For more on this unplanned journey visit the Hoover's regular blog: The Hoovers: Liberia Bound.
We’ve been here in Liberia four months. Four months in which nothing has gone as planned. Nope, our plans have been flipped upside down by a few thousand (try 50,000+) refugees milling around Liberia’s eastern border. This past week we began to hear about fighting on the other side. Everyone take a deep breath and be reassured that we are in no immediate danger. Kyle and I are a long way from the border, 5 hours away to be exact, and the fighting is in the Ivory Coast not here in Liberia.
The fighting has however sent a rush of refugees over the border into the areas surrounding our clinics. The last month or so felt like a stale mate as far as the refugee “crisis” was concerned. This feels as if a dam has broken that had been holding thousands of refugees back. One of our colleagues that went out to our Buutuo clinic, a hotspot for Ivorian refugees crossing over, reported thousands of refugees packed like sardines into a local school to sleep.
We’ve had such an unusual experience in the time that we have been here. Lots of curve balls have been thrown our way and it’s left us wondering what it is that God is trying to accomplish through our hands here. The needs are great. The work is plenty. Pray that the Gospel can be made known through our lives and through this situation. We are praying for peace in Ivory Coast and continued peace in Liberia.
Weekly Prayer Needs:
Pray for peace in Ivory Coast and for peace to reign in our own hearts.
Pray for rest for us.
Pray for safety wherever we may travel.
Pray for wisdom on the way forward in our ministry here.
Peace Friends,
Kyle and Jessica Hoover
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3 comments:
We are praying for you. Thanks for the update!!
Wow. I've been concerned about the situation in Cote d'Ivoire. Since the earth quake in New Zealand and the crisis in N. Africa, BBC hasn't been saying much about Cote d'Ivoire. Would you recommend another source for news?
I don't know if this sort of thing has happened in Liberia before (refugees spilling over from her neighbors) but perhaps there some friends that can share some testimony as to how things might play out in your neck of the woods... so you can prepare in case the refugees reach you. If you don't know a friend that could testify, i do. Let me know any i'll put you in touch with some people that lived through a refugee crisis in 1993.
Sorry I didn't see this comment until now. The situation is grim for sure in Cote D'Ivoire. We are responding as best we can with the help of other International NGOs and the UN.
Our country director and his wife were actually refugees themselves during the Liberian conflict. They were actually across the border in the Ivory Coast. Many of the Liberians we work with were refugees in Cote D'Ivoire and Guinea.
The best source for news is the BBC. We actually took one BBC reporter out with us to the border and she did some pieces about that, but unfortunately the conflict has taken a backseat to everything else going on in the world and in Africa. I suppose that it actually is a blessing because it protects our family from fear.
There has been constant back and forth with refugees between Ivory Coast and Liberia because of the nearly constant conflict in the last 25 years. It's interesting to hear their stories and to see how this current conflict effects them. The Liberian host population has been very generous because for them it wasn't so long ago that they were fleeing to safer ground. Some of the refugees coming into Liberia are actually Liberians who never returned after the conflict. It's a very interesting population along the border because many of them are of the same tribe and are simply divided by a river. Same language, tribe, culture, but from a different country because of an arbitrary line on a map.
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