Here are some updates as of today --

It all started with you and me getting to know each other, then you

introducing me to Andrew, then me writing a bit about the refuge home to friends, then involving a couple in the Boston area.  Anyway, [the wife] with her compassionate heart talked her hubby (John) and local parish priest into doing a fund raising drive for the refuge home.  She eventually put together a brochure called "Drop by Drop," which used the theme of basic needs, as exemplified by the lack of water for the kids.

Six weeks or so later, John was on a plane, Monrovia-bound, with a wad of cash in his pocket.  All told, working through their church and community, they were able to raise more than $15,000 for the refuge home.  Even before John got on the plane, even as the first thousands came in, we were able to get a water well dug and pump installed on the property.  That price tag was about $2300, and we used a German NGO called GAA -- German Agro Action -- to do the work. 

By the time John got on the plane, some renovations had taken place in the two classrooms (shelves, new chair-desks, painting and plastering) and the first bricks had been set for the new kitchen/dining area behind the house. 

When John was here, he and Andrew oversaw the following: construction of a kitchen and a dining room; conversion of that front verandah into a bedroom; conversion of the internal storage room into a washroom; fabrication of bunk beds and procurement of mosquito nets; installation of two drinking water filters in the house; wiring so that electric light bulbs are powered by the generator you bought; planting of a large vegetable garden behind the church and school buildings; replacement of the roof on the house; installation of real ceilings in the house; and now is the completion of the classrooms, including roof repairs, ceilings, finishing tables and chairs, and purchase of school supplies.

John also showed up with soccer shoes and uniforms (John coaches soccer in Boston and loved the soccer sessions he had with the kids).  John was here for almost two weeks, much of which he spent at the refuge home overseeing work and helping as he could. 

I'm in my last days in Liberia, and the last of the moneys are now being spent.  This week, Andrew will finish the classrooms work and perhaps have enough to either install latrines in the school or re-do those planks that span the swamp leading to the school and church.