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Day’s Journal
There’s one thing to remember
as you read these daily notes and that is that I will allow my emotions to
show along with, hopefully, my humor.
The purpose that God has for this trip is real and important. God is working in Liberia and He wants us to join
Him in that work. I understand that
there will be ups and downs. If we
remain faithful to the call God has given us, then only obedience to Him
will be used to determine the ultimate success of this trip. So keep in mind that I’m sharing my daily
life, thoughts and emotions with you and they are not filtered to fit into
the “politically correct” church talk that many times says everything is
perfect when it’s not. Also I,
Rodney, will be writing much of what you see here but I will do my best to
entice the others from God’s Kids to contribute as well.
The primary focus of this
trip is for Service To Service help God’s Kids in identifying, starting and
managing businesses that will help the various orphanages they support to
provide a portion of their own funding.
These businesses also become a training ground for the orphans to
learn business skills and be able to start and run their own businesses
upon leaving the orphanage. This is
one way that God’s word is spread.
Here’s who will be going and
a little about their background:
Ridge Burns –
President/CEO of God’s Kids.
Dion Quinn – Founder
of God’s Kids. Dion is President and Owner of
MSI/HVAC in Fontana, California.
Ken DeWitt – Ken
is business management consultant from Redlands, California.
Ken will be leading a leadership seminar while in Liberia.
Katie Barkley – Katie is an event planner for the PGA and
has an interest in planning and executing some events for God’s Kids this
year. She wants to experience the work in Liberia firsthand in order to
better plan/run these events.
In Liberia:
John K. Kpewoan – God’s Kids Liberia National
Director
Jackson Quenisear – God’s Kids Liberia Agricultural
Director
Christine Tolbert-Norman – President
of R.E.A.P. (Restorative Educational Advancement Program) and Board member
of God’s Kids Liberia
Gayla, lucky woman that she
is, got breakfast in bed this morning before leaving for Life Group
training at our church. Take a
moment and pray for our church as a building has come available in an area that
we ant to be in and wisdom is needed to know if it’s the right place and
the right time.
I finished getting packed
after Gayla left and made the first update to the website. Things are looking good. I want to be at the airport in plenty of
time in case United has trouble with the flight. If you get there too close to departure
you can’t get moved onto other flights when trouble arises (I missed my Brussels flight two trips ago due to a long delay on
the flight to Washington
DC). As I check in everything looks good.
Spoke too soon. After I’ve been sitting at the gate for a
half hour I hear an announcement saying the flight I’m on is delayed 1.5
hours due to mechanical difficulties in Chicago.
I raise up to the podium and get behind 3
other people. A 1.5 hour delay will
cause me to miss the flight to Brussels
which means I’ll miss the flight into Liberia which only runs about
twice per week. Inside I’m feeling
some stress but I’m trying to be calm in waiting for my time with the gate
agent. He’s a young guy but very
calm. He moves through the people in
front of me without ever becoming flustered which, in turn, seems to calm
the passengers. He moves me to
American Airlines going through Chicago and
then to Brussels where I (dare I say it)
will join up with the team for the flight into Monrovia.
Thank you Lord.
It’s
7:41pm Central time (not sure what the time is here as I’m not sure where
here is. I regret that I was not
able to meet up with the team in DC like originally planned but let me tell
you one good thing about this change. On United I had to take 1 of the last 2
seats available upon check in. It
was either the next-to-last or last middle seat on the plan (packed like
sardines). By getting rerouted onto
American I have both seats on my row to myself for 7.5 hours of flying. Unless you’ve made a trip like this you
really can’t appreciate what I just told you. THANK YOU LORD!
I’m trying to get the website
ready to upload at the first possible connection I can afford (seems like
it was $30US when we came back through Brussels last time so I will likely skip
that one). I’m adding pages for
John, Dion, Katie and Ken although I’m not sure
if they will use them. Here’s
something else to keep in mind. It’s
much easier to get the journals written and on the web than it is to get
the pictures on the website. So you
may have to go back to an earlier day to see its pictures.
You can send an email to any
member of the team at my email address rodney.edwards@servicetoservants.com.
Put their name at the beginning of
the subject line and I’ll pass it along without reading it (I promise).
I’m sitting here thinking
about my director friends who make Service To Servants possible. Chuck, Dave, Beccy, Richard, Matt and,
most of all, Gayla. We have a
conference call meeting every week for an hour and everyone is busy on
their own personal duties with STS during the rest of the week. No one gets paid (here) but I believe the
rewards will be great later. I say “no
one gets paid”. When you think about
the orphaned children who now have a home, the pastors and business leaders
who are better trained, the other ministries that have goods delivered and
the coming business start ups, I think the pay is pretty good for all of
us.
I’m also thinking of Janet
Gibbs. She’s an older lady who
taught at a couple of universities several years back, retired and spends
her time going around the world teaching poverty stricken women how to have
a better life and how to know Jesus Christ as their savior. The Bible never mentions retirement so I
guess Janet hasn’t felt obligated to quit serving. She heard I was going over and sent 2
boxes of diabetes testing strips for me to take to Emile
Sam-Peale, head of the Baptist convention in Liberia. As our pastor says at the end of each
sermon, “if God is going to touch somebody this week He will use our hands”.
Thank you Janet.
My “job” this week is to help
God’s Kids identify business startup opportunities that could help the
various orphanages they support become less dependent on the U.S. for
funds. This isn’t so that God’s Kids
can stop funding orphanages but rather so that they can fund even more. I’d ask you to pray that God will show
favor on this effort and that I’ll see this through His eyes rather than my
own.
Every time I go to Liberia it
becomes more and more apparent that God wants this country for Himself and
that He’s giving us an opportunity to join Him as he works here. It is very definitely possible to win this
country for Christ. What a great
opportunity as we are given access to government, religious, educational
and business leaders at very high levels. Let’s don’t let this opportunity slip
away.
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Day’s Journal
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