NATCHEZ — If you look on the walls and tables of Charlie and Nelda Thomas’ house on Ratcliff Place in Natchez, you’ll see paintings and carvings that represent the continent of Africa.

But the best representation of their love of Africa is the family portrait hanging in the living room.

There, mixed in with the Thomas family’s white faces is a strikingly beautiful teenage African girl who the Thomas’ adopted five years ago after making several mission trips to the country of Liberia.

The girl, named Yei, is now 19 and is currently in a job training school in Crystal Springs studying to get her GED and become a nurse.

But that is a far cry from where she was just a few short years ago.

Nelda Thomas met Yei when she first went to Liberia on a mission trip in 2001.

When she brought Charlie along with her the next year, he got to meet Yei as well.

When I was there I bonded with this girl and when he went with me he bonded with her as well,” Nelda said. “She has a way of capturing a person’s heart.”

The couple wasn’t able to go back to Liberia in 2003 because a civil war going on, so when they returned in 2004, they found the country, including the mission they worked at, in shambles.

They looked for Yei and found her life in shambles as well. Her father had died in the war.

“Her mother had abandoned her as a baby and her father had died, so she was living with some aunts, uncles and cousins,” Nelda said.

“She asked Nelda if we could bring her to the U.S. and when Nelda asked me about it, I said, ‘Well, if that’s what we have to do, we’ll do it,’” Charlie said.

But the decision didn’t come without a lot of thought and prayer.

“We prayed for several months about it before we decided to go through with it,” Nelda said. “The adoption process took a year, but in 2005 (when Yei was 14) we were finally able to bring her to the U.S.”

But even then, Yei had some struggles.

She was diagnosed with a one-and-a-quarter-inch hole in her heart and had to undergo open heart surgery in 2006, which saved her life.

“If not for the surgery, she would only have lived a few more years,” Charlie said. “The health care in Africa isn’t good, so she was never diagnosed with the hole until we got her to the States.”

Her health wasn’t her only problem. Because the African education system is so poor, Yei was at just a first-grade learning level when she arrived in Natchez.

“A lot of things kids have drilled in their heads when they are young, she had none of,” Charlie said. “She had no background of education or mind development.”

And that meant she had to go through grades with much younger children.

“It was really hard for her,” Nelda said. “She went through the first through eighth grade in four years. The public schools bent over backward to accommodate her needs, but the school experience became bad because of the teasing.”

Yei finished her eighth-grade year at the Natchez Children’s Home, and then went to the job school in Crystal Springs to earn her GED.

While the education part was difficult, Yei had an easier time adjusting to the new culture, thanks to the support of the youth group at Jefferson Street United Methodist Church, where the Thomases attend.

“She had a lot of awesome support from the church,” Nelda said. “She was active in the church youth group and that really helped her adjust.”

Yei has also gotten support from her new family, as Charlie and Nelda’s children from previous marriages have all fallen in love with her.

“We went up to Wisconsin this summer to visit my family with Charlie and a couple of friends,” Nelda said. “Yei wanted to spend time with the kids and learn about them. She got to make a snowman, which after being raised on the equator, was quite an experience for her.”

The Thomas’ have been back to Africa a few times since they adopted Yei, and took her back with them once.

But they said she has no doubt where her home is now.

“When we got to Africa, she looked at me and said ‘I might just stay here,’” Charlie said. “I said ‘You know that after a day you’d be looking for an airplane to get on to go back home.’ And she was.”