mr. Barbara Franciscan missionary of
Mary I am the oldest speaker tonight and
have been here thirty nine years and
that’s unbelievable i’m only 45 years of
was young American vivacious health
worker who thought she was going to cure
every single disease in nimba county
well I’ll tell you I soon learned i got
my strength of my courage from the
people at st. mary’s clinic one of my
job was to train traditional midwives
being a midwife myself I knew how
important it was to have safe and clean
deliveries the traditional midwives were
doing the best they could with a culture
they could in the way they could but the
syllabus for training traditional
midwives would have taken close to a
month every day of the week for eight
hours and these women didn’t have that
time they were farmers they had to be on
the farm farming was their life so they
agreed in all the villages around they
would spend one day a month staying in
the village to learn safe delivery
one day a month from their farm work
which was important for them to stay
alive to learn safe deliveries and thus
everybody asks me all the time when they
you stay hopeful you stay positive well
I am a religious I’m a woman of faith I
have faith and hope also in the Liberian
people in the past 39 years I have seen
the good I’ve seen the bad and I’ve seen
the ugly I have looked at evil in the
war I to I my faith wasn’t not always
strong I’m sorry they became weak
especially in the war time I joined MSF
doctors without borders from dannon a
where the Franciscan missionaries of
mary had set up camps for the refugees
than ivory coast and we went into Kakuta
in cackler I saw insanity I saw people
being inhuman and yet i would spend
nights listening to the rebels and their
stories and they were horror stories and
they were real but the Liberians did not
give up and i would not give up i define
resilience in this way when you’re
overwhelmed you’re exhausted you’re
trampled down you’ve had it you’re fed
up and you get up
that to me is resilience one day we took
three weeks inside of Calcutta one week
out to keep our sanity actually and one
day I went out to dannon a and the
sisters were having a retreat so i
decided i will take the retreat and into
the retreat the priests know me very
well I said to him honestly I’m sorry my
faith is extremely weak if I have any at
all with the horrors I’ve seen I’ve lost
my faith in God I do not understand how
he can let this all happen I’ve lost my
faith in humanity and myself you know
what he said to me he said Barbara let’s
go for a cold beer I said huh he said
let’s go for a cold beer I said no
meditation no prayers he said cobia so
he went for a cold beer but he listened
and I talked and I talked and I told my
story and I cried and I cried my faith
I’m sorry remained wobbly for quite a
while and i returned to Kakuta you have
to understand in Calcutta at the time in
the war they were i was stationed at st.
Christopher’s Catholic Church a compound
and it was really a hostage camp
Ghanaians and Nigerian nationals mostly
there were three camps st. Christopher’s
slow Commission and South Phillip Joe
and my job was to distribute rice and
food because I spoke a little mano so it
was easy for me to go to the border talk
to the small pickings and get food in so
we distributed food also we distributed
packages to those who walked from
Monrovia and here’s how my faith came
back one day I was sitting at a distance
and the registration line was there and
honestly speaking the lines after a
while became grey and people just were
walking they were coming in registering
taken that package and going but one day
I looked and I saw these huge legs
swollen infected oozing and I looked and
I walked over and there was this mama
with child on a right and a child on her
left and I said mama what’s your name
she told me her name and she said this
is my daughter told me her name I said
bye mama what about the other child oh
she said I call her spirit I said spirit
and so I listened to her story she
walked from Monrovia to fendle from fan
till he got risky so they had to move on
and walk to Khattak kakuta now Monrovia
the Capitals 90 miles walking whose legs
wouldn’t be swollen but when she was
walking from fendle to kakuta she heard
this crying off the road and in those
days you walked like this you didn’t
look right you didn’t look left you just
kept on walking but she took that chance
and walked off into the bush into a
house and she said it was all dead
bodies with the child in the middle
crying she picked that child up and she
walked on to Kakuta and thus my faith
began to grow and I said to her but mama
how how did this happen she looked at me
and she said sister God day God day God
is there
from this woman I begin to believe again
in liberians and resilience and didn’t
we learn that in Ebola didn’t we
everybody huh everybody was afraid
bodies here bodies there 13 years of war
Ebola epidemic overwhelmed overcome
liberians got up this is resilience for
me I sister Barbara a Franciscan
missionary of Mary am a woman of faith I
believe wherever I am sent I’m sent to
the people who I am sent to to be prayer
present and to be today here and now i
am sent to the people of Liberia I thank
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music] Oh