​"Fire!! Fire!!"

The word echoed through campus, more and more voices joining the chant. Bobbing lights quickly headed into the darkness, straight for the burning field as students yelled back and forth.

"Grab buckets! As many as you can find!"

Kenneth stuck his head in our doorway and grabbed the stack of buckets we had raced to find, and calling the older boys to come and help, quickly disappeared again into the darkness, buckets in hand.

He and Selah had headed out to Camp Four that evening to take Selah's friend home and were shocked to see the huge yellow flames off in the distance. It was probably just a regular burning that had gotten out of control, but it had quickly engulfed an entire field across the road from ABCU's property. After arriving back home, Kenneth had immediately walked out into the darkness to check and see if it had spread.

"It's probably not on our property, but I'll just take a look," he had said.

Finding what he had feared, he quickly called another professor at the dining hall while he waited at the edge of the field where the fire burned. Within minutes students were running to the fire and cutting palm branches, lining up to attack the rising flames. 

"We are the ABC fire department!" they sang as they beat at the flames, girls and boys next to each other, swinging their palm branches at the glowing fire. Within 15 minutes the fire was out, and the "fire department" trouped back, still singing, now victoriously, at the top of their voices.

What a night! And what a courageous group of students we have at ABCU. We are thankful that they rushed to the fire, not away, saving our gardens and palm trees from further damage. Today rain fell for the first time in over two months, and the next week will bring new green grass to cover the burns of this week. 

Thanks for following along on our adventures! 

If you haven't already, check out our YouTube channel for random videos of our lives. Some are short devotions by Kenneth, others are clips of places and things we see here in Liberia. Enjoy!

It's been a good week of getting settled back into old schedules. Kenneth is​ teaching three classes, coaching two teams, and continuing to pass on responsibilities that he resigned from last semester. Along with this, we have all enjoyed seeing students we've missed and are excited to meet new ones as well! The campus is lively and busy with visits from faculty, staff and students peppering our days. 

This past weekend we were able to host new friends from Monrovia who drove over to bring a new student. They have several teen daughters, and our kids had fun laughing and talking into the wee hours. They wound up extending their stay an extra day in order to squeeze in a few more hours together. We are thankful for new relationships for our kids and for ourselves!

Selah and I often find time for a walk in the evening and are learning how to make sourdough bread together. We both miss having the other girls around, but thankfully, we enjoy each other's company! She loves sunsets, music, makeup and sports and can always be found with a song in her mouth. She is truly a joy to have around! Believe it or not, she's about to start driver's ed, and I am just not sure I'm ready for her to be that grown up!

We were excited to welcome some new professors on a short-term basis this semester. Our school has an amazing faculty and staff, and we are proud of each of them! One of our goals for the year is to have a family or individual over for dinner at least once a week. Our desire is to build such a strong community among our faculty that it feels more like a family here than a job. Pray for us as we work towards this goal!

Kenneth continues to be given more opportunities to preach with this week alone bringing two! He is an engaging preacher, and the students often talk about his messages for days afterwards. Last semester he was asked to speak in chapel and showed up dressed in his soccer clothes, baseball hat and tennis shoes! Liberians take proper attire very seriously, and this was definitely not acceptable! The students were whispering and murmuring as he walked up front, hat on backwards. He kept them in suspense for a good part of his sermon, and they sat in obvious discomfort as he pretended to be oblivious. When he finally acknowledged that his attire was part of the message he had to share, there was a good bit of laughter and sighs of relief as the tension was broken. That was a sermon they won't forget quickly!

We continue to covet your prayers as we serve this semester. For those of us at home all day, Kenneth's long hours and busy evenings can feel difficult after years of having him working upstairs in our loft. We were spoiled!

We also pray for more opportunities to be involved in our community outside the gates of ABCU. The Betty Jonah Orphanage just outside Yekepa is a place near and dear to our hearts, and we hope to be able to spend more time there this semester. 

We love you all and thank you for your prayers! We pray God's favor and blessings on you as you head into this new year!

With love and blessings,
​The Williams

​It's been a while!

I made some New Year's resolutions for 2025, and one of them is to be more consistent with updating our blog! I find myself putting most of my pictures on IG or FB, and although that works, I am more and more often finding that I have more to say that a simple post can hold. Some blogs may just be photos of the week, but I am resolved to update WEEKLY, so feel free to check back often.

If you get our newsletter, which many of you do, you know that we had a full Nov/Dec with a new granddaughter joining the family as well as visitors from the states. After our friends left, we were "stuck" in Monrovia for another week, waiting on our car. Thankfully our serious car problems happened while we were already at the guest house, so we were able to extend our trip into a long, relaxing vacation at the beach. This was actually really needed after our first very busy year here in Liberia. We met several other missionary families and were able to visit a local church on Sunday thanks to the invitation of one of them. Our New Year's party was a bit dialed down compared to the party we usually host, but we enjoyed the bonfire on the beach (who wouldn't??) as the boys all played football late into the night with their friends. We are grateful for new community and relationships as well as a beautiful place to wait for our "new" car.

We got back to Yekepa this past Sunday afternoon and are enjoying seeing students trickle back onto campus as they register and get ready for classes which start this coming Monday. Kenneth resigned from his job as campus director and is looking forward to a year with more time for relationships with the community and the students as he focuses on teaching and coaching. Investing in our faculty, staff and students is one of our priorities going into this year, and we are thankful to have Kenneth home more as we look for opportunities to do this together.

More next week!

​Happy New Year from West Africa!