Faith and Perseverance

The following is from our Communications Department. It shows a story of perseverance and how the body of Christ can come together to help each other help the poor and needy:

Victoria Thomas has borne five children, but she’s known as ’Mama Victoria’ by hundreds more. With her broad, gap-toothed smile and ever-present cell phone, she’s mother to 127 orphans in a family profoundly extended by 14 years of civil war in Liberia.

War claimed the life of Mama Victoria’s husband in 1990. As part of the special security services to then President Samuel K. Doe, he was one of 72 men captured and killed with Doe by rebel leader Prince Johnson. After her husband’s death, Mama Victoria fled with her children to Gbarnga, her home town 100 miles northeast of Monrovia. Despite the tragedy of her loss, she responded with love to the needs of families torn apart like her own.

"When I saw a lot of children whose parents were killed and there was nobody to care for them, I began to take care of the children small small," she explained.

Six years later, Mama Victoria returned to Monrovia and brought her growing family with her. She officially established an orphanage in the Sinkor area of the city with 25 registered children. As war continued to rage, so Mama Victoria’s flock of orphans grew.

"When you hear fire, everybody scatter," she said. "You don’t know the destination of your parents."

Mama Victoria’s reputation for taking in lost or orphaned children spread, and people came to her with children they found or looking for their own lost child. Even the Red Cross brought children to Mama Victoria, some wounded by stray bullets and bombs. But keeping safe from the crossfire wasn’t the only challenge she faced. She had no reliable income and the war meant basic supplies were scarce - at this time, Liberians renamed rice ’gold’ in recognition of its rarity. The orphanage didn’t have enough mattresses, cooking pots, or clothing; sometimes the children ate only one meal of bulgur wheat a day.

"But, by the help of God, people started coming in with little food and things like that," said Mama Victoria. Local families shared food with the orphanage. A Liberian charity brought blankets. After an order of Catholic sisters in Monrovia supplied Mama Victoria with bags of cornmeal, people came to her to beg for one cup of the food. Willy Thomas, Mama Victoria’s fourth child, tells how she put every available resource into the orphanage. Her brother, a doctor in South Africa, sent US$500 to pay for school fees for her five biological children, but Mama Victoria spent the money on food and administrative costs.

"It got us very angry, my brothers and myself," explained Willy. "But it’s what she feels God wants her to do, to take care of less fortunate children. I said to her, ’If this is really from God, then I will join you and see that your dream becomes reality.’"

In 2000, Mama Victoria moved some of her children to a rented house in rural Kingsville, 90 minutes drive from Monrovia. At first, the landlord charged 400 Liberian Dollars (LD)each month, but in time he almost doubled the cost to 750 LD, which Mama Victoria struggled to pay. Finally, after ten months’ unpaid rent, the landlord asked Mama Victoria to leave during the rainy season in 2002.

In a matter of days, Mama Victoria, her family, and the orphans built a temporary shelter out of sticks, mud, and Red Cross tarpaulin. Once settled, they began work on a more permanent home. "The children themselves started making mud bricks," remembered Willy. "We were just praying for God’s favor - there was no budget set aside for such a building." Using dirt collected from two miles away with one wheelbarrow, they successfully laid a foundation. But mud bricks are no match for tropical storms and, when the rains came, all their hard work was washed away. The following year, the children started again, hoping to somehow complete the foundation before the rains returned.

In March 2005, the Mercy Ship Anastasis arrived in Monrovia. The Mercy Ship carries an international volunteer crew bringing free surgical and dental care, educational projects, and development programs to the world’s poorest nations. As these services got underway, the ship’s deck department - the deckhands and officers responsible for managing the ship as a working vessel - began looking for an opportunity to make a difference in addition to their regular work duties.

"During the ship’s time in Sierra Leone last year, the deck department helped plaster the homes of polio-disabled people," said Tony van Alstine, a deckhand onboard the Mercy Ship. "We wanted to serve in a similar way here in Liberia."

A non-governmental organization working in Monrovia put Tony in touch with Mama Victoria. When he visited the orphanage in Kingsville and saw the second foundation built by the children after rains washed the first away, he knew he’d found the deck department’s project.

The department arranged for cement to seal the foundation before the rainy season and sent teams from the ship to the orphanage each week to work with local builders. Encouraged by the work on the foundation, Mama Victoria hired a cavity brick mold and all the boys in the orphanage started vigorously making bricks for the rest of the building.

"The crew looked at each other and thought, ’Could we really build a huge 12-room building in two and a half months?’" said Craig Rogers, Chief Officer. "Where were we going to get the US$600 for the next load of cement and sand? But Victoria and Willy’s shining faith in God’s provision inspired us to step forward and try."

The deck department began telling family and friends both onboard the Mercy Ship and around the world about Mama Victoria’s orphanage. Money started rolling in. By the time the ship left in June, the department collected more than US$20,000 for building materials and labor. The Lebanese business community in Monrovia donated roofing sheets worth US$2,600. The project didn’t stop there. A further US$1,500 paid for a new well, saving the children from walking long distances to get water. Jerome, a teacher at the orphanage school blinded by cataracts, received free surgery onboard the ship and can now see for the first time in ten years. A latrine and a hand-washing area were installed and Mercy Ship nurses taught basic health practices and provided wound care for two girls with infected sores. And, just as importantly, crewmembers came every week to jump rope, draw pictures, and play games with the children.
The help of the Mercy Ship’s deck department completes another chapter in the remarkable story of Mama Victoria’s orphanage. The construction work, healthcare, fun and friendships not only touched the lives of many orphaned children, but also honored Mama Victoria’s long years of perseverance.

"My heart’s desire is to help the Liberian children, especially the orphaned children that don’t have parents," said Mama Victoria. "I bless God, I don’t even know what to say. God brought Mercy Ships for us - God answered my prayer."

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.