West Point covers an area of approximately 115 acres.  My farm, the place where I live is 100 acres.  In a space barely larger than my farm, live (according to UNHCR, and WHO stats) approximately 75,000 people.  Surrounded by water on 3 sides of a point that is about 1.25 km long and, at its widest, is about 1/3 of a km wide.  As I look out my window over the fields of my farm, I am humbled to think through this.  I cannot imagine that many people all crowded onto the property where I live.  It is a population density of over 6 people per square metre. A square metre is not a lot of space…about the footprint of phone booth, maube a little more (for those of you old enough to remember what a phone booth looks like). That gives me a whole new perspective on what I saw. It almost seems impossible…but I was there, it really does happen, it is not just staging for a National Geographic article.  And it is not just in Liberia.

Those of us who complain about overcrowding pretty much anywhere here in the western world…..lets all collectively give our heads a shake, give thanks for the space we have, see what we can do to help the majority of the world, and let’s have the courage to reach out and do it.

Thank you to all who have read my blog on this trip.  Pray for our friends around the world.  Whether in Germany, Liberia, The Gambia, Peru, The US, Canada, Mexico or Thailand – there are people who need hope, and there are people who are dedicated to bringing that hope, even to the darkest places.  Join with them in prayer.  Join them with your resources, be the change….

God willing, my next trip is to Bangladesh in March. After that I lead a youth team to The Gambia in July, and then an adult team back to Liberia in November. Pray for me as I plan and raise the funds needed to serve the people we are sent to.

Peace to you all.

This Christmas – give your presence to someone who needs you.

Daryl

PS – If you are looking for a cool Christmas gift…. I mentioned a young lady in a previous post named Vivian.  I have committed to finding the funds to send her to university.  This will only cost about $800 per year.  If you want to help, please contact me, I will need to send the funds in the next week or so.  My email is <daryl.stogryn@yfccanada.org>  There will be no tax receipt for this – just the knowledge that a young lady in a poor country, who is dedicated to being part of the change, will have the opportunity to do so.  If more comes in than needed for this, it will go to help others in that county who need education.  I will keep you informed of progress.  Thanks

It was a busy day, again.  First, back to the slum at West Point.  Heartbreaking, heart-warming, exhausting…. and I get to leave.

I told the story of David and Goliath, with the children helping me by adding sound effects at the appropriate times.  They loved it.  It was a message to encourage the little church engaged in what seems like a hopeless battle.

Afterwards, I opened things up for questions.  The one question that kept coming was, “Where did David get his strength from, he was the little guy?”   I was very aware that they feel a bond with the little guy.  And I was very aware of my inadequacy to say anything except “You are not alone.”  I believe that with all my heart, and still, it seems pretty empty when you say it in those circumstances.

And still.  When I get ready to leave they want to bless me for coming to their home and spending time with them.  They know that where they live is not a nice place.  So they appreciate the effort, no matter how small.  It reminded me of the smiles on the faces of the street kids in Toronto when I handed them a coffee and asked their name.

Then, of all things, they gave me a new Liberian shirt.  Out of their poverty – it was important to show how much my visit meant.  I am humbled and very, very quiet tonight.

Here is a short video of the walk from the car to the church.  Not much, but it might give you sample.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5fMSIvvevo

I also met with the YFC Board today.  I am as committed as ever to help them move forward in their work – not just in West Point with that little church, but all across their land.

In case I don’t get to formally wrap this up (It is hard to get back to the blog after returning home) I want to thank you for the time you spend reading and praying and supporting in so many ways.  The people here are grateful, and so am I.

Thank you for being a partner.

Peace

Daryl

So today I went to Robertsport.  We were much later leaving then planned (so…, it’s Africa).  We had extra people with us for security and had been told by police to be off the road to Robertsport before dark.  The area leading into Robertsport was a staging area for many rebel factions during the civil war.  Many of the former fighters went back to that area and banditry is not un-usual.  And in the days preceding the election there had been somewhat of an increase. So we take warnings very seriously.

And….as we drove on the road I understood the warning.  Rough hardly describes it.  Deep holes, all sides, speeds in excess of 30km were mostly out of the question, and isolated – very isolated.  But we made it without incident.  Had a lovely tour of an old city….and then, because we were so late leaving, we turned around to get back to the main road before dark.  Time in Robertsport – about 1 hour.  Time spent so far….about 3.5 hours.

We hit the road again….no, we crawled down the road – to hit anything requires more speed then we could muster. Knowing that it would take us about 1.5 hours (with no interruptions) to get to the main road and dark was about 1.5 hours away.  No problem!

We passed very few people on the way back, and as we looked ahead we saw the storm clouds gathering – then the lightening – and then of course….our 1.5 hour window became remarkably shorter as the clouds formed over top of us!  So on go the driving lights.  Every time we passed a group of young men in the dusk without incident, who obviously noticed the white guy with the two Liberians, I would hear Augustine say quietly, “Thank you Lord…”

OK – by now you have figured out (because I am writing this at all) that all is well and we made it home fine.

AND…..when we got to the main road, the interesting part began.  I had just said a short prayer of thanks for getting us safely through the bad road to the main road, and the sky opened up into one of the most torrential and sight robbing thunderstorms I can remember.  We were on a good road….but we could not see it!

So the creeping continued.  We passed through the various check-points feeling sorry for the security personnel who had to step out into the driving torrent to check our papers and crept for the next 2 hours.  But that’s not all.  Driving in Africa at night can be………exciting…….even at the best of times, but tonight, with no visibility, pot holes so deep that even at a creep the water gushed over the hood of the truck, people and motorcycles with no lights emerging from the dark….  I just had to get this on video.

So here I am, trying to hold the camera sort of still (bend your elbow Daryl), listen to Augustine tell hilarious stories and laughing his beautiful laugh (while trying to see the road and find the bridge – don’t get me started on the bridge…), watching the water obliterate the windshield, and all the while,…..wait for it…..

……a rockified version of Handel’s Messiah was playing in the background! No kidding – REALLY!  (…and unto us a child is given….WONDERFUL…..COUNSELLOR……THE EVERLASTING……) you get the picture.

Now tell me that wasn’t planned somehow!

It stopped raining 0 minutes before we got home.

Oh yeah….total time on the road 7hours.  Plus 1 hour in Robertsport.  It was a great day.  I am off to bed.  Back to work with 3 teaching sessions tomorrow.

Love and peace to whoever actually reads this.

Daryl

I was there yesterday.

On the shore of the ocean, is a community of between 50 – 75,000 people living in a geographical area smaller than the town I come from.  It is the place where the outcasts go to live. Young prostitutes sell themselves to eat, disease is rampant, drugs, gangs – West Point has it all.

Part of the mission of YFC Liberia is to assist young churches develop their ministries.  One such church is located in West Point.  I visited there yesterday in the early evening.  In the midst of the squalor and despair, is a small group of people who have committed themselves to be a light to a very dark place.  Most of these people live in rooms, often 7 or 8 to a room, they have nothing….it is some of the worst poverty I have seen. (and I have been around)

CT Studd once wrote, “Some people want to live within the sound of the chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop outside the gates of Hell.”  This little church and YFC, partnering together, are doing just that – I have seen a piece of that rescue shop.

Here are a few pictures from inside the church.  I have none from outside at the moment, it was not safe to have the camera visible at dusk.

The congregation at West Point. They meet in a schoolroom.

The choir at West Point

I also had some time to visit the YFC office in downtown Monrovia.  It is simple but it works.  The space is in the front end of a construction company and is donated space.  The owner of the company has given this space to them for a few years now, and he is now the chair of the board.

Ben and Augustine in the YFC Liberia office.

Today (Thursday) is the day they release the results of the election.  The mood of the people is cautiously optimistic, but the UN is everywhere.  Helicopters on patrol all day, tanks up and down the main streets, blue helmets wherever you turn.  It feels a bit strange to be sure – but there is no sense of panic.  I saw this sort of activity when I was here in 2008, but so much less last year.  The general expectation however is that fighting is not the way to go.  On the radio today is a constant message of peace, reconciliation and moving forward.  Nothing else is being broadcast.

UN Chopper on patrol

UN Vehicles all over

Blue helmets everywhere you turn

Big white traffic control

That’s it for today.  It was another day of speaking and teaching, but the highlight was meeting our friend Vivian from last year.  We hired her last year to help us at the guest house and we all fell in love with her gentle smile and trusting heart.  Today Augustine and I surprised her….we drove to the village where she lives, un-announced, and she had no idea I was in the country.  What a reunion.  Pray for her as she begins university in December.  She wants to be a lawyer and practice law that protects the rights of women.  She will be good at it, she understands the need from a very personal perspective.

Vivian and I

Tomorrow I head out of the city much farther then I have been before.  Augustine wants to introduce me to the other side of Liberia.  We travel to Robertsport.  Robertsport is a town in western Liberia about 10 miles from the Sierra Leone border. It is named after Joseph Roberts, the first president of Liberia. It is located 50 km north of Monrovia.  Pray for safety as we travel and a good time of learning.

Peace all,

Daryl

We drove past the compound where the incident happened early yesterday.  There was a crowd of people, I assume CDC party members, and media, but mostly a very tightly controlled UN corridor.  As I listen to the local news, I am struck by the difference between what we hear here, and how things are reported by the international media.  All of the local stations, tv and radio, talk about the person (1) who was killed in yesterdays incident.  Most of the international media talk about 3 and some 4.  All of the people I talk to here are downplaying the incident.

But the time at the polls was very calm and the voter turnout somewhat slow.

And…in the rest of my day. I had a long meeting with the pastor and his wife from the church I visited yesterday.  It was a great time of learning and encouraging.  After we drove around the city to observe the election process we visited one of the YFC Liberia Board Members in her home.  She is really looking forward to the board training day that I will have with them on Thursday and then Saturday.

This evening I met with about 12 of the volunteer staff of YFC Liberia.  Some of them are very new.  My task was to encourage them and share with them the big picture of YFC around the world.  They are beginning a new ministry year and they are excited!

Tomorrow – meeting with the board chair to plan the board sessions and look at the partnership detail between YFC Liberia and YFC Canada.

Keep praying for peace and calm – that is what we are seeing right now, and the people are hopeful.  But this country has been fragile for years and everyone is very aware of it.

Confident In His Service,

Daryl

Just in case you have been hearing news, I wanted to write as soon as I could get on-line and let everyone know that things are fine here.  The headline on MSNBC just had to read….”Deadly riot breaks out…..”  Well – that’s not quite true.  Here is what happened.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the run-off election here.  Sunday night was the last night of legal campaign activity.  No one today was to wear party colours or take part in anything campaign related.   But….this morning, the CDC, an opposition party who is complaining, mostly about not winning, has been making threatening noises for some time.  A couple of days ago they called for a boycott of the election so that even if the incumbent won, not enough ballots would have been cast for it to be called a legitimate election.  Today – they called a rally on the grounds of the CDC head office which has a football size front lawn.  I drove past it on Sunday night.

There were a couple of problems with this…1 – it was an illegal gathering and should not have been called under Liberia’s election law.  2 – to get a permit for a gathering in the first place requires 48 hours notice to the authorities – but this was a last minute thing, and the authorities would not have granted the permit.   3 – the police, in an effort to keep things calm, offered a concession and said, “If you stay on the property of the CDC we will not move on the rally, but you cannot leave and march in the street.” (not an unreasonable response to a tense situation.)   UN troops and the Liberian army blockaded the street both to prevent people from marching and prevent people from breaking through and causing problems.  So far so good…..until the leader of the CDC and few executives said….”we are marching anyway..”  and they headed down the street.

What happened next is a bit unclear – but it was no where close to a riot.  It seems that a few brave (or crazy) CDC members tried to join in and they rushed the line.  A trigger happy or very nervous UN soldier shot one person…..a few more shots were fired, but it is unclear at this point who fired them.  Local reports say that 2-3 people were killed and a couple wounded. As soon as the shooting started the crowd dispersed and it was all over in an hour.  BBC, MSNBC and CNN are calling it a riot… that would infer that people were fighting each other in the street – from what I hear from the people here, including Augustine who made calls to people near the action (We are at least an hour away in GOOD traffic) that did not happen.  The people here, except for a small number, have no desire to decend into civil war again.

The mood here is one of saddness and concern, but determination to get out and vote.  People want this election over and they want to move on.

In the meantime….I spent the morning getting caught up with the 2 Clarences.  One of them is “Pastor Clarence”, the other is the former child soldier and now mason.  What a joy to reconnect.   The afternoon was spent with a small church in a very depressed area.  They are new and connected to YFC and needed encouragement.  So I taught a bit, prayed a bit, encouraged a lot…and generally just made myself available to the congregation.  It was fun and fruitful.

Tomorrow I meet with the pastor again, the board chair of YFC Liberia and some of the YFC team.  But of course, all after the voting.  Tomorrow is a dayoff so that people can vote.

Here is Clarence and I – reunited.  Please pray for work for him.  The job he was working on ended 2 months ago, and many people are holding off anything new until the elections are finished.  I wish we had the resources to hire him for a few months on the YFC site.  Maybe pray for that too.

A simple church

And here is the inside

…from the inside

The church family

Family

Thanks for reading.  I will post more as I can.

Peace

Daryl

Ok – I am a little behind.  I got back from GA in Denver, hosted the National Director of YFC Hungary for a week…went crazy trying to catch up, and I am traveling again.

It is Wednesday, November 2^nd and I have been in Germany four days so far.  I arrived on Saturday morning (Oct 29) in Frankfurt, was picked up at the airport shortly after 7:00am and taken to Darmstadt where the YFC head office for Germany is located.  My task for the last few days has been to provide leadership to a mid season training event for a multinational team of youth from South Africa and Germany called I-Themba, and for a bus ministry team from Germany called “The Buzz.”

I-Themba is a ZULU word that means “hope.”  These young people are amazing.  What energy and drive they have to be a positive force in their world.  They carry their message of I-Themba across Germany through Dance, Song and Testimony.

Each January a new team forms in South Africa – begins to train in music and dance, develop as a team, and then they spend eight months on tour.  It is a busy schedule and of course all the normal team “stuff” happens, both good and bad.  And that means that they are authentic young people with real struggles who are trying to live out a life reflective of the person, work and values of Jesus each day.  And this authenticity contributes their effectiveness.

Here are some pics of the people I have met this week.  Oh – and of course, because I am available here for a few days, there were ample opportunities for me to interact with the team members one-on-one, which led to great conversations and opportunities to encourage and challenge.  It has been a fruitful journey so far, and YFC Germany is quite pleased with YFC Canada’s willingness to invest in their ministry.

Everything is done with translation  – Alfons on the right was translating for me during a devotion.

Daryl and Alfons

Anika (on the left) translates for a team-mate.

Anika translates to German

Lolo on the left, is the team manager

Lolo and Mike

.  He and Mike (not sure if I spelled Mike right, but that’s what we called him) made a presentation about the recent tour of I-Temba.

Jana (on the left) has been a volunteer for a year at the YFC Centre – she has driven me many places and is a joyfilled presence.  Her time with YFC is coming to an end as she begins a university education.   Olly is the director of Project Serve for YFC Germany, which is the name used to identify their international volunteer placement ministry.  Our YFC Canada volunteer ministry is fashioned after YFC Germany’s.

Jana and Olly

Some the rest of the team……

Byron

I-Temba

I am in that mob somewhere! 

I am on the train to Bielefeld right now.   I will spend the next few days with Jeannette’s family and that will include some speaking engagements to local youth groups and visiting with family and friends who support Jeannette in her ministry with us.

On Saturday I will visit Berlin.  Jeannette’s uncle is a history professor and he would like to show me some of Berlin through his eyes.  I am looking forward to that.   Then, a train back to Darmstadt, just for one night and on Sunday I fly to Liberia.

Thanks for reading……more later.

Peace

Daryl

At three stations the directors or their representatives from Haiti, Japan and Chile stood for a time of prayer for their nations and for their ministries.  As I stood with Galilee Perilus the National Director of YFC Haiti and prayed with and for him, I was struck by the image of 6 nations praying for 1.  The sense of unity and of being one in the common goal of reaching the youth of our nations and the world is deep and strong.  We took time to share and cry – lamenting the loss and trusting in God to move us forward.

The picture below is of Galilee, as we laid hands on him and prayed for him this morning.  Romania, Liberia, Canada, The Gambia, Benin and France all joined together in this moment.  It was beautiful and hard at the same time.

Thank you for your prayers.  More later.

Peace

Daryl

Even on the shuttle from the airport I rode in with Augustine from Liberia, John from Kenya, Imad from Egypt, Zaw and Amy from Burma, Amy from the UAE and others who I have yet to chat with.

In the lobby I have seen friends from Venezuela, Brazil, Germany, Thailand, Nigeria and South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and of course….a couple of Canadians.  I am taking a short rest but will head back to the lobby soon.  This is a family…..a BIG family.   We all share the same dream of reaching the kids in our various countries with the love and hope of Christ….and we have all experienced struggles to do what we are called to do.

Please pray for us as we meet.  The formal part begins with dinner in a couple of hours.  I hope to post some pictures tomorrow.  God Bless you all and please feel free to share this blog with others.

Peace,  Daryl