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Well, it’s the day that I
leave Liberia
for the return trip home. I must
continue to say that God has heard your prayers and He has answered so very
many of them already. It is
incredible what has been accomplished and it is just as true to see that
God did it without any help from me except that I was simply there. Over and over God opened doors to people
with whom I had no part in contacting. Contacts came from everywhere, both inside
and outside of Liberia,
and it was amazing to watch it happen. For me it was almost like an “out-of-body
experience” since I had nothing to do with making them happen
but simply sat there and watched God work.
This morning I woke around
4am. It’s time to go home. I’ve done everything that I know to do and
the trip has been wonderfully successful in spite of me. I go out on the porch in the dark and sit
for a couple of hours meditating on some passages and praying to God for
several of you. Some of those
prayers are in thankfulness for victories recently won and other for
victories that will be won in the future. I would ask that you each join in praying
for Richard Morris, a member of our board of directors and a Liberia citizen who has been in the U.S. with
his family for many years. He is
having trouble getting his VISA renewed and it is becoming serious.
As it begins to break day
people begin to stir in the house and outside along the roadway. Traffic is picking up but the horns haven’t
starting blowing in earnest just yet. That will come soon.
I haven’t mentioned it in any
of the writing so far but I’ve been fighting off stomach problems for about
a week. I’m always careful not to
drink the water here because it has some bacteria that is no consistent
with an average American’s system (you can work into it but it takes longer
than 2 weeks). Nothing serious but
just the always present threat of nausea. So I stopped eating almost anything except
some crackers that Gayla sent with me and a few of those “create-your-own”
tuna snacks. That has worked okay
and God has been faithful to answer my prayers to keep me well enough that
I could get through the committees formation meeting. I brought along a prescription bottle of
antibiotics specifically to help with this type thing but antibiotics are
so needed here that I try not to take them so that I can leave them for the
clinic. It worked and I’m still
okay.
Gertrude knows I’m being
careful of what I eat so she just brings me hot tea this morning which I
drink while eating a pack of crackers (you need to eat something in order
to take the Malarone malaria medicine). The breeze is cool and I sit and enjoy it
with the children on the porch. They
love the feel of the hair on my arms and head as it’s so much softer than
theirs. Those that know me
understand that being rubbed all over by young children is something I have
to work at to endure. I wish my
brother Fred was here to enjoy this with me.
At noon we load up the one
bag of clothes and stuff that I’m taking home with me and start for town. I tell Gertrude and the others goodbye for
now. I will see them again in a
couple of months.
Rev. Albert Stewart had asked
if I would take a couple of letters back with me to mail in the United States.
The Liberian postal system basically
does not exist. Mailing a letter and
receiving a letter by mail are both almost guaranteed to fail. I’m sure that this will improve in the
future but you can only move so fast when you’re trying to recover from
total devastation of your physical and governmental infrastructure. By the way, the government just passed
their 2006 – 2007 national budget. It totals $129,000,000. I don’t know for sure but I believe that
the budget for our county back home is a good bit higher than that. So you can see the problem that they are
facing. Rebuild the building, power
grid, water system, military, police force, road system, etc., etc. … and
do it on that small amount. We
really cannot grasp that here in the U.S. It will take a lot of outside assistance
from other countries. And they are
lining up (China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, etc.) to “help” as long
as they can have the natural resources and/or souls of the country. The Christian people of the United States
are missing a key opportunity to impact an entire country for Christ.
There was only one letter
from Rev. Stewart so we took that and moved on into town to find Ben Amos
and see if he had been able to get our Articles of Incorporation signed by
the Foreign Minister. They have been
on her desk for a couple of days. We
cannot move forward in securing a duty free status without the incorporation
paperwork completed. The president
is speaking at the graduation ceremonies of the United Methodist
College and, we
learn, where ever she goes all the cabinet ministers go as well. So we do not have the Articles prior to my
departure, much to my regret (I got a call from Shadrach the next day
saying they were complete). The
difference between having a duty free status or not can be $1,000 or more
dollars per container we send.
I want to pick up a little
something for my family while here so we look around down town at the shops
that are everywhere. There are
really not many things made inside Liberia. Almost everything is imported. They do have some beautiful wood here and
I get a carved giraffe for Gayla, carved figures of women with baskets on
their heads for the girls and a necklace for Luke (not sure if he’ll wear
it or not). We’re supposed to be at
the airport for check in at 3:00pm so we leave Monrovia at 2:00 and start for Roberts
International which is about 30 minutes drive away.
Upon arrival we get my bag
and sit under a shelter with a hundred or so others waiting for the
terminal to open. The check in area
is very small so they come and call you when a particular flight opens for
check in (there’s only a couple of flights each day going to various
places). At about 4:00pm they allow
us to check in. The number of people
going on this flight is actually very small so the check in process is not
bad. The security, while not up to U.S.
standards, has improved dramatically over the past year. You first go through a baggage search,
then into ticketing, then to an exit process (two separate desks) where it
is recorded that you are leaving the country and then through the final
metal detector and carry-on baggage check. Really not too bad. After that you sit in a waiting area until
the plane arrives and unloads. Finally
you line up and walk out to the plane and board. Pretty straight forward for Africa.
The plane is up and off at
about 7:30pm (supposed to leave at 6:50pm). It’s dark so I can’t see anything. It seems that it’s always dark when I fly
in and out. We’re off for Brussels, Belgium
with an interim stop in Dakar,
Senegal. The plane is only ¼ full so things are
quite comfortable.
We arrive in Dakar about 2 hours later. We do not have to deplane and should only
be on the ground about an hour. The
people start to board and there are a lot of them. The skin color for most is more like that
of the Hispanic people than Africans. Not sure where they are from but
apparently Dakar is a big vacation spot for
part of Europe. Just before leaving the terminal the pilot
comes on and says there is a problem with one of the (two) engines and it
will take a half hour or so to check it out. Okay by me if they make sure it’s working
before takeoff. After a half hour or
so they come back on to say that some type of pump is bad on an engine. That’s the bad news. The good news is that they have a
replacement part and it will take about 2 hours to fix. They decide to feed us while we’re on the
ground (they feed you constantly on these flights). We eat and wait and in about 2 hours or so
they have it fixed. We have now,
however, missed my connection to the U.S.
which only had a 2+ hour period between arrival and departure in Brussels. Strangely enough I am not
apprehensive. I would rather be
stranded in Brussels than Dakar.
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