April 2017 Mission Trip | Kuwaa Mission: Helping the Kuwaa People of Liberia

LIBERIA – APRIL 2017

Stan Olsen, Kuwaa Mission CEO

After an absence of three years it was good to return to Liberia, especially to get out of the noisy, polluted and crowded capital city of Monrovia and enjoy the peaceful life of the “bush”. I can enjoy that life because I’m not one of people in the bush struggling to survive on a day to day basis of subsistence agriculture and gathering food from the bush, aka “jungle”. Most families have completed the job of cutting down trees and bushes for this year’s farm and letting the vegetation dry. There are a few farms left that have not been put fire to so that they can begin the planting once the rains return. During this time of year, the air is heavy with smoke from the fires and breathing can be a bit unpleasant if there is no rain shower or wind storm. I again had the pleasure of a helicopter ride with Samaritan’s Purse to Belle Fassama – a one hour flight beats a 1-2 day road trip to cover 120 miles!

We started our “construction season” planning to install 6 new wells, repair two others and continue last year’s work on replacing bridges. Upon my arrival in Fassama three wells had already been completed in the villages of Kalata, Kpaulazu and Sasasu. Despite the luxury of having most of the heavy materials flow in the crews till had to carry small tools and their generator / pump from village to village as well as the steel forms for the concrete pipe sections.

The town people housed and fed the well crews and helped with carrying sand and gravel from the stream beds – usually it was the women and children. The men were generally doing the cutting of the trees on the farms.

Sasasu Well

The walking from village to village is always a highlight of my trip and while most of the trails are in fairly decent shape from constant use, the constant use also eventually causes enough erosion that it becomes rocky and slippery in the rain. The crossing of streams varies from just stepping across to walking a log

to a “monkey bridge” that was in serious need of repair!

While I was in Kalata, one of this year’s new well receipents, it was pointed out that the old well in town, prior to the KM arrival in the area, hadn’t worked for years due to being located unfortunately on top of large buried rock. The pump parts were still salvageable so we elected to use those parts and install a second well on the edge of town located near a stream so that the water supply would be constant. As a result Kalata received 2 wells this year bringing our installed total to 7 new wells this year.

Kalata Well

This year we were fortunate to have received a grant from Water Hope that enabled us to install 7 wells instead of our normal three. The three Water Hope wells were located in Fassama, the largest town in the district with a population of nearly 4,000. This brings the total wells we have located here to 6 and the town still needs several more. To date we have done 22 new wells in the Kuwaa Chiefdom.

Our bridge work was just getting started as we needed to mobilize men from four different villages and three men with power saws. Cutting the trees down into a somewhat manageable size, considering they still needed to be drug by rope by and from the jungle to the road and to the bridge location, has been the emphasis thus far. By my departure logs were almost cut for the first 7 bridges, 3 major ones, and ready to be hauled to their new home. Timbers will be laid across the logs and planks for vehicle traffic will be nailed to those.

During my stays in the villages we always had a morning meeting with the town chief, elders, women leaders and youth leaders. Here I was able to extend my greeting on behalf of the Kuwaa Mission, hear “What’s New?” from the town people and listed to their various requests. It seems like they now all want their own clinic and while this would be nice it is not feasible from a construction / logistical / financial standpoint. Additionally, the Ministry of Health does not have the personnel or finances for several additional remote clinics.

Kondesu Clinic Delivery Room

They do generally request assistance in the form of roofing materials for a church or school building and we are looking at ways to help fund these requests. Many teachers and evangelists do not have the level of training that is necessary. Together with the Lutheran Church in Liberia we are looking at possible ways to assist in additional educational training. This will hopefully include health care workers willing to work in our remote location.

Kondesu pharmacy

Our clinic has many needs for medicines, general clinic supplies, basic medical instruments, travel assistance to outlying villages, housing for expectant mothers (they are encouraged to come to the clinic during their 8^th month of pregnancy for monitoring and pre-delivery care as well as for a couple weeks afterwards). Often family members travel with, or carry, the patient and they also need a place to stay.

We are also working with Samaritan’s Purse to bring their program “Operation Christmas Child” to the children of the Kuwaa area. It does not revolve around Christmas but brings the story of the gospel from creation through the resurrection to children. This should prove to be very popular and a great way to spread the “GOOD NEWS”.

Following are some photos showing the general steps in the installation of one of this year’s new wells.