Leaving to go home

Would I do a trip like this again? I believe I would....if I could take my husband along with me. I found 5 weeks much too long to be away from him. I missed him too much, because we pray together about so much and 5 weeks was too long to not be able to do that. He would be able to help out so much on the mission field with maintenance, so one day the Lord might see fit to send us out as a nurse/maintenance man team. Until then, we'll wait and see how He directs. I found it a tremendous experience all the same, and I learned so much from my team members. They were a great assett and helped me tremendously!


Olive and Carol at the airport after 5 weeks of work, doing IDP camps and now going home. We were looking forward to hot showers, kitchens without cockroaches and beds without mosquito netting.

Olive in between these two Sisters from Italy. These ladies are amazing. They've been in Liberia for over 20 years and told us stories of sewing their passports into their shorts in case of having to evacuate in a hurry. They truly are an example of servants of God in a forgotten place!

Visiting Ganta

Sarah before she became a Boettcher...before she even knew she was going to become a Boettcher!
A very common sight...


Visiting with the Sisters in Ganta.


Jonathan on the Equip motorcycle.














At a restaurant with Jonathan.

Work for 5 weeks in Liberia?

Apparently the way to put gas in your tank in a 3rd world country...
Dave and Audry Waines, the directors of EQUIP Liberia, and Jonathan's and Sarah's bosses.
UN checkpoints everywhere...
UN vehicles everywhere...




War torn Monrovia, Liberia.

More on IDP camps...

North West Medical Teams
These kids loved it when I pulled out my bubbles! They apparently had never seen anything quite like it.


These children were my entourage at one IDP camp: they followed me from the moment I got off our land rover till I got back on at the end of the day. Notice the strange hair on the one on the far right; it looks like he might have had a bad burn.


Doing a malaria test; yes, he did have malaria.

IDP Camps

One of the many IDP camps we went to.


Isn't this a clever wheelchair? We found this at the local hospital when we went for a visit. It can be built with parts that are found anywhere in Liberia, and reasonably cheap.
One IDP camp we went to had a half wall that you see here. Do you also see the chicken walking through the clinic?


















Olive taking the temperature
of a baby with malaria....

















So many beautiful children!


The photos below were mostly from Andrea and Jonathan's trips to Liberia. I've finally found some time to add in a bunch from my trip there. I went for 5 weeks with North West Medical Teams and we did mobile clinics to IDP (refugee) camps on a daily basis. This photo to the left was of our drivers loading our land rovers in the morning with our supplies, getting ready for the drive to that day's IDP camp.