L.A.C.E.S.: LACES liberia Leagues close for the summer

Well the first year of LACES in Monrovia has officially closed. On May 12th we graduated 20 of our coaches from the LACES academy, and 31 children from the program. The week before at our monthly Children’s Gathering we announced who the graduates of the program would be, and you could see the sadness in the kids faces who were graduating and the cheers in the background of the children who would be continuing with the program. So far our program has graduated 51 children, and many of our coaches and staff have expressed that they would like to find a way to continue to have our graduates to continue to be apart of our program. The recent proposal that the LACES staff in Liberia submitted was forming a LACES Alumni team. They would like to choose 20 children to stay under the umbrella of the LACES program and continue to evangelize to them, and teach them morals and values. They also thought it would be a great avenue to create what looks similar to a Big Brother, Big Sister program. They would help encourage the younger players, and assist the current coaches with their teams. It was encouraging for me to see the coaches and staff really express a deep care for the children they are coaching, and it showed me how much this program is really taking root into the hearts of the coaches and children here in Liberia. So I have promised them that I will do my best to make their dream a reality.

So what’s next??
Our staff in Monrovia which I am not sure if you have formally meet yet, but I loved the smile on his face way too much not to share it with all of you.

James Moore is our Program Manager who will be spending the next two months along with our Mentoring Coordinator preparing and assessing new areas for LACES hopeful expansion next year. Our hope is that we can add an additional 200 children to the program and expand to impact two new communities.

Our kickball and soccer leagues in Konia commenced last Friday and will continue until July. Jenny has done a great job of implementing the program, and empowering our community coordinators to lead the coaches in the LACES philosophy. There has been a few requests to see some photos of the girls playing kickball. The best I can do right now is give you a picture of them practicing.

Jenny and I (Seren) will be returning home to the U.S. the first weekend in June (which is just in time to miss the insane downpours that occur during rainy season). We have many stories and personal testimonies to share while we are home, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to share them with each of you personally. I will be returning to Liberia in August (strategically at the end of rainy season ) just in time to commence the second year of LACES Liberia.