ENI - Home Sweet Home

The bamboo mat house that Paul and his family first lived in at ENI mission in 1970.

Mother George (on the far left), the Marwaih family and the Chinchens.

(Paul) The ENI mission we lived on was named after Mother George - Elizabeth Native (later changed to "National") Interior Mission.  Mother George was an amazing old school missionary. She was an African American from Texas born to parents who had both been slaves. She came to Liberia in the 1930's, long before there were roads into the interior. To get from ENI mission to Monrovia she would either walk for weeks at a time, be pushed in a wheelbarrow , or take a dug put canoe along the coast.  But as a young boy growing up on the mission next door to the 80 something year old missionary what impressed me the most was her love for singing songs to her savior. Every evening sitting at her feet out in the middle of the airstrip singing til the sun began to set.

Sadie Ju in the middle. Palmer on the right. Painted bamboo matting on the wall. Sad story, though. A few months after this picture was taken Sadie Ju was eaten by driver ants.

Touring ENI mission - standing on the last bridge, over the last swamp that dad had to cross (see picture below of dad's men building the bridge we are standing on) when he pushed a 6-mile road through the the jungle and swamps to ENI mission.

We were escorted by a couple dozen curious children from the village.

The front porch of our cement block house dad built TWICE -- first in 1972 -- it was burned down a year later by the Clarks whose son Billy mistakenly put gasoline in a kerosine refridgerator -- yes, it blew up! Aunt Pat was upstairs in the tub at the time. She had to escape through a second floor window. No, she did not have time to go look for a change of clothes!, (not to be confused with the bamboo house that burned down a year earlier on the same mission station -- yes, Satan was trying his best to get mom and dad to run away from missions BEFORE they could found ABC), then rebuilt again after the fire in 1973.

Inside the living room.  

The front steps.

Paul and Palmers bedroom. The infamous window is on the left that neither Palmer or I would sleep under -- yes, that means Palmer and I shared a bed all the way through 6th grade!  A couple important reasons: 1) the drums beating all night from Plandebalibo Village scared the heebie-jeebies out of us. 2) It's the same window where we heard, and then saw a naked guy smeared in white mud singing in many voices all at once. Yes, very creepy.