Wednesday, February 18th

Isaiah 43:2-4 "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you...For I am the Lord your God...You are precious in my sight...and I love you!" I woke up today and was sick tomy stomach. I longed for something cold and CLEAN to drink. The water at the ELWA house is not safe to drink so we are to bring bottled water from the church to the house each night for that evening and in the morning and I forgot. So I'm so thirsty!!! I guess we take water for granted. I can't imagine waking up every morning craving water. We got to the church and turned around to leave and go see the babes!!! I was nervous and we drove around Monrovia what seemed like FOREVER before we went. We had to stop at the hardware store for some metal for the building, at the pharmacy for some drugs, meet the newpaper reporter for a copy of the article we were in, and then off to find the AFAA house. Mommy with Onah for the first time...I miss you chunk!!! Daddy getting stuck around his little girl's finger for the first time :) Mommy still feels you in her arms sweet pea! We walked into the AFAA house which was nicer than where we are staying!!! WE walked in and saw all the children eating and said hellow. We walked back to the babes room and I walked in and grabbed Onah and he cried and cried and cried!! (he was afraid of us, white scarry people!) Matt held Marie. She cried for a little bit and settled down alot quicker than Onah...that is until we switched babes and then she cried a little more :) Onah continued to cry every time he saw a Liberian. They we SO PRECIOUS!!! I remember just kissing and kissing them. I gave them their girraffe and lion. Marie chewing on Colten's picture in her picture book. Marie chewed on hers, Onah was too busy crying to notice. They both loved the picture books we sent them. They chewed on them alot. At one point I held both babies. It was so precious to see Onah reach out and touch Marie. She fell asleep as he held her hand!!! :) Onah holding Marie's hand while she sleeps :) I TREASURE that time with them :) I held back the tears when we left but as soon as we were in the car driving away I cried all the way back to the church. It was hard leaving them. Onah has a herniated belly button which I know isn't really a big deal there, but to me I just want to get him home and healthy. Mercy cried when we left. I know she really wanted to go home. I PRAY God can make a way fro these children to come home. They SO LONG FOR HOME! BAck at the church we had VBS with about 400 kids! It is hard because you don't think they listen or understand. As I led worship they kept coming closer and closer to me and eventually I was pinned against the backdrop :) At the end of VBS Matt passed out bubbles at the gate and there was a RIOT amongst the kids. Denise literally broke up a fight! After dinner we headed back home. On the way we joked with David, our driver, about me driving. At one point we stopped for gas and he was actually going to let me! I told him I was kidding, I'd kill us all in Liberian traffic! I'm glad I didn't because we came to a traffic jam that was so much CHAOS! There were 7 lanes of traffic going the same direction on a 4 lane road. We were over in the 7th lane. The UN stepped in and started directing traffic and after about 45 minutes of sitting still we finally began moving. One lane all the way on the other side of the road started moving. Somehow, I still dont' know how, we ended up crossing 6 lanes of non moving traffic over to that one lane and moved beyond the jam, which we found on the other side was 7 lanes of traffic coming the other way!!! We literally had a 'stand-off' of cars. This is how Liberia works with traffic. When you have no lights or stop signs or any organization what so ever with traffic this happens.