Spirit in Action

Starfish Kids, Imago Dei, & Teamwork Africa

In 2016, Peggy & Mark Halvorson picked up and moved to Liberia, West Africa, with 4 kids in tow, as part of their growing passion of adaption, but also healing for the people of that country. That devotion has only grown in the following years, and so has the organization that Peggy shepherds, Teamwork Africa.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 05 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat and each week we bring you visits and conversations with people doing healing work for this world, hearing what they're doing and what inspires them and supports them in doing it. Welcome to Spirit in Action. Back in August of 2016, I interviewed Peggy and Mark Halverson. Shortly before they picked up their tent and moved to Liberia, West Africa, with four kids in tow as part of their growing passion for adoption, but also healing for the people of that country. That devotion has only grown in the following years and so has the organization that Peggy Shepherds, Teamwork Africa. Since its inception, Teamwork Africa has helped build and repair many hundreds of wells and they've also aided the studies of a great many starfish kids, including the formation of the Amago Day Elementary School. Great thanks to Andrew Janssen for production assistance on today's program. Find the full uncut interview on northernspiritradio.org. Peggy Halverson joins us from a bit down the road in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Peggy, how wonderful to have you back for Spirit in Action. Thank you so much, I'm glad to be here. You're glowing, as usual. (laughs) Well, it is a little humid today too. Well, there's that. But some people might just look very daunted and worn out by the amount of work and care and concern that you're giving across the seas. Is that the way you feel? Are you just good at hiding it? Well, I do often feel tired and weary and burdened, but I also really appreciate the opportunities to talk about the work that I get to be part of. So that makes me really encouraged. Tell me about your family members. When I was talking to you back in 2016, there was still a question looming about more adoption possibilities. Would you please recap for our listeners for Spirit in Action? The path, 2009 and forward they got you here. Sure, before the birth of my fourth child, I felt like God had put it on my heart that there was a little boy in Africa that was supposed to be our son, which was startling to me. Even though I had always dreamed of adopting, that thought at that time was a little bit surprising, but that started us on our adoption journey. Three years later, Mark said he was ready to adopt, and shortly after that we got matched with a little boy from Liberia, Michael, who had just turned five years old. A few months later we found out he had a little brother and considered, you know, did we want to adopt them both? And we did. So I started looking for eight passenger vehicles because we had four biological kids and we were looking at adopting two more. But Liberia closed to adoption in 2009, and before we can even make any progress on our adoption, Abakuk died of cholera at the end of June in 2009. And it was my deep sadness and a lot of anger and frustration that God would put it on my heart to adopt these children and then take one of them away. And I was just convinced that that couldn't be the end of Abakuk's story. And so I made contacts to figure out how we could put a well in his village, in his memory, because he had died of a waterborne illness. I did my first fundraising project and that is not my nature, but we were able to raise the money for that very first well and it was installed a year after his death. I wasn't there when they did the dedication, but when I saw the video, I'm like, I need to go. I need to be there. And we were still pursuing adoption with Michael. And so I went to Liberia, fell in love with the country. And when I saw the well, nobody could read the inscription to Abakuk's memory because most people couldn't read. And so I came back with the next goal of starting a school in the village. Mark joined me on my next trip to Liberia in March, 2010, I think that would be, or 11. He is really good with the date (laughs) and Team Mark Africa was born in Liberia with the goal of partnering with Liberians to meet physical and spiritual needs. We have changed and evolved over the past decade plus, but our goal was always to partner with Liberians to meet the needs that they have through the love of God. And then the adoption journey. So, Liberia eventually opened up to adoption. It was slow and I think I might win a contest of the longest adoption journeys ever because we moved to Liberia in 2016, hoping that we could adopt Michael domestic, like in country, which I was given a very significant piece of misinformation, which even though we lived there almost two years, did not allow us to complete our adoption. So when we came back from Liberia in 2018, I had to start the process all over again. And Michael was able to come with us on a visitor visa for four months, but I had to take him back to Liberia without us in the fall of 2018 because in 2019, I went to Liberia in November with the hopes of being able to complete his adoption, but no guarantee. I went on a one-way ticket. So I thought I needed to do work for Teamwork Africa anyway. And I thought, well, if the chances come for me to complete the adoption, then I'll stay longer. But if not, I'll go home after a couple of weeks. So on Michael's 15th birthday, we received the court order to proceed with our adoption, which meant that I was going to be able to stay there and adopt him. So it took almost six weeks and we left Liberia together to come home 10 years to the day that we first saw Michael's picture. - Oh my goodness. - So I'm going to write a story about it someday, but if you remember 2019, so Michael started school in January, 2020, he got to go to school for one quarter before COVID hit and schools were shut down. But the really amazing thing is that if I hadn't been in country and completed the adoption before COVID hit. - He would have been an adult already. - He would have, and I don't know whether adoption would have ever been completed. - So it took 10 years and Michael had been with us now for three years. He just graduated from North High School and he's thinking about doing some kind of technical degree and he got his driver's license and he loves his car and... - I think adulthood comes at a different point in Africa. Again, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa from '77 to '79. In my village, girls generally are supposed to get married around the age of 15. And if you were 18 years old, not married, you were in some kind of spinster or something, that was the way it was in my village, not necessarily in the capital city, right? Where things are a little bit more normative towards the West. What was it like? How close to adulthood was Michael? - Oh, no, not even close. In Liberia, you don't pass to the next grade unless you pass the end of the year test. So if you don't pass it, you repeat the grade. So Michael was three or four grades behind when we moved to Liberia in 2016. And with some extra tutoring and help, I got him to skip one grade. I think he skipped sixth grade. And then when he came here, he skipped seventh grade. By the time he came, he was only one grade level behind. But it's very common for young adults to still be in grade school. So their adulthood actually comes a little bit late. And part of that is because of the lack of quality education and to the economic development, because a lot of people will have relationships, but they can't get married because they can't afford the dowry. So Mark, one time had a Bible study of young men and nearly all of them were engaged because none of them had quite gotten to the point where they could afford to pay the marriage fees. - Wow, it's crazy. Just this past two weeks, I was to an engagement party, a Muslim couple that I know. And before that, a Kinsen era, a 15 year old, which is really a celebration of adult. And when I asked about the adultness, and a lot of ways, kids become self-sufficient in Africa much more quickly than what we do in the US. I think that we infantilize our kids. We keep them dependent longer. That is to say, it was not unusual when I was in my village to see girls who were nine years old carrying their two year old sibling on their back. There's a lot more development and skills that, life skills that they could enhance with. And so when I was asking about Michael, I was asking how much of that he had. - It's really interesting because there's some areas where he would have been further ahead. And then there's so many areas where he was so far behind, like emotional development. In Liberia, you're just trying to keep your, it's a lot of survival mode. You're just trying to make sure your kids have enough to eat. And you're trying, if possible, to get them to go to school. And there's not a lot of time to talk to kids about how they feel or if something bad happened, how they process their grief. And a lot of those kind of, they just don't, on a Myslow's hierarchy of needs, that's kind of beyond where they can spend their attention. - So this has been a major trip and it all starts with God laying it on your heart to take on adoption. Had you been connected to Africa mission trips before? Like you said, you were thinking maybe once, am I going to be a missionary? - Well, I did think about being a missionary when I was growing up. But I kind of put that aside once I got married and had kids. And then when I got this desire to adopt from Africa, I started to actually pursue all kinds of adoption, foster care, just trying to learn everything I could just, you know, follow God, but also make sure I was making good choices for my family. And then through that, Mark and I actually hosted an event called Hope for Forgotten Children, where we invited the community to learn about orphan care adoption and foster care. And through that event, I met a woman who was doing humanitarian work in Liberia. So she was actually the one who invited me to travel to Liberia with her on my first couple trips. - Did you choose Liberia because of language? Because it's English speaking country. I was in Togo, French speaking. So I had to become fluent in French to teach there and all. Was that not part of it at all? - I didn't know anything about Liberia. I just met this woman and she was doing work in Liberia. And I knew I wanted to adopt. And she said at that time, adoption from Liberia was super easy because all I had to do was petition the government once you had a home study. And it was really simple. However, it was also extremely corrupt, which is why they had to close and reorganize their system. But yeah, I don't know that I chose Liberia. What does Liberia found me? - And how easy is English language there? Even though French is the official language of Togo, that doesn't mean that common people necessarily speak it except at least some phrases. - Liberian English is really easy for me now. So that I mean, I can understand most people. - Can you speak it though? Let's hear it. - If I had a Liberian call me right now, I would automatically switch to Liberian English, but I cannot do it like on command. But it can be difficult for American ears to understand. I remember one time I had a missions team with me and my Liberian friends were talking in the back of the Jeep. And one of my friends leaned over and said, "Are they speaking dialect?" And I said, "Nope, that's English." (laughs) - I remember when a certain African said to me, he says, "I talk English good good." And you know, it's like, okay, well, that's not necessarily what we'd expect on TV here, but I'm sure he communicated quite well. - And when we were living there, I started to lean into trying to follow the accent more clearly. And one day I was out in the rice fields with my friends and he said, "Yes, Suspeggi, "your English has really improved." But Uncle Mark, he still can't get Liberian English. (laughing) - All depends on your point of view, yes. So now you have another son. I think, does that make five now? - Yes, I have five kids right now. They're between the ages of 24 and 19. - Goodness. Wait, that means they're all adults. - They are? Does this mean that you're leaning further into Liberia or less because I think that COVID had to play a part two in changing what you were doing? - Well, it's certainly interfered with my travel, but after coming back from Liberia, I was able to develop a much stronger team of people on the ground in Liberia. And so we actually now have a staff of nine in Liberia. So the day to day work doesn't depend on me at all. So even during COVID, we were able to continue doing most of the things that we were focusing on, just I couldn't travel there as much. So mostly now I focus on fundraising and raising awareness and like team development. So when I go to Liberia, I do a lot of team training and try to mentor our leaders who then are in charge of mentoring our youth and villages. - You said you have a team of nine. I checked your website recently and I thought I saw eight and there were seven men and one woman. I know that the board of directors from Northern Spirit Radio changes periodically. So we don't necessarily keep up to date either. But part of what I was wondering that proportion, seven men to one woman at that point, when I looked, is that typical, is that something about the country? Is that something about the mission? - No, and I think the ninth one is actually another woman. She's a social worker who's in charge of our trauma counseling program. After we came back from Liberia, so 2019, Pastor Peter died and he was our founding partner. And with his loss, it was very sudden, unexpected death. It sort of put, I didn't know whether or not Teamwork Africa was going to be able to continue. So after everything settled and I really felt like God wanted me to continue my work there, on my next trip to Liberia, I took 13 people on a retreat. And we went to a conference in another part of Liberia called Farming God's Way. And while I was happy to learn about the agricultural training, I was really looking to see which of the people that I had good relationships with also worked well together. So most of the core of those people, I'm trying to look at a picture of my staff right now. Most of those people came from that event, where I was just looking for people who had good integrity, had a skill set that was helpful for the organization and could also work really well together. - So what does your team do? What is the work of Teamwork Africa? - Our focus right now, we have two sides of our focus. And one of them is education. So we have a program called Starfish Kids. And so this year we have 180 kids that are on scholarship. So we focus a lot on education. And I think at least three of our staff members are also teachers. Right now Rosalind, who's our Starfish Kids coordinator, also helps run our school. We might go to age just opened last year. So we're coming to the closure of our first year. And we're super excited about that. But we also partner with other schools to try to bring quality education to other parts of Liberia as well. Not all 180 of our scholarship students attend our school. There's several schools that we partner with. The other side of Teamwork Africa is what we call community development or neighborhood development. And we're trying to focus on self sustainability and helping community leaders recognize local resources. So really encouraging people to start seeing the solutions to their own problems instead of continuing to wait for outsiders to solve their problems. And while that feels like a wonderful thing to do, it's incredibly challenging. And it's been a lot of work to help try to change the mindset of a lot of people who have come accustomed to handouts. When the Civil War in Liberia ended around 2004, NGOs, nonprofit organizations just flooded into Liberia to help rebuild after the war. And it was absolutely necessary because it was an emergency crisis there to rebuild the infrastructure. But we're now 20 years out. And we need a different type of assistance now. And it's not that emergency necessity. Now we have more of a situation where we need to empower locals to think strategically about how to meet their own community goals. - So are you saying that it feels relatively safe? You don't feel endangered going to that area of Africa now? - No, I don't feel in danger at all. The most dangerous thing that I encounter are mosquitoes that carry malaria and food that carry bacteria. - One of the things that you mentioned with Habakkuk, what happened is he essentially died of cholera. That's malaria into cholera, right? You get weakened first and then have that. And as I mentioned when I talked to you back in 2016, when I had been to the Congo in 2014, I came down with typhoid. - Wow. - But it just happened that one of our group that was traveling together, a Congolese man, there was a doctor and he recognized things right away and got me treatment before I had a chance to get really bad or anything. But even if you're not endangered in terms of violence or war, there's still all those microbes that wanna kill you. How bad is the situation overall in Liberia? - It's awful. If you remember in the past Ebola hit Liberia in 2014, 2015 and it decimated the medical community, the doctors and nurses that were trying to treat Ebola patients, contracted Ebola and died. So there's a huge loss of medical practitioners during that time. And I was just looking up recently, some of the statistics on doctors, pretty much per capita, there'd be one doctor in all of the Chippewa Valley. So it's like one doctor per 70,000 or more. - Oh my goodness. Wow. - So and even one of my friends who's helping out with our website was trying to look for some statistics and said that, oh, most people in Liberia have access to a clinic and I laughed and I'm like, well, yeah, statistically there probably is a clinic within reachable distance for most people, but that doesn't mean there's any medicine or personnel there who can actually treat you. And even if they did have medicine and medical doctors, then you would have to have money to be able to pay for that treatment. For example, the treatment for malaria when we lived in Liberia was only $5. But we saw children who were chronically ill with malaria all the time because that $5 to treat one child was more than that family had. - Even with Bill Gates Foundation work, I mean, they had worked on malaria in Africa for quite a while. I assume they were at least subsidizing some of it, but it's a big continent. - Big problem. A lot of work is done in East Africa because their governments have been stable for longer. Liberia, even though there's not a threat of war, the government is notoriously corrupt. So if you are a nonprofit that's trying to work through government agencies, the likelihood that your resources are actually going to get where they're supposed to get, I would only be guessing the statistic of how much of what you gave it actually reached the people, but it would be a slight trickle. - Yeah, it's frustrating to watch. Even though I considered the dictatorship, I was in in Togo, relatively benevolent. It was still the dictatorship. And what we consider nepotism or other things are just ways of life there. We apply different values to it. And it's hard because you can't make the whole system change of people's views. Like, no, of course I take care of my cousin. Of course I take care of my friends on the block. And so they're not wrong in one point of view, but it really hurts the country. That corruption, I imagine you fought it so hard just with your adoption. - Yes, it's everywhere. And I try to be sympathetic to the reasons why it exists. And I still try to find ways to encourage people to take a stand when they can. One of my really good friends worked in the recent census, and he is a very soft-hearted man who really wants to have integrity. But at the end of the census, he was told to sign that he received significantly more money than he really did. And his choices were to either sign it, that he received that money, or to get nothing at all. And he said, "Cis Piggy, what was I supposed to do?" But I spent weeks working on this job, and now I was only gonna get, you know, half of what I was supposed to get, and I had to lie to say I received a whole thing, or otherwise I would've gone home with nothing. - It is so crazy making, it's so hard. And as bad as we sometimes feel like situation here in the United States is, and there are cases of all kinds of ethics problems, right? It's a fraction, and I can be very thankful for that. - Well, I think in Liberia, it's just open. I mean, you know the government is corrupt, and I think here we don't see it so quite so clearly, it's often. - That's for sure. Talk a little bit, again, Peggy, how the whole framework of Teamwork Africa, and folks, the website is teamworkafrica.org. Of course, it's linked on northernspiritradio.org. Talk about the framework. You've got a team there of nine people. You've got yourself as executive director here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And you have networks of churches and religious groups and other groups who are supporting you. So talk about that big framework. - Well, on the U.S. side, Mark and I often travel to different churches, to do presentations about Teamwork Africa, and we've done vacation Bible schools or seniors, Bible study groups. I've also recently joined Rotary, which has a lot of similar passions in the world as far as clean water and education. And so I've met a lot of wonderful people through that opportunity, too. So we are looking for a variety of ways to connect with people who have a heart or are passionate about caring for people in the worlds that are suffering in ways that we don't experience. And so I'm very open to meeting with anybody who's just interested and wants to know more about Teamwork Africa. We are a Christian-based organization, but that doesn't mean that you have to be a Christian to join us. We're just looking for people who have a compassionate heart and want to do something to make a difference. - The big question, though, Peggy, is are you now officially a missionary? - That is a great question. I think that the model that I have is possibly the future of missions, at least from the American side. It is not cost-effective for me to live in Liberia and try to do the work. It is much more effective for me to be here, where I can support myself, my husband works, and to have staff on the ground in Liberia who are far more effective at actually doing the work than I ever could. And so because of the increase in technology, I have regular communication with almost all of our staff members. I was telling you, as we were getting started, I was getting reports on Facebook from one of my staff members and my phone kept dinging. But because of that increased technology and communication, I know day-to-day what's happening in Liberia, and Francis is our country director, and we talk probably twice a week about what's going on, and what we need to adjust, and how I can help and support, and kind of talking through problems that are happening on the ground. Francis is a fantastic partner, and I really appreciate him. He and I think the same, and so when we come to a problem, I'll say, "Well, what if we did it this way?" And he'll say, "Oh, since Peggy, I was just thinking that." So I am just super blessed to have a great group of people to work with. - Do you want to call out to anyone else besides him, that the other staff members, because they've got different roles, right? - They do. So I've talked about Rosalyn. She's the starfish kids coordinator, and she's also one of the administrators in our school. She has the most beautiful mother's heart. After my time of living in Liberia, there are about 12 children that consider me their mom, but I can't be their day today. So Rosalyn is my hands and feet to care for those children that I'm not there for. So she's like, "Oh, precious needs her kindergarten school fees," or, "This child leads a pair of shoes." Yesterday, Sarah has an eye infection, and I needed Rosalyn to get her some antibiotic eye drops. I appreciate her so much. And she is a single woman right now and is caring for not less than five orphans in her home. - Oh my goodness, yeah. - Mm-hmm. - She's amazing. Another one of my, they're all my favorite people. So another one of my favorite people is AB, which is short for Abraham. AB is the only member of our team that is not from the pelle tribe, he's Mendingo. So you are talking about the nepotism and tribal connection, which is also very strong in Liberia. It has taken a long time for the team of pelle people to accept AB as an equal member of our team, but they have. Not only have they, he has a high level of respect on our team. AB's role is our chief driver and mechanic, and also the person who will give you common sense answers to most problems. Mechanics will do that to you. - So he is one of the only people I know in Liberia who is preventative, like he does preventative maintenance on our stuff, feel like he doesn't wait until something's broken to try to address it. I would be so hindered in my work in Liberia without him. We have been able to help him with things his mom was sick a couple of years ago, and we were able to send some money for him, for his mother, and in other ways that we've been able to help his family. And he told me, he said, "Suspaggy, I can never repay you "for all you've done for me." And I said, "AD, what about all you've done for me? "I couldn't do anything in this country "if you weren't there to get me there safely, "and transportation in Liberia isn't improved, "but it's still horrendous." We had a tire blowout on our Land Cruiser Jeep when we were going up a hill trying, and in the time that the tire blew, we were trying to pass a large truck going up a hill. And as soon as that tire blew, I looked right at AD's hands to see whether or not he was going to maintain control of the Jeep. And he got around the truck and off to the side of the road without breaking a sweat. And while the rest of us were just trying to breathe, he jumped out of the Jeep, ran to the back, got the jack, was jacking up the car to go get it fixed. And the rest of us were like, "Oh my gosh, "we almost died," and AD's flagging down a pickup truck to go get a new tire. "I can top you on that." I told this to a group of friends. I was riding in a taxi truck, and the back of a pickup truck basically with 15 people. And the wheel came off all the way, and we were going about 65 miles an hour. So this was not minor. It was on a good paved road. And it just, the wheel went flying off. So of course the tips, and we slaw them to a stop, and it turned out fine. No one got injured or anything like that. But I told this to a group, and then another Peace Corps volunteer from Burkino Faso, country of the north. He's talking about driving much slower rate riding. He was riding in front of the pickup truck. And it was at night, the lights went out. I had none of the power of fuse went out or something. The driver panicked and bails out without putting his foot on the brake, just bails out. - Oh wow. - And so the Peace Corps volunteer has to lean over and stop the thing. It's just craziness. - I said that the most dangerous things in Liberia were the mosquitoes and some of the food, but transportation probably tops the list. I just don't think about it a lot because A.B. is such an amazing driver. He knows the shortcuts to everywhere. He has friends in every village, and he's an incredibly defensive driver. So he's always looking out for the other driver. - Would you have to be in Africa? - Yeah. - It's a much more combative way of driving that we're used to in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And folks, we are speaking with Peggy Halverson, who is Executive Director of Teamwork Africa, something that she founded close to 15 years ago. And their website is teamworkafrica.org. You can find it on the NortonSpiritRadio.org website, along with all of our guests. Past 19 years, we've been doing this work. And we try and raise up voices of people doing healing work for the world. And certainly that's what Peggy and all of the good folks with Teamwork Africa are doing. Check out our website, follow the links. Listen to the interview I had with Peggy and her husband Mark back in 2016. Find more about them and explore it. We have both linked to their Facebook page and to their website on nordonspiritradio.org. Post a comment when you visit because we love to a communication. We need to hear from you. So please let us know that you are listening and what your reactions are and suggestions of other world healing people we should pursue. Our work for NortonSpiritRadio racing up these voices is only possible and sustainable because you help us out. Donate when you come visit, if you can. And if you can't, just pray for us in any other way that you can help racing up the way that we raise up other people's voices. Again, that's on nordonspiritradio.org. There's also some 35 stations nationwide that carry our programs. And so please support them. These are community radio stations all across the country. So please help them out because when we work together, our voices are much stronger. And of course, Peggy, that's what you've been doing is bringing people together. You said way back at the beginning, Peggy, that fundraising was not your strength, was not the direction. It's like, what? Maybe I'm an incredible mother or maybe I have incredible compassion, but fundraising really talk about how you've grown through that and what roles you do. I think that early in my early visits to Liberia, I told the people, I was just so moved with what I saw and my heart was so broken with the suffering that I saw there, that I wanted to be able to come back and communicate to the people in my community what life was like in Liberia and that we could be part of making it better. So I guess my best skill is just telling the story. I have been accused many times of making people cry. So I hope my stories are funny too, but they also are really heartbreaking because there's a lot of very tragic things that happen with the families that we work with and the villages that we work with in Liberia. So I don't know if what I do is even fits anybody's model for fundraising, but what I do is tell the stories of the people that I've met and the experiences that I've had and invite people to join us in making a difference in those people and places. - The budget for Nord and Spirit Radio for a year is shy of 20,000, 18,000 is what we've been doing recently. How big of an effort are you doing there? You're talking about giving people malaria treatment for $5. So $5 in the US is Starbucks, right? - Yeah. - And there it's your life. It's kind of hard to compare dollars, but how big of an organization are we talking about? - Just for an example, like to sponsor one of our scholarship students, one of our starfish kids is $25 a month. So for $300 a year, we can make sure that they have their tuition paid. Some of those kids also get backpacks, school, shoes, school supplies. Some of our kids are on food support because they're staying with a grandma that can't feed them. So that's one of the, I mean, ways to partner. Our budget has fluctuated significantly. So it's really hard to say how big or small it is. I can say though, that with inflation are giving, we are actually under budget right now. So we could really use help in that area. We try to keep our money. Like if you give money to help with a clean water well, we send it to Liberia immediately to do that work. So we don't, everything that we can, if you send money to do a certain project, we try to do that project immediately. - Let's talk about wells. Since you mentioned the work there, I interviewed David Albert, who is with something called friendly water for the world. And one of the things that they found is, and this was my situation when I was in total, whatever water came to me, usually from well, or from the public water system in the village, there was no electricity, but they had that kind of water available. We were told we should boil it, which we could do because we had propane. Most people there had to gather wood from the somewhere in charcoal or something and cook. So it was a lot harder for them, but boil it and then filter it. And I saw things floating and growing in the water that made me very eager to do that as well. That's not possible for all of them. What David Albert has done with friendly water for the world is he's devised large filters. You can put whatever water in and it comes out clean. And it's built out of indigenously available. 90% of it is materials that they have right there. So it's a miracle. And then what they do with it is train people to do creating of these large filters that supply the community. So therefore they're able to keep a lot of people from being sick and they're giving people work because these are giant filters we're talking about in essence. So talk about wells. What's the cost to make a well there? How many of you made? What's the future look like? - The current cost for us to do a new well is about $2,500 and that is a well, a hand-dog well that is within the central area of Liberia where there's a lot of clay and if they don't hit rock, they can hand dig that well. So in the early days of teamwork at Africa, we had a partner in Texas that partnered with us to do wells. Since 2012, we have been able to dig 212 new wells and repair more than 500. Last year we did five new wells. This year we've already done five new wells and we've done 20 well repairs. So in the early years we did a lot more wells than we do now because we don't have that partnership anymore they've moved on, but we do still focus on trying to bring clean water. This is another area though that we have really readjusted because we used to think that bringing clean water to a community would give us a good introduction to the village that we could get to know the people and do our training. But actually we're gonna start doing it the other way around where we're going to do the self sustainability training first because we have found that some communities turn out to be super responsible and they're really good at maintaining their wells and they're very much already of the mindset of taking care of themselves and other communities aren't. Their wells are broken down constantly. They don't maintain them. They don't keep the area clean. They let it get broken down and it feels like not a good investment. Not that they don't deserve clean water but we need to encourage people to maintain the good things that they have and that education often needs to come first. - What do you mean by self sustainability? I have an idea but I'm wondering what you're using it as. - One of the wonderful things about Liberia is that it's at a very fertile for agriculture. There are a lot of wonderful natural resources in the country and yet it's often in the top 10 poorest countries in the world and part of the reason for that is that the people aren't thinking about how to manage their own resources to benefit their communities. We are trying to help community leaders come together to address what is our biggest problem? And then for those leaders to agree, yep, this is what we want to address and then be strategic about how to find a plan and then how to get the community involved in solving that problem and then moving on to another problem. So the idea is that they're not looking for outsiders to solve problems that they have better answers to. One of my favorite stories that we do in our training is called the Mountain Village story. And it's about a village that lived high up on a mountain but there was a really dangerous path coming down the mountain and sometimes people would fall off the path and get hurt or die. So a missions team came and decided that they needed a clinic. So they built a clinic at the bottom of the mountain so that when someone fell off or got hurt, they could get treatment at the clinic. But after years of trying to fund the clinic and supply it, the missions organization got tired and they stopped so the clinic closed. So then a church group from the big city came and saw the problem and they said, well, what you need is an ambulance because then when someone gets hurt, you can put them in the ambulance and drive them to the city and then they can get treatment. So they funded the ambulance for a while but it kept breaking down and needed new tires. And so eventually the people from the city stopped funding the ambulance. So then the community, the Mountain Village community was sitting around going, well, what are we gonna do? The missions team didn't help us and the big city church didn't help us. And one older man said, well, I had an idea but I didn't wanna say anything when all of these smarter people were here. But I was thinking maybe we could put a fence around the trail so the people don't fall off. - It's so amazing how dense we can be about what really needs to be done. And a common sense view from inside frequently gives you a better answer. - I mean, the fence was something that they could build themselves. They could maintain it themselves and it didn't cost a lot of money. So those are the type of ideas that we're trying to instill in communities that you cannot be waiting for other people to solve your problems. - When we consider our giving from the United States where even if people don't realize it, people who are poor here are rich compared to a typical Liberian. I made the comment before that one Starbucks coffee will more than pay for the malaria treatment in Liberia. Has this changed the way you, Peggy Halverson, Mark Halverson, year five kids, has this changed the way that you live here? Because I'm painfully aware when I was in Togo at one point, I was preparing some food and I lived in a compound with this other family and that's why I peeled my onion. And I was going quick so I just kind of peeled off the outer. And a 14 year old kid who lived next door says, "Well, you're throwing away all this part of the onion." And, oh yeah, I could just take the fine thing off but it was quicker to get the next layer off too. And I sit with those things now. Something that thought in a refrigerator or one piece of corn volunteer threw it out. It was a chicken, people went to eat it and she says, "No, you can't 'cause that could be dangerous." And they're saying, "Yeah, but I don't get to eat." So, how has this changed how the Halverson family lives back in Eau Claire, Wisconsin? - Interestingly, this morning when I got up and I was getting ready, I was just thinking about the fact that every day I can get up and turn on the water and I can take a shower. And when I'm in Liberia, we don't have running water. And I get to take a bucket bath when I'm there. Electricity is still really inconsistent. Last time I was in Liberia at the end of February, I didn't have electricity the entire time I was there. Like, we had a generator that we used for a couple hours at night and it was hot. Like, as hot, we had an unseasonably warm winter and they had an unseasonably hot, dry season. And so I am often just reminded about just the very simple luxuries that we have in the United States that if you don't have the opportunity to travel and see how other people live, you just aren't aware of the things that you take for granted that other people live without. So water, electricity, food to eat, transportation, quality education, healthcare. These are all things that are at risk for most of the families that we work with in Liberia. - I'm sure you've seen the bumper sticker or saying, "meme, live simply that others may simply live." I feel like I've done part of that and that it's a real stretch because to be functional in this society where you and I live means all kinds of fripperies that are completely unessential. I think that you must have had to struggle with this with your kids. I mean, here you can have a prom dress for a couple hundred dollars or this entire village can eat for a week. You know, I mean, there's those kind of things and it's very difficult to put those two in your eyes at the same time. - Teamwork Africa started when my youngest daughter was five and I think Evelyn was probably 10 then. So they've really grown up knowing, like, I used to joke that when I would tell my children to clean their plates because they were starving children in Africa, I could name them. - Yes. - So they grew up knowing the stories of the children that we were part of and the people that we were trying to help. And so I think it came somewhat, it was just part of our lifestyle. Our family is definitely unique when our kids go out and interact with other people. They're like, "Mom, our family's kind of weird." So, but most of my kids- - Hooray, I say. - Most of my kids sponsor Starfish Kids in Liberia, either children that they know or one that I've told them that has a special need. And so they very much have seen, they live there with us. They know what it was like. They saw the struggles. I'm really proud of my kids for being willing to make sacrifices and not complaining about it. Not that there's not times where they don't say, you know, though you love the kids in Africa more than you love us. Like that's been my biggest fear that they would play that card. They don't. They really understand the passion that I have for caring for the children that have been entrusted to our ministry in Liberia. Sometimes I walk around neighborhoods that are more affluent than mine and think, I did this American dream thing all wrong. Mark and I could have had a big beautiful house and nice cars and, you know, other luxuries that are status symbols in our country. But we just didn't. We just chose to live as simple as we could so we could do the work that we felt called to. And honestly, I can't think, I don't even know how to describe it. Like the joy and the feeling in my heart when I see the impact that we're making in Liberia, when moms come up to me and say, thank you so much for helping my children go to school or one of our recent high school graduates. That's just Peggy, I don't know how I can ever pay you back for what you've done for me. And I can tell her, don't pay me back when you have the opportunity to show kindness to someone in your life. That's how you can repay the goodness that you've received. I don't know, sometimes I wonder if people who live in those big fancy houses possibly feel the level of joy that I feel when I feel like I'm part of bringing peace and love into the world. And it's not without its sorrow and grief because I experience a lot of loss and sadness. And I think that's what makes the joy sweeter. I think that's true. In Quakers, we talk about some of the fundamental, I guess you maybe call them values, we call them testimonies. One of them is simplicity. And one of the things that I did the thought experiment about and I realized it, if I've been fasting, I do a three day fast at least one time a year. After that, a dry crust of bread is great joy. And when we have such abundance in our lives, we get dulled to the blessings. If you can have Starbucks coffee three times a day a year round, it doesn't mean a lot. But if you can only have it once a month, that time feels special. And I don't think people understand that by having a lot of things, we actually take away from our pleasure. That simplicity actually ends up adding to our pleasure. And that people just don't quite get that. And they think I got to have more. Yeah, that's really a lie of our culture that more and more makes us happy. I did want to talk a little bit more about values as you get this. I noticed on your personal Facebook page, your recent posting was there was a quote from Henry No one about compassion. And I was wondering if all of this time with respect to Africa has changed your compassion or was Peggy Halverson always the same compassionate person I know now. Wow, I am sure that I have grown and changed and that Liberia has affected me in ways deeper than I can ever experience. I think that probably starting with Habakkuk's death, I was given the opportunity to embrace grief, brokenness, and loss, and to see that transformed into life and hope and a future for other people. And that experience made me less afraid of suffering. So the quote from Henry No one says compassion asks us to go where it hurts, enter places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, and confusion and anguish. Compassion means fully immersion in the condition of being human. I think it's easy to be afraid of brokenness and fear and pain. But whether you can let go of the fear of it and just embrace it, we know that when we share our sufferings, we find healing. So I have found that when I can sit in that suffering with other people, then when there's a verse that says that joy comes in the morning and you can walk with people in their suffering. And then when their joy comes, you also get to share in it too. Well, you're clearly doing a lot of joy for a lot of people. I mean, the hope that you are helping grow there. And I do think it's not at all negligible the fact that you're helping them kindle their hope. If you just give someone a gift, it doesn't have nearly the value as when you enable them to find their own gifts. That has been one of the greatest joys with the team that I helped mentor. There was a time a couple of years ago when we were helping a young woman who had lost everything in a house fire. And Rosalyn said, "And sis Peggy, I'm going to give her some of my clothes too." And I said, "Oh, but Rosalyn, you don't have very much." I mean, and she's like, "But sis Peggy, you give things to people all the time. I want to give things too." It was such a blessing to me. Another time we were organizing some things to get ready to go to a trip into the interior. And Rosalyn said, "Oh, sis Peggy, we should bring some birthkits with us. Can we bring birthkits for the midwives and the village?" And I was like, "That's a great idea." And it was just for them to be initiating ideas on how to help and serve people in their communities is the most beautiful thing for me to see. One of the programs that's not on the website right now is our youth mentoring program. We have youth programs for both boys and girls. We have four, almost five groups that are meeting right now where Rosalyn and Ophelia are training the girls and they get together and talk about right now they're going through a series on the teachings of Jesus and trying to discuss with the girls what that looks like. How can they be more like Jesus in their lives and in their communities? And we have groups for boys doing the same thing, where our goal is to teach boys how to become men of integrity and how to grow up to protect and respect women, because that's not a high value in their culture. And my hope is that by being role models, by living a life of goodness in front of them, that they will feel like, "I want to be like that too." For someone to say, "I want to be like you." Is it both a blessing and a burden? Because I want to make sure that I'm living a life that's worth following. When you've got schools named Imago Dei, that's a phrase I'm familiar with because I was raised Catholic. I think you have Catholic influence back before you were five. Clearly, there's religion there. Is this specifically a parochial school? Are there not governmental schools? How does this all work? And what I'm really wondering about is, you said that Teamwork Africa is a Christian group, or it comes from a Christian mission. All right, I don't want to put words in your mouth. How big is that piece? I mean, sometimes a Christian missionary group, their main work is to recruit new members for the church. I don't have that sense that that's what you're doing. No, sometimes there's a pressure to be more evangelistic or to focus on church planting. But our focus is really to be people who are following the way of Jesus and invite other people to follow that life too. Like to follow a life of goodness and love and peace and joy. A/B is from a Muslim tradition, and yet he exemplifies that life like nobody else in Liberia. So many of us in our group follow the Christian tradition, but we invite anybody who wants to follow that pathway of peace and love and joy to join us. In Liberia, there are public schools, but they are terribly funded, and the teachers are often not paid. And so there's a lot of corruption, and it's very difficult to get any kind of quality education in a Liberian public school. So almost all of the good schools are Christian schools. There are a few Muslim schools. They're not very prevalent in the communities that we work in. So our schooly Mago Day, that is Latin for the image of God. The goal for our school is that we would come to respect the image of God in each other and to love one another the way Jesus has loved us. So you're saying it's a Quaker statement. The most common Quaker phrase is we see that of God in everyone. And because of that, our connection, our respect for our work for one another. And of course, that's what you're doing with a Mago Day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How has this changed your religious spiritual path? You raised Catholic or something for the first five years of your life, and then what happened? And then my family started to attend Evangelical Church. So I grew up with a very strong Evangelical tradition. And in my high school years, I participated in more charismatic tradition. And so I haven't had the opportunity to be in a lot of different Christian traditions. Through teamwork Africa, we visited many, many types of churches. So I've got to see mainline churches and more progressive churches. And I think I'm really grateful for that side of the work that I do. Because I get an opportunity to see people experiencing and connecting with God in a variety of traditions. So I think that's really helped me to readjust my narrow view of how people connect with God. And not to think that the way that I connect with God is the only way or the best way. I've actually learned a lot about how to see God in different traditions or from different perspectives. I've really leaned into trying to respect those ideas and to try to not think that my ideas are right, but that I want to be a learner and learn about how other people see the world and to respect that position. My guess, I haven't actually looked at the statistics on it, is that Liberia is primarily a Christian country. I know Sanagal around the coast and upwards is primarily Muslim. Togo, where I was in the Peace Corps, further around the coast there, was in late 70s when I was there, was about 10% Christian, 10% Muslim and 80% animist. So very different cultures we're talking about. Because you say people like Habakkuk and Michael, I assume that they already had that Christian influence. And by the way, a fair amount of my travel in Africa over the last 20 years has been to East Africa, Kenya, the Congo, Rwanda, that kind of place. And there, those are countries which are primarily Christian and there's a fair number of Quakers and a couple of them as well. So am I right in saying that Liberia is primary Christian, that that's been its history? I struggle with those statistics so much. Because yes, I would say the majority of Liberia has been exposed to Christianity. But I would say the majority of Liberians are not following the way of Christ. It depends how you want to define what a Christian is. If a Christian is one who attends church, then sure, there's lots of Christians. But if you say a Christian is one who follows the way of Jesus, then I would say there are not many. Actually for myself, I prefer to call myself a follower of Jesus and less so attached to the idea of Christian. Because in our country, Christian can mean something very different. Yeah. Of course, your husband Mark works at a Christian radio station, WWIB. Somehow he was able to go back to working there after taking off. He quit and you were gone for two years, but they welcomed him back. They really like him. So they were very glad to have him back again too. Because he was really glad to have that opportunity. He loves radio. You must love radio too. So it was really nice that he had opportunities to do that again. I have to say, Peggy, and I don't know if this has been the feedback you've gotten all around, Mark is super well-spoken. He's got gifts that way. But you do too. And I guess you haven't chosen, when you said you weren't a fundraiser, well, wait a minute. When you're in your natural mode, you're one of the best speakers I know. Thank you. I am passionate about talking about Liberia. Actually, in the early days, I probably talked about Liberia too much and people got sick of hearing me talk about it. So now I wait to see if someone asks me about it. But I've studied the history of Liberia and the stories of Liberia and the politics of Liberia. And my heart is very much there. From the earliest times, I believe that people would compliment me on the work that I was doing in Africa. But I would say that God has prepared each one of us for a role that He wanted us to play during our lives and that I have had the opportunity to know what mine was and to follow into it. And I think that one of the reasons why there's so much brokenness, sadness, and even evil in the world is because not enough people find the thing that they were meant to do and do it. I'm thankful that you're doing it. I'm thankful that you have a partner in your husband, Mark Alverson, in doing it, that your kids have come along and become full partners and seen their own way clear to lift up the world that way. I'm thankful for all of the work of Teamwork Africa. And again, folks, that website is teamworkafrica.org, linked on NorgonSpiritRadio.org. Thank you so much, Peggy, for doing this, giving your life to raising your compassion and finding that of God in all of these people and raising it up. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk about my passion for Liberia and the work that we're doing through Teamwork Africa in that country. It's been great to be with you. One more time, folks, the website teamworkafrica.org. We'll see you all next week for Spirit in Action. The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World" performed by Sarah Thompson. Check out all things Spirit in Action on northernspiritradio.org. Guests, link stations, and a place for your feedback, suggestions, and support. Thanks for listening. I'm Mark Helpsmeet, and I hope you find deep roots to support you to grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world home, and our lives will feel the echo of our evening. [BLANK_AUDIO]