"When you dig another out of their troubles, you find a place to bury your own."

This is a poster I am planning on putting up around my campus when I get back to school after Thanksgiving break. While I was in Africa this past year I had a roommate from Norway, named Signe. She became a dear friend of mine and since I’ve left we’ve continued to stay quite close. Signe had an office job on the ship, like me, but during her evenings and weekends she was hugely involved in an Orphanage about 1 hour away from the ship. She worked on this place for the entire 7 months we were in Liberia. There are 100 kids, many that resulted from the recent 14 years of civil war, that live at Fatima Cottage Orphanage and before they met Signe, they had been sleeping on concrete floors with no blankets. Signe and two other girls raised the money for bunk beds and mattresses. Then they organized a group from the ship to come down one Saturday and paint the orphanage and they provided the children with some food and raised more money to purchase textbooks for school. They fixed their roof so it didn’t leak during rainy season, when they slept. They started a kitchen and had a well put in with drinking water. They’d spend their Saturdays there just playing with the kids, sometimes spending the night and living their lives with them, showing them love and care…something these kids know very little of.

Signe left the ship, a couple months after me, after 10 months of service. Her heart is still with those kids though and she’s determined to get back to them. She wants to finish their kitchen, bring them blankets, and materials to start a garden and teach them the skills of agriculture so they’ll have an on-going food supply. Signe is planning on returning to Liberia in March for a couple weeks to finish these projects and visit her kids but she needs help to get there. She’s been telling their story, in Norway, ever since she got home and now I’m telling you so you can think about contributing to their lives with your money. Sometimes it’s hard to see how our little bit of help can actually make a difference but Mother Teresa said, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

Anything can help. 1$, 10$, 20$.... anything. Please pray for Signe too and these kids. If you’d like to help Signe get back to Liberia you can send your donation to me.

Sienna Howard #557
Covenant College
14049 Scenic Highway
Lookout Mt, GA 30750

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~Mother Teresa

a couple days before I left Liberia, Signe asked me to come to her orphange to get some pictures of her and the kids...

You can visit www.fatimaorphanage.com to read more details about Fatima Orphange in Monrovia, Liberia. It's a website Signe and a couple other of girls made.