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To finish up yesterday I’ll
add to this page.
We had a couple of packages
brought over from the U.S. and after delivering the packages we were going
to stop by an internet café so that I could catch up on 3 days without
contact. Finally, we were supposed
to meet Ben Amos, the shipping broker, back at the house to discuss the
cost of getting the container out of the port, delivered to the water
business site and placed.
Well, this is Liberia so
nothing planned ever goes just the way you think. Ben Amos called and said he was on his
way. Fine, we’ll meet with him for
30 minutes or so. Fortunately for
the students but unfortunately for Ben’s travel situation, many of the high
schools held graduation today. So
Ben was held up in traffic for perhaps 1.5 hours. We did meet with him for about 30 minutes. So we go down to an internet café around
8pm to print out 6 pages of incorporation documents and 1 for the container
contents. That takes a while as my
computer doesn’t have the driver for their printer and their computer has
one USB port so we have to switch back and forth between the USB drive that
I’m transferring documents on and the printer. Finally we have them printed. I connect to the internet using my laptop
and wait, and wait, and wait. The
satellite connection must have been degrading badly because I tried for
over 1 hour to send 5 small emails (less than 100k for the largest). I think 3 made it out and I gave up on
the other two. It made me long for
the dial up speeds we have at home.
I’ll try again at another location in the morning.
The broker/incorporator has
really helped us reduce the prices a lot.
I think I mentioned earlier that he was handling the incorporation,
accreditation and duty free filings for $650. Shadrach added an extra $100 on for Ben’s
expenses and for a rush job. If the
duty free gets processed correctly it will save us at least $850 on this
first container. So you might say
we’re getting the work for free (Gayla saves me money like this all the
time).
The container processing was
equally good news. Here’s a detail:
Consumption
Entry Fee $ 10
Duty free
form filing $ 100
Entry
processing – Finance Ministry $ 10
Entry
processing – Customs $ 100
IPD Form $ 25
Delivery
order $ 150
Letter of
Indemnity $ 50
Container
form fees $ 20
NPA
handling $ 151
Weight
Bridge $ 20
Loading $ 20
Transportation
to delivery site $ 225
Port
documentation $ 50
Manager
check $ 5
Forklift
to unload and put into place at business site $
200*
Vehicle
escort fees $ 100
Miscellaneous $ 20
Clearing fees $ 250
Total if International duty
free exemption is granted $1,506
Fee if
container exceeds 25 tons $ 150
Romac fees (if international duty free not received) $ 250
Customs duty (if
international duty free not received) 3% est. $
600
Potential additional fees $1,000
Maximum container processing
liability $2,506
* Not actually a part of
clearing the port but is installation related since we’re keeping the
container.
So at 10:30pm we’re back home
and getting ready for bed.
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Okay, on to today’s
happenings:
We got up and ate
breakfast. Gertrude is overfeeding me.
I’m complaining that everyone will expect me to have lost 15 lbs. again
and I will have gained.
After leaving Careyburg we drove to an internet café in town and got
very good service. I was able to
pull down all 100+ emails that had accumulated as well as send key emails
out plus upload pages to the website.
So hopefully I will be able to stay reasonably current from now
on. This internet location was cool,
clean, used new equipment and had a reasonably fast connection (for Liberia). The cost, using my laptop, was $2 US per
hour (in the London Marriott it was $10 US per hour). If you used one of their PC’s or Mac’s it
was more.
We left the café and stopped
by the Pentecostals of Liberia headquarters where we met with Albert Stewart.
We had a great meeting and he reaffirmed his commitment to serve on
the pastor’s committee. He had
recently been within a few miles of the Children’s Village in Sinoe but didn’t know it was so close so didn’t visit
Shadrach there. One thing I have
come to realize is that everyone in Liberia knows Shadrach’s
mother. Shadrach just has to mention
his mother’s name to start a 10 minute conversation about some event or
happening that she was involved in.
After leaving Bro. Stewart’s
office we drove over to meet with Major Bob Dixon of the Salvation
Army. I kidded him about having to
do all of David Bearchell’s work for him (making
contacts with the Army and Wesleyan folks) but Bob defended him saying that
David had already laid the ground work and that he had been contacting
others about the Crown event. (So
David, I most humbly apologize.) Bob
is a member of the Liberia
Counsel of Churches (a group of various denominational leaders that meet
each month in Monrovia)
and had contacted their general secretary, Benjamin Lartey,
about calling a special meeting of these leaders to hear about the
conference. We made contact with
Bro. Lartey later that day and he’s to call us
back with a time/date. Please pray
that this works out as it accomplishes much of our work in a short
period. Major Dixon was happy to
join the pastors’ committee and I feel confident that he will be a great
asset in service there.
After leaving the Army (with
permission, not A.W.O.L) we stopped by the headquarters of the Methodist
church to see if we could catch up with John
Russell as the phone number we had did not work (it turns
out I had written a digit down wrong but we won’t talk about that). This was Bro. Russell’s day off but the
folks in the office there helped us get the number right and we called him
at home. He is meeting with us
tomorrow at 10am. After leaving the
Methodist headquarters we went to meet Robert Cuppah
with ECUL, and a personal friend of Richard
Morris, to talk about his ability to serve. I went through the full presentation of
STS, Crown and the blessing of having him serve on the committee. He was still up for the job and we had a
wonderful meeting. I tried to “get
some dirt” on Richard from him but he only had good things to say.
After leaving Shadrach
mentioned a pastor named William McGee that he felt would make a good team
member since he had good influence with the Evangelical Alliance of Liberia
churches (I may have some of these groups backwards but my brain is small
and doesn’t hold that much anymore).
So he called and set up a meeting for 4pm.
We then left for the University of Liberia to meet with Debey Sayndee.
He is a pastor and a teacher at the University. We had a good meeting with Debey and I
was excited at the contacts he had within the current government. He agreed to serve on the
Business/Governmental Leaders committee as its first meeting. He will also begin making contacts on the
governmental side to help pull them into the conference. I can’t see why any government would want
its officers to participate in training that teaches strict honesty and
integrity. I am praying that God
will give His favor on this aspect of the conference as I see great
opportunity to teach strong biblical financial principals to those who will
be governing the citizens of a country in need of roll models. Debey is attempting to set up a meeting
for us with a key governmental leader on Wednesday (he will meet at 1pm
tomorrow to make his case for this meeting). Please pray at 8am central in the morning
and 9am eastern that this meeting will be successful.
As we left the University
Shadrach shyly asked “Brother Rodney, would it be alright if we got a little
something to eat?” I must confess
that, when busy, I frequently forget to eat. Many times at home I will get up, rush
off to work without breakfast, forget to eat lunch
and then arrive home and find that I’m absolutely famished. Today’ meetings had gone so well that I
had forgotten all about Shadrach, Jeremiah and Elijah not having any
lunch. Full of guilt, and knowing
Shadrach loves Chinese food, we stopped at one of a burgeoning number of
Chinese restaurants. When we walked
in and they had A/C, very nice facilities and cloth table covers and
napkins I told Shadrach, “We may have bitten off more than we can chew
coming here.” When they brought the
menus it turns out that I was right as most items were $15 and higher. We finally settled on chicken and pork
fried rice at $6 each (it turned out to be a very large portion, cooked
extremely well and full of meat and some delicious black mushrooms). I also, before knowing the quantity of
meat in the fried rice, ordered a large appetizer so we each could have
some meat ($12). As it turns out I
couldn’t eat all of my rice and gave the rest to Elijah as he was the first
one finished. Although spending $45
(including the $5 tip which Shadrach couldn’t believe I left and,
apparently the little Liberian waitress in the Chinese uniform couldn’t
either since she snatched it up the second I put it on the table) wouldn’t
draw a second look in the U.S. it seems absolutely obscene here where a
common laborer’s pay for an entire day, if he can get work, is $2 or less. This Crown Financial Ministries’ teaching
about God being the owner of everything and me just being the steward has
me rethinking the way I act back home.
After leaving the restaurant
we drove to the ELWA compound where we had a great meeting with William and
his wonderful wife (I want to say her name is Fanny but I could be
wrong. See explanation above). They listened attentively, said that the
timing was good and agreed to serve on the committee. William works at the program director for
the ELWA Christian radio station. So
he will also be key in helping us get the word out
about the conference.
So, we’re finally back home
and the ladies immediately bring a pot of rice and a second pot of meat and
gravy in big enough to feed the Edwards’ family for a given meal. I’m still full of Chinese rice so I’m
putting off eating again as long as possible. Gertrude and her sisters are always
bringing me 2 – 3 times as much food as I can eat. Also, when I returned to the room tonight
they had straightened everything, made the bed, swept the floor and made
things look very neat and clean.
They also picked up my dirty clothes this morning for washing. I am sure they will show back up tomorrow
sometime folded and nicely arranged.
Gayla’s coming over with me for the Crown
event and I’m hoping this will all rub off on her. (Come to think of it, she already does my
laundry, cleans our room and feeds me well.)
I want to let you know that
your prayers are important and that I believe God has answered many of them
already. Thank you! Please continue to pray tomorrow for the
favor of God to rest of these meetings.
The two Liberian committees are the most important part of the
conference’s success (after God’s favor that is).
I will email you more
information tomorrow.
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