Day One...

I woke up this morning to the sun streaming through my window and the birds chirping. It was a perfect day here in Philly, and it brought a smile to my face. I started my day with an eager excitement for what lay ahead, not just in the day but also in the next three months.

Today was my first day with the youth that I am going to be running the program for. To give you some context to this post I need to introduce you to my hosts who are also the pastor and his wife of the church that I am working with. To most people they are George and Ruth Morton; to me they are Mama Morton and Pastor Morton. They are both in their late 70's, but have the energy of 30-year-olds. If you met them you would never guess that they are as old as they are. They are also the most hospitable, funniest and coolest people you will ever meet. They have been leading the church in the inner-city for over 20 year's now and are loved deeply by all who attend. Their home, also the place I am staying at, is about 40 minutes outside of the inner-city.

Mama Morton and I drove into the city this morning for the program, which was to start at 11:00 am. Something you will learn very quickly here is that Liberian time is extremely laid back and runs on a "we'll get there when we get there" mentality. Due to the fact that the church is made up of mainly Liberians, the children did not all arrive until closer to 12:00 (I do believe this laid back mentality may be the thing that frustrates me the most during the next three months). When they finally had all shown up, I had about 12 children in my class, with many promises of more to come in the future. The age gap was 3 year's old to 14. Quite the span, which introduces some challenges as you can imagine. This week's lesson focused on Easter, and was primarily run by Mama Morton and another lady from the church (Maria) - considering I had just arrived the night before. I helped out where needed and provided a lot of entertainment for the children.

Many of the children knew me from previous visits in the past few summers, but there were many new faces as well. The biggest struggle was learning to pronounce their names and understanding what some of the children were saying. Most of the children have very thick accents, but we communicated through hand signals and lots of repeated phrases. There was a lot of joy and laughter, and I think the next three months are going to be very special. That being said, I came home and had a nap. Running after children for 3 hours can be very exhausting.