The Best to the Guest

When Marinda Badio pursued her master’s degree to become principal of a school being built in Monrovia, she attended Polly’s church. In 2010 Polly went to see Marinda’s school, Haweh Academy. Marinda had dubbed her “Mama Polly.” In the courtyard was a young man who looked to be fifteen. She asked, “What do you do?” He couldn’t say. Polly found out about the lost generation because of their conscription into the civil war (1989–2003) and other causes. They had no hope. When the war was over and the guns removed, they didn’t know anything about making a living. Mama Polly was appalled: a young man without a positive future. She prayed. After a bit, she realized she could return to Liberia to teach a “Basics Boot-camp”: two hours of phonics and literacy and one hour of arithmetic for twenty days: men in the morning and women in the afternoon. She could give three months—one each in Monrovia, White Plains, and Ganta, each of which she had visited before. At age sixty-eight, being a retired teacher of math and reading, she was qualified. Her husband had died in 2009, a year after moving to a senior living residence. Her home was protected. She taught several adults from the community to read in Monrovia at Marinda’s school. At Martha’s orphanage in White Plains, she raised the skills of many adults;. She played phonics games, sang songs, danced, worshiped, led Bible studies, and exercised with the children. Preparation: Summer 2011 The Cokesbury Book Store had seeker New Testaments in a brand new translation, the Common English Bible (CEB), for $1.99 each. Three friends and I, using coupons, each pre-ordered twenty-six to in September. Consequently, I had 104 New Testaments to use as textbooks. Little by little, I was also completing my teaching curriculum. I wrote down my favorite Bible passages. If I liked them, the students would too. I had no regard for what I might be teaching on any given day. Monday, November 14, 2011 During the school day, Marinda first took me around to meet the students and their teachers in their classrooms. A father of six children at the school, John McIntosh, came in to chat while I was working with some magnets. He worked at Scripture Union, an organization dedicated to encouraging the reading of the Bible, and was interested in replicating what I was doing. Day 1: Tuesday, November 15 I started teaching both classes today. Three men came not to learn the information but to see how I presented it. Actually, they were learning the phonics I was teaching, and some of the vocabulary (tot, tat, tam, nit) was new to them. It was raining when six women arrived at two forty-five. Later, three more women straggled in. The women were apt students and were happy to be learning. I was happy to be teaching. The first day’s lesson involved a, t, d, m, n. We made lots of words from that combination. Near the end of the lesson, I introduced the circle as o and the short line as i and used them in syllables and words. The students had made circles and lines on the backs of envelopes I’d brought to practice forming letters Day 3: Thursday, November 17 Nathaniel came early, so I began teaching early. He needed to learn to form his letters starting with a. He must have been a carpenter, because he could handle a ruler as a straight edge. Only e was difficult for him to form. We then got to consonant blends. Once he learned the vowel names, he could read my phonetically formed words. Such a breakthrough! The afternoon class started late, but it was also one for effective review. It is fun asking questions from Luke 10, the story of the good Samaritan. They are learning well. Day 4: Friday, November 18 Nathaniel returned for more learning. English is their native language, and I’m giving the building blocks for reading (i.e. short and long vowels with the first hundred common words; man shall not read by phonics alone!). What I taught today, syllabification of cle words (consonant + le: am / ple) was used to help read Acts 3:1–8 with the words cripple, temple, ankle. Only God could form a lesson plan three months in advance to engineer this. I’d taught long a (ai), and in the story were the words raised and praising. I had put the second day’s reading on the wall. Both classes had people who could now read it, though they couldn’t have at first on Day 2. Day 7: Tuesday, November 22 I had everyone draw a dog and tell what it did best. Then we described the dog (size, color, fur type). Then we compared how, when, where, and to what extent the dogs did their thing (run, guard, bark, jog, wag tails). Suddenly we were talking about adjectives and adverbs. Nathaniel in the morning and some women in the afternoon could read my adjective opposites without me. They recognized they were reading, using all the clues they’d had. Glory be to God! Day 9: Thursday, November 24 We started reading “The Shipwreck” (Acts 27) verse by verse. We explained words and got an idea of all the details and main ideas: sailors, soldiers, Paul and other prisoners, and how they all landed safely. John thought about the story each of these men would tell their family and friends when they got home or back to the garrison. I hadn’t thought of it as a way to spread the story, either. God surely has a sense of humor.