"It's depressing," said Luke , "but really you can't even think about how depressing it is because you need to be so focused on others." He reports unaccompanied children wandering the streets with no sense of where to go, women walking and weeping over what they have seen and experienced, people dying of cholera, and hundreds scavenging for food. The suffering is simply immense. Today they made a visit to the offices of the YMCA and found them completely ransacked. The stench of dead bodies permeated the entire building, and soon they uncovered the sources as several bodies were still in the offices and needed to be removed.

Tomorrow ACT partners will gather for a planning time as they think through the response. ACT partners around the world have responded quickly — $50,000 of rapid response funds were sent from Geneva, Church World Service sent in health kits, canned meat and blankets, DanChurch Aid has sent in a couple of vehicles and plastic sheeting, and 96 tons of humanitarian aid arrived at the airport today from Norwegian Church Aid. PDA forwarded $10,000 to Sierra Leone so materials could be purchased more cheaply in the region and transported in immediately by partners. In addition we are putting together a rice shipment from Arkansas.

The immediate next step will be to try to get people into IDP (internally displaced people) camps. It is far more effective to work with people in clusters and then prepare an orderly return to their homes. Despite all of the destruction around them Luke reports that people are hopeful if not a little optimistic. They know that over the coming months it will be essential for Liberians to decide what they really want and then begin work together to build a stable country. They now have a chance.

Susan Ryan Coordinator

Please keep the people of Liberia in your prayers.