Liberian refugee passes on the blessings he has received

Robert Glaybo still doesn’t know how he survived Liberia’s civil strife more than a decade ago.

Well-known for his pleas from the pulpit for peace, he was beaten severely by armed forces who told him they would come back to finish him off.

“Why were so many others shot right on the spot? Why was I not killed?” he asked. “It was God’s protection.”

Glaybo, who became a U.S. citizen in December, may not know exactly why he was spared, but he knows blessings are meant to be passed on.

The 73-year-old resident of Carol Stream and volunteer at People’s Resource Center in Wheaton has become a friend and mentor to other West African refugees — guiding them through adjustments to life in the United States, steering them toward the aid available at PRC and helping them prepare for citizenship.

“If I can help someone get back on their feet, moving forward, that’s what life is all about,” he said. “I don’t count anything else more valuable to me than to be a channel of blessing to someone else.”

Jennifer Williamson, director of development at PRC, said she first met Glaybo through her church.

“I’ve been really inspired on a personal level by Robert’s perseverance, dedication and compassion,” she said.

Fleeing the fire

Glaybo remembers happier times in Liberia before former rebel leader Charles Taylor came to power. The West African immigrant was a teacher and principal in an elementary school for 23 years, from 1960 to 1983. Leaving to work on Bible translation, he spent 20 years putting the Bible in Bassa, his mother tongue, and finished the work after he arrived in the United States in 2001.

Educated in mission schools, Glaybo knew English, Liberia’s official language. Involved in church planting, he had traveled to the United States in 1980, 1985, 1995 and 2000 to raise money.

Those connections served Glaybo well when he was forced to flee his country. To stay would have meant death, not just for himself, but for his wife and six children, he said.

“The hardest thing was to leave my family in the fire,” he said.

Glaybo arrived in Philadelphia in June 2001 and moved to Wheaton a month later to stay with a friend. A year later, he was working for World Relief to help other immigrants settle in this country.

Through his work with World Relief, he became acquainted with People’s Resource Center and took computer classes there.

“In Liberia, you can hardly find a typewriter,” he said.

Helping others

Glaybo’s wife, Edna, joined him in the United States 4½ years after he arrived. She now works in a nursing home and Glaybo, who is unemployed, said they still sometimes use PRC’s food pantry to supplement their income. Glaybo expresses amazement at the generosity of Americans he has met.

“Back home, people who I had known all my life were after my life,” he said. “You come here, people you have never met meet you for the first time and the first thing they ask is, ‘How can I help you?’ I will never get over that.”

But Glaybo knows that adjusting to life in the United States still can be difficult, and said he tries to bridge the gap between the help refugees receive from World Relief to the time they can make it on their own.

“He’s been very involved in helping to encourage other West African immigrants to visit People’s Resource Center,” Williamson said.

Glaybo, who is currently without a car, also is working to start a citizenship class at the Carol Stream apartment complex where he lives. He has written a book of poems he hopes to publish, with one of the pieces titled “Freedom Oh Freedom.”

“Here you are at liberty to express your opinion without getting into trouble,” he said.

Glaybo said it hurts him when he hears of immigrants breaking the law or of young people cutting classes in school.

“It makes me cry,” he said. “If you have any talent at all, this is the place to put it to work. The opportunity here is so vast.”

Glaybo said conditions in Liberia have improved since the country’s first female president was elected in 2005. If he had the funds, he would like to visit the country where five of his children still live, he said.

“My situation is like transplanting a full-grown tree,” he said.

But that tree has clearly taken root as Glaybo works to help others as he has been helped. Those who pass on blessings receive more blessings, he said.

“God does not make a mistake. He knows where to put it,” he said. “If we improve the little sphere we occupy, the world will be a better place.”

For information on People’s Resource Center, visit ">www.peoplerc.org.