we thought that in telling her that they had arrived, she would be happy. It was just too much information to be processed by her two-year old mind. Thankfully, the business manager’s children were generous in sharing their toys for the days we remained in Monrovia.
After four days in Liberia, we were beginning to really sense some of the bolder variations between America and Liberia and were thankful for veteran missionaries who cared enough to take the time for us, to remember what their first days in Liberia had been like, and never tired of answering our questions. To the small city, there was an organized chaos, an endless stream of people walking somewhere, small children scantily clothed playing in mud puddles as their mothers bartered their wares on the side of any given road, uncommon smells that both intrigued and perturbed me, the incessant blaring of horns and strange sounding words being spoken all around.
Our first Tuesday in the country, I went with Roxie Dickinson, the business manager’s wife, on a shopping extravaganza to Monrovia’s Waterside district. Waterside was the name given to the endless wooden stalls piled high with everything from plastic containers, dishes, cups, aluminum ware, cloth, food that looked strange to me, and almost anything else you could imagine. It was an open-air department store by the water. Street after street was packed with honking taxis, Liberians on foot doing their daily chores, garbage and human waste intermingled with street dirt and decay and the heat. The humid wave never retreated. However, Roxie walked bravely and confidently ahead, looking for a particular type of cloth she needed to make a dress for one of her daughters.
We had traveled to Waterside by taxi, and that had been my first experience with that mode of transportation in West Africa. I tried to keep my gasps to myself as we were whipped from side to side in the backseat. Never had I seen such driving, hollering, music blaring, and the horns! Every taxi driver prided himself in the fact that he had a horn that worked and proved that constantly! I will be forever grateful to Roxie for introducing me to the shopping side of Liberia early on, but particularly, that I did not experience my first Liberian taxi ride alone.
While in Monrovia, we stayed in a little one bedroom apartment on the second floor of the mission compound. The very first meal that I prepared in that apartment was a three bean soup with Danish ham and a fruit salad with fresh pineapple, bananas, oranges, and tangerines. Meanwhile, Michelle was having her own struggles. While stirring the bean soup, I looked out the window and noticed that she was sitting on a chair looking out in the yard at the other children playing.
There were twelve children from three other missionary families on the compound at that time. I remember feeling so sorry for Michelle knowing that her little brain and body was definitely on overload, and not having a brother or sister or anyone else with whom she was familiar, must have been hard. She had no home, no toys of her own, no friends that she knew, and no place that smelled comforting to her except her daddy and me. So she stuck pretty close for a couple of days and we did our best to give her the attention we felt she needed. It was my first realization that God places children in their given families for a purpose. Despite how sad I felt for her in those days of huge transitions to a new culture, I somehow knew that she would make it. God would see to it even if I did not seem to know how.
During one of those early days in Liberia, I experienced my first really low ebb as a new missionary. Intruding into my fantasy of soon settling down in our new home in Tappeta, some 180 miles from Monrovia, was the news that there was a hole in the screen in our pantry there. All I could think of was all the snakes, bugs, and spiders that were, at that very moment, crawling into our house to give us a warm welcome when we arrived. I can remember having to fight the very strong urge to flee, to beg Jeff to let me go back to America—and he could come back and visit Michelle and me once a year or so. Be like a David Livingstone. As desperate as I might have felt at those times, I was so afraid of voicing those fears to the diehard, veteran missionaries we had met or even to my excited husband. So I pondered those things in my heart.
On the more favorable days, when I could admit an excitement and eagerness to settle down in our new home in Tappeta, I purposely noted that none of the other missionary kids had oozing sores from insect or snake bites from living in the deep, dark African jungle. Even so, there were those moments when it was very hard to fight down the what ifs. Probably one of the most defeating and damaging things that we can allow our minds to do is dwell on the what ifs in life. No matter what my mind was conjuring up, the reality was that in three short days we would load our container of belongings, board a one-engine Cessna, and head into the lush rain forest of Liberia! Ready or not, we were coming, and I went from excited to anxious and back again!
Groceries Enough For Six Weeks?
There was much to do on those last three days before we headed towards our new home in Tappeta. We had to check on our visas, exchange money into Liberian currency, buy appliances, and buy groceries to take with us since Tappi had no grocery stores beyond what an American gas station may offer. The day before we were to leave, Brian, Jeff, Michelle and I went into town for some last minute shopping. As Brian drove up in front of a grocery store that looked more like a very large general store in the States, Jeff smiled as he handed me a pouch ladened with Liberian money (which were coins at the time). He said, “Babe, now you need to buy groceries for us to carry up country. And, oh yeah, because of the conditions of the roads to Tappi and uncertainty of when we might have another flight down, just buy enough for six weeks.”
He and Brian drove off, leaving me with the heavy bag of coins in one hand and a curious, but rather agitated two year old holding my other hand. This is NOT a good combination any time. It was the buy enough for six weeks that kept ringing in my ear as I stood there on the sidewalk feeling the thick breeze of humidity around me. When had I ever bought enough groceries for six weeks? I wracked my brain to remember if I had missed a class in Bible school about a scenario like this. I could not imagine trying to come up with a plan that would include enough meat, cheese, canned products, seasonings, spices, and staples for six weeks. I had a bare-boned list, but now knew that I would be compelled to put some meat on that list in more ways than one!
Michelle began to whimper as we stood on the sidewalk, but after carefully mulling over the situation, I would declare that it was probably me that started the uncouth sniveling and she had just picked it up from me. Bravely picking Michelle up in one arm, I held tightly to the heavy money pouch in the other as we went inside and got a shopping buggy. After Michelle was situated in the buggy, I started hesitantly down the aisles of groceries, walking with a confidence that I was not feeling inside.
Gazing at the unfamiliar packaging of food items, my eyes felt like they wanted to glaze over! But I kept going. After the first buggy was full, I parked it near the front checkout counter under the approving eye of one of the owners, then started down another aisle with a second buggy. By the time the second cart was halfway filled, I was, no doubt, in full-fledge hyperventilation, my heart pounding, I was sweaty and feeling weak. The strange sounds and smells of the store rushed over me and I wasn’t sure that I could walk another step. Michelle had opened a bag of chips and one of the owners had given her a bag juice (much like a Capri Sun). She was good to go, and for that I was thankful.
After a few minutes of mentally giving myself a pep talk, my survival instincts set in and I calmed down, becoming intrigued by the strange smells around me. Most of the grocery stores were owned by Lebanese business men and the smells tickling my senses were the spices, coffee, and other items indigenous to their part of the world. It was a smell that I learned to love and appreciate quickly! No Africans were in the store while I was there; only foreigners like myself. Most of them were friendly and openly admired Michelle’s Celtic beauty, as one Lebanese man described her.
Filling up both buggies, I could not, for the life of me, calculate how much money was represented in those two carts; so I just decided to check out and see if there was any money left! I do not even remember the total that day, but it was a good thing I was only twenty-seven years old with
