Some of the New SIM Liberia team - more to come

Les Unruh is the new SIM-Liberia Associate Director. Les and Verla and their family were the first up-country church planting missionaries in Liberia from 1978 into the 80s. They have agreed to serve in the position for a year. Two of their daughters are also missionaries in W. Africa, so being here is a nice opportunity to squeeze in visits with them.

Matt and Brenda Carr are also "returnees". They served as church planters in Liberia before the 1990 civil war and then in Ivory Coast in the 90s. Having "launched" their kids, they felt God was calling them back to the mission field. Matt is getting to know the ECUL church leaders in his position as Church Relations Coordinator and Brenda has taken over Debbie's work as Personnel Director and helping at the Academy in staff development.

Keith and Kristen Chapman are with the SIM team through Mercy Ships. Keith is a dentist and dental surgeon who teamed up with Frieda Schmidt on our SIM team to expand the dental services that will be offered through ELWA Hospital. Their clinic is called Trinity Dental Clinic and you can read more about it their website: http://www.trinitydental.org . They also have a vision for training dental health providers and bringing dental services into remote areas with teams. The clinic is still under construction, but I'm sure that as soon as Frieda is back in November, they will be working to get it up and running. Kristen has her hands full, as you can see - she is homeschooling their kids, Taylor (in glasses), Lauren, and Samuel.

You may recognize Do Young and Kyung Ok Choi if you have been in contact with us over the years. They first came to Liberia in 2003, only to evacuate with us 6 weeks later. After an extended home assignment in S. Korea (due to the arrival of their third daughter, Hay Young) they returned in June. Do Young loves to train and encourage pastors and will work closely with Matt and ECUL. Kyung Ok is homeschooling their middle daughter, Yeju and Minju attends school with our boys.

Here's our monthly prayer update.

Dear Praying friends -

Since we’ve been back in Liberia a month, it’s time for an update. It’s been a pretty quick month. It’s still raining a lot, so we didn’t manage to escape the season entirely. But it has been nice to make the transition back while it is still cooler. We’re still cleaning up musty-smelling books, clothes, and linens.

Rick is pretty much full time at the hospital, since the current medical staff includes only him and one other full-time doctor. PLEASE PRAY for them to be able to find another local doctor (or 2) to hire. Or go for the big one and pray for more missionary doctors!

Debbie is getting a kind of slow start, held up by her temporary position as general contractor for a home improvement project: tiling the house. It’ll be done by the end of next week and it’s a nice change. Once it’s done we can really unpack and get settled into life.

Jared and Caleb are back at the American School, where the enrollment in the upper grades has just about doubled. They are enjoying having more classmates, but we’re feeling sorry for the teacher who is still juggling four grade levels in one room. In light of this, Debbie has offered her services to the school to teach part-time if it would help. It seems to be a more complicated decision than just whether a qualified teacher is available for hire, so we are still waiting to hear.

If Deb isn’t needed at the American School, she’ll jump into things at the ELWA Academy in the next couple of weeks. Much to our surprise, the school year opened the week after we arrived (it usually starts mid-September) by government decree. There are quite a few new teachers who were not fully oriented before classes began. And then Deb’s main goal is to get the curriculum written up. PRAY for the re-connecting process for Debbie – she is feeling very out of the loop with regards to the Academy.

Debbie may be applying her general contracting skills (this is a joke) to the Academy building project. The new kindergarten building is up to roof level, waiting for the rain to stop and for some paperwork to be processed before moving on. Unfortunately, building materials have really increased in cost, so we are not sure how far the funds we raised are going to go as we continue the construction. PRAY especially for trustworthy construction workers who feel accountable before the Lord for the way they do business.

Not to forget Sacra #5 – Max – at Dakar Academy in Senegal. He reports that he is busy with his social life and homework. And having a good time- always his top priority. Others also report that they enjoy having him around. We miss him. PRAY for his school to find a replacement for the Chemistry teacher who suddenly resigned. Yes, Max is taking Chemistry.

This email probably sounds a LOT DIFFERENT from our last term- nothing here about administrative duties and short termers. We’re very thankful that those responsibilities have been taken up by others with support from us. It is a little strange to not be central to what is happening in SIM-Liberia anymore, but a relief. Sometimes Rick looks at how many people are sharing the responsibilities we used to carry and he just shakes his head: what was he thinking? No wonder it wasn’t working. THANK GOD for Les Unruh, the Liberia Associate Director (and his wife, Verla, who is going to be his administrative assistant); Matt Carr, the new church relations coordinator and Brenda Carr, who is replacing Debbie as Personnel Director. Pray for them as they fully take on these roles. They arrived about the same time we did.

Thanks for your friendship, concern, support and especially for your prayers. We really had a restful home assignment in your midst. PRAISE GOD for His answers to your prayers for us: administrative help, financing for the Academy building and our personal restoration from a tough term. We’re happy to be back to our ministries.

For the Kingdom – Rick and Debbie Sacra

Losing a dear friend and patient...

Healthcare in Liberia is a setting where often care is fragmented and it is hard to develop the same kind of long-term doctor-patient relationships that make family practice satisfying. But this week I lost one of my special patients—this gentleman was a pastor from up-country in Liberia and a friend who had been through an awful lot.

I first met him several years ago when he was hospitalized for about 2 months with severe congestive heart failure and poor kidney function. He required such high doses of medication that the treatment threw off the balance of chemicals in his blood (like sodium and potassium). And so keeping him “tuned up” was a constant challenge of trying this and adjusting that and testing this and modifying that. He had a missionary friend who helped pay for his treatment, so that was a blessing as well. Joseph was a “stick-with-it” kind of guy—if your treatment wasn’t working for him, he’d complain and try some more and give you the feedback until you got things right. This kind of willingness to stick with one medical provider and one hospital even when things were not always perfect or going his way was the key to success—and is not the rule in Liberia. This guy would have died on several occasions if we had not built a successful doctor-patient relationship, built on trust and our common commitment to God. Joseph was a young man—I believe only in his 40s—with a dear wife and young children. Several times during the last few years we were able to get him “tuned up” enough so that he could return to Nimba county, where his church was, to be with his family and his church and to do the work of pastoring that he was called to do. He would stay up there, taking his medication, sometimes for 4 or even 6 months, until something would get “out of whack” again and he’d start swelling up or getting short of breath. Then he’d return to Monrovia for a long course of treatment and retuning.

When I returned from the US a few weeks ago, I met Joseph in the hospital, looking worse than usual. He had a lot of shortness of breath, and looked very uncomfortable. Usually removing fluid from the chest (where it had gathered around his lung) helped him feel a lot better—but this time, the fluid in his chest had become infected. We had to insert chest tubes on both sides to drain the fluid. In addition, his electrolyte levels (sodium and potassium) were very hard to balance. After several weeks of inserting drains and treating with antibiotics and doing x-rays and other tests, pastor Joseph was continuing to get weaker. Monday morning I sensed that he was doing worse, ,and that he might not recover from this episode. We talked for a while and prayed together. Joseph told me he wasn’t afraid to die—he knew where he was going. He was just concerned for his wife and children.

Monday evening about 8:00 pm Joseph breathed his last. He fought a good fight, and finished the race. I was grateful to have had such a good relationship with this dear brother over several years. It is these kinds of connections that make medical work fulfilling for me. I will miss him, but I know he is enjoying being with his Lord.

Going to the next level

This post is for the benefit of all the former ELWA missionaries who might look in once in awhile. I have to tell you that I have achieved a new level of "becoming" recently - that is, becoming a real ELWA missionary (after 13 years...) Yes, I have finally joined the ranks of those who covered their appliances in contact paper. After being completely grossed out by my rusty refrigerator door when I got back from home assignment, I happened upon some not too tacky contact paper at one of the supermarkets. I immediately snatched up several rolls. We've scraped and painted and now covered the fridge with it and frankly, it really doesn't look that bad. It certainly looks better than it did- I'm sorry I did not take a "before" picture. But here are a couple of the job in progress.

When Caleb came home to see the fridge with black spots (it's special anti-rust paint) he said "MOM, there's a cow on our refrigerator!"

The job is not quite complete because the sides and especially the top still need to be scraped and treated. So the final product is going to be quite busy. But it's a big improvement over the rust! Kudos and chuckles to all the ELWA old-timers.

Missionary Ladies' Outing

This was so funny I really had to share it with you. Thursday afternoon this group (plus one more not pictured) ventured out to do our grocery shopping. Well, mostly we were exploring a new store that is far enough away that we decided it was a proper "outing" (and the store has offered to deliver for free so we wanted to see what they had to offer). But it seemed like a picture would illustrate my point in the last post - what a difference to have so many more missionaries around. 6 of us were SIM missionaries! This is a big change.

Where in the world are Rick and Debbie?

Back in Liberia.

We arrived August 27th - nearly two weeks ago now. Thanks to all who helped get us moved, packed and on our way. We really couldn't do this without the support we get from friends, churches and family.

After a few days of greetings and errands, Rick was back at work at the hospital of course. And on call this past weekend, so he is fully into it again. I'm getting a much slower start, but beginning to feel settled enough to think about what else I am ready to do besides cleaning and unpacking. There are a couple of home improvements on the list that I don't want to put off too long, but I'm beginning to feel ready to get involved at the ELWA Academy and our church again soon. Jared and Caleb started school right away last Monday, so they also got right back into a routine. Max has already been in school for 4 weeks in Senegal and well, we don't hear from him much, so I guess that means he's having a good time!

It's been a very different arrival for us this time. There are so many more missionaries! Nearly everyone on our team is in transition- moving into a new house, fixing up a house, building a house, getting ready to leave or just coming- so that is a little tough for us all - no one is settled in enough to be the support for the transitioning people. The dust will settle in a month or so, I'm sure. I think that in our next post, we'll have to let you know just who is here that we are talking about.

In the meantime, sim.org has a new feature on Liberia. http://www.sim.org/index.php/content/sim-liberia-five-years-after-the-war

Pray for our team as we get to know each other and redistribute responsiblities that Rick and I were shouldering before. Pray for the Carrs and the Chapmans who have some major work to do on their houses- Chapmans have just one month to finish their place before the resident of their temporary quarters returns. And Carrs really don't even have good temporary quarters so they want to get their place in some kind of shape very soon so they can move out of the guesthouse.

Sorry for so much text and no pictures - just wanted to let you all know that we have arrived and you'll be hearing from us more often again. Thanks for your prayers.

Debbie for the Sacras

While you were away....

We're back home in MA. now. On the Thursday night before we returned, lightning struck a huge pine tree just 30 feet or so from the house. Since the beginning of summer, we have had thunderstorms here like we have never seen before - more like what I grew up with in Ohio. Here is a picture: the middle third of the tree is the ripped apart piece on the ground and the top third is the brushy part in the background. Thank God it fell away from the house. And I think we are also thankful we were not here.