Seeing Successes

 June is semi-annual report time.  While report writing and seeing the areas you are struggling in is not fun, it is a blessing to write the success story.  You can see despite the challenges, that God is working, and that changes are happening.  This is our success story for the CDF project, and next time I will post the REAP success story.

"The Samaritan’s Purse Liberia Community Development Facilitator (CDF) model is central to programming in Lofa and Gbarpolu counties with the goal of providing spiritual and physical assistance to the people in Liberia, by strengthening and empowering communities and the local church.  The model is a three year program and it is expected that by the end of the third year, communities will not only receive assistance, but will begin to understand and participate in development and healthy changes within their community.

Ngalahun is a third year community located in Kolahun district in Lofa county.  This year Henrietta and Andrew are the Community Development Facilitators (CDFs) living as SP missionaries in the community.  They have been carrying out community health evangelism (CHE) by sharing physical and spiritual lessons.  In the first two years health lessons focused on basic health and hygiene.  Andrew says that this is an area that he has seen changes in during the first half of this year.  People are using the latrines and they are using clean water.  One challenge for clean drinking water is taking it out to the fields.  Often people do not want to carry water, but Andrew reports seeing more people filling their containers and carrying them out to the fields with them.

This year, the health lessons are focusing on maternal and newborn health.  Several participants, including two of the men, shared that they were learning the importance of seeking care at the clinic before the birth to help the mother and baby stay healthy.  Andrew also shared a success in the area of antenatal care. Due to a poor relationship with the clinic, Ngalahun community members were going far or not going at all for antenatal care.  During the CHE lessons on antenatal care, this came out.  The CDFs were able to speak with the clinic and arrange a meeting with the community.  After this meeting, the community agreed to start attending the clinic again.  Even the town chief’s wife, after much talking, decided to attend the antenatal clinic.  

Another area of change is the behaviors surrounding birth.  During a CHE training on how to care for the mother after the birth, the participants were talking about the good-good things to help the mother.  One woman stated that before, husbands were not allowed to see their wives for one week after the birth, but she concluded by saying “that olden times”.  Henrietta reported that this was a similar discussion in another community, where women were isolated for up to two months after the birth.  The CHE participants readily understood and stated that this is new times, and the men spoke about the importance of bringing good food for their new mothers and allowing them to rest.  

These physical lessons and changes are coupled with spiritual changes.  Though there are many Muslims in the community, there is also a small church which Andrew reports is active and the Bible lessons during CHE trainings have been well accepted by both Christians and Muslims.  Henrietta and Andrew have invested greatly in this community, sharing the love of God despite the difficulties.  Now, the Ngalahun community is showing the fruit of the CDFs work by their willingness to attend classes, learn, and to put into practice some of these behaviors the CDFs are teaching.  As they complete the final year as a CDF community, we pray to see continued change in the lives of the people and thus the community of Ngalahun."

Feel free to email or message me if you want more CDF prayer updates as I have been emailing these on a weekly to bi weekly basis.