It's Raining, It's Pouring

What a dreary day! Yesterday it was 69 degrees here. Today it feels like 34 with the wind chill. Yes, I said wind chill. What's the date? April 12. We should NOT have to be dealing with wind chill in April. I would much rather be dealing with humidity, and I don't even like humidity. After an experience of being lost and thirsty to the point of real concern once while we were backpacking, my sister and I have become good at reminding ourselves that it's all in perspective. We were on our hands and knees drinking water out of a tiny stream only about one half inch deep. We stopped to pray for direction and over the next hill we again found the trail. See.....it was all in perspective. We felt hopelessly lost and yet were so near wheere we needed to be. My dad is in the hospital. It looks like he's going to be alright, but it's been a pretty crappy week, literally. My friend's mom that I mentioned several days ago has learned that she has stage 4 cancer in at least 3 areas of her body. It's all in perspective. Yes, today is a lazy, gloomy day, but the sun will shine again. Until then, I have decided to take the day to take it easy, look at some pictures of rain that's worse than it is here, and days in the last year that have been much nicer than today.

These are push-carts that can be rented in Monrovia. Very few people own vehicles, so when they need to get a large item from A to B, they use one of these. It gets tipped upright, much like a wheel-barrow, the item is strapped to the bars, and off you go, pushing your cart through town.
Our roads have suffered through this long winter. It's nothing compared to what it could be. Here are a couple pictures to keep it all in perspective as far as what bad roads really look like.

This is Jamaica Road. It's one of the main roads in Monrovia. It would be comparable to Anthony or Lima Rd. in Fort Wayne. In one of my earlier blogs I wrote about walking to church on Jamaica Road. This is taken on the way to church.
Just to keep things in perspective, now we're going to reminisce about prettier days. The first full day I went was in Liberia we went to Cece Beach. These are some examples fo different days there. Yes, the life of a missionary is a lot of hard work and difficult experience, but let me be the first to day it's not all bad.

A reminder that there's still a lot of work to be done cleaning up after the war.

If you were lucky enough to be the first ones at the beach, this whole area was swept smooth with palm fronds.
We had some of the most adorable children living on the ship with their families. It was nice having all age ranges represented. The youngest was months old and the oldest was 72. You're never too young or old to serve.
This is Libby. Her name is Liberty, and she was an orphan in Liberia. Her adoptive parents are from the UK. She was definitely my favorite person on the AFM. The first time I met her, she was very annoyed to be forced to be friendly to yet another new person. After I had asked her name a couple times and her mum gave her no choice. She put her hands on her hips, rolled her eyes, and said, "I'm Wibby!" She prompty stomped off. It took another 2 weeks to get her to respond to me again. I LOVED her!

Now, we're going to Miami. I had a free airline ticket to use, so my sister and I went for a long weekend the end of January. The first one is Southbeach. The great thing about going to the beach there is that no matter what you do or wear, you will still not be the oddest person people saw that day.

Just a few reminders of the fact that teh sun is, in fact, just beyond the clouds. Still keeping it in perspective.