At Liberia Mission, Inc., one awakes to a different type of alarm – the rooster’s perpetual crow, children’s feet shuffling as they finish morning chores, clapping and singing as they gather for morning prayer, a slow and steady “Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Aaaaa-men” before blessing their breakfast.
One morning, dawn greeted me with a different voice. Mowholo, our driver, did not know I listening as he hummed a familiar tune. Sitting on the porch of the staff house, God’s music rang through my ears. “Amaaaze – ee-ing Graaace….” the voice started low and rich.
A light rain patted the zinc roofs of the houses that enclose our square where the water well sits next to the only tree in the center of the small compound. The school kids’ distant voices trailed off into the background as they made their way to class.
“How sweet thuh-uh sound…”
God’s music is sweet…if we take the time to listen. His life, His nature is all around us. It is a gift…the one gift that has not been taken from the Liberia Mission kids. And for this, I think they will always know where true peace abides. Nature is their nurture.
“tha – at saved a-a wretch….like meeee…” Random staccatos of pots and buckets clank from the kitchen as women clean the breakfast dishes and prepare for lunch.
At Sunday’s mass, a Liberian woman sat in the back row breastfeeding her child – showing no shame. And surprisingly, neither did I. If back in the US, I probably would have gasped. But, here, it actually made me smile. There is a time and place for everything, but this time and place showed me the beauty in the miracle of life as God’s word was blanketed over the congregation.
That afternoon, at the older girls’ weekly meeting, the teenage ladies viewed a slide show of a baby developing inside the womb. They were amazed to see – some of them for the first time – images of life’s earliest stages.
“We’ve no – o less days to si – ing God’s praaaaise, than when we-ee first be-eegun. Hmmm, hmmm…”
Mowholo’s voice trailed away, leaving birds and crickets chirping among the last raindrops.
