Being, Not Just Doing: A Trip Reflection from Liberia
When Jenn sat down to talk about her recent trip to Jesus Loves Me Children’s Center, she didn’t start with a project update or a list of accomplishments, the way you might expect from someone just back from a mission trip. Instead, she started with a feeling that has stayed with her ever since she landed back in America, a quiet sense of awe that she is still trying to put into words.
You go into a trip like this expecting to be busy, Jenn explained, expecting that every day will be full of tasks and projects and things to accomplish. But what she found at JLM was something different, and it took her by surprise. It was less about doing and more about being present. Walking around the center. Sitting beside a child for a while. Giving one of the mamas a few minutes to rest while she held a baby instead. These small, quiet acts of presence turned out to speak more loudly than any task ever could, and in that stillness, with a quiet mind and a quiet heart, Jenn found herself simply watching God move.
Hard Work, Wrapped in Worship
One of the things that struck Jenn most deeply was the staff, and not only how hard they work, though that much was evident everywhere she turned, but the spirit in which they work. The nurses, the caretakers, and the mothers at His Safe Haven all move through long, demanding days while praising God the entire time, so that the labor and the worship are woven together into a single, seamless thing. It never felt to Jenn like work and worship were separate categories at JLM. They were simply the same act, offered continuously, all day long.
The mothers at His Safe Haven moved Jenn especially. These are women who care deeply for children who were once abandoned, loving them with the same tenderness a mother gives her own child, in exactly the way Jenn believes God intended a family to love. Because of that love, children who once had nothing now have a home, and that home is full of life and full of joy, with huge smiles everywhere she looked. It is a love these children did not earn and were not owed. It was simply, freely chosen for them.
Anton
Among all the children Jenn met, one name has stayed with her the most. A four year old boy named Anton was very sick with malaria while she was there, and sitting with him through that was one of the harder moments of her trip, the kind of moment that does not fade once you get on the plane home. She still thinks of him often, and she still prays for him regularly. That is often what happens when you show up somewhere in person rather than simply hearing about it from far away. A name and a face become something you carry home with you, long after the trip itself has ended.
Two Girls Who Reminded Her Who They Really Are
Jenn also spent time with a sweet girl with special needs, and learned that this little girl’s mother had made the incredible decision to keep her rather than give her up, a choice not every family in similar circumstances makes. The girl was cuddly and beautiful and clearly cherished, and being near her felt like being near someone deeply loved. Not long after, Jenn met another girl entirely, whose spirit seemed to radiate the moment they connected, as though joy itself were simply pouring out of her. Meeting these two girls back to back reminded Jenn that none of these children are defined by the hard circumstances they were born into. They are defined by who God made them to be, and that shines through no matter what they have been through.
Coming Home
Jenn flew home at the end of Thanksgiving week, landing right in the middle of the American Christmas season, and she admitted that the transition back was harder than she expected. It wasn’t that home wasn’t good to return to, but that the contrast brought everything into sharp, uncomfortable focus. Here in America, we rarely worry about access to basic healthcare, and our basic needs are met so consistently that it becomes easy to stop noticing how much of a gift that really is.
That contrast left Jenn with a question that she is still sitting with, and one she hopes the rest of us will sit with too. How do we take what we have been given here and use it for God’s glory in Liberia? How do we join in the work He is already doing there, not as distant observers cheering from the sidelines, but as people who actually show up and participate in it?
An Encouragement to a Whole Community
Beyond the walls of the center itself, Jenn noticed how the outreach into the surrounding community is having a ripple effect far beyond the children directly in care. JLM is not only caring for individual children one at a time, it is also helping to shift the broader culture around how a community cares for its most vulnerable little ones. That kind of change does not happen overnight, but it is happening, one act of hard work, worship, and love at a time, multiplied across every child, every mother, and every family it touches.
God is so big, Jenn said more than once while telling this story, and He is inviting all of us into what He is already doing in Liberia, for the sake of children like Anton, families like the ones caring for the kids at His Safe Haven, and a Kingdom that is worth every bit of the work it takes to build it.
Want to be part of this story? Learn how you can support JLM’s mission or join The Collective to give consistently toward the care these children receive every day.