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Day’s Journal
I slept until 7:00am this
morning (1:00pm Central time) and it was a wonderful sleep. I’m sharing a room with Ken DeWitt from California and he
didn’t complain (much) about my snoring.
We had a wonderful breakfast
of eggs, ham, coffee cake, fresh pineapple and other goodies promptly at
8:00am followed by a morning devotional by Ridge from II Timothy.
After that we loaded up into
two vehicles for our visit to the Freeport of Monrovia. We were welcomed by the Managing Director,
Mr. Togba G. Ngangana and the Deputy Managing Director Mr. Dogba Yassah. Since getting containers cleared through
the port is such a challenge, we spent the first part of our time
discussing ways that we can make the process smoother. One prospect that Mr. Ngangana mentioned
that was on the distant horizon was a “one stop shop” where you can go to
do everything necessary to clear a container in a single location. He also spoke about the challenges that Liberia
faces in making the process fair and straight forward. His open and honest attitude was a fresh
breath of air in dealing with the port.
We discussed the need for a document that explained the process of
moving through the container clearing process. Mr. Ngangana said that he had a draft of
the process underway but didn’t know when it would be finished or
published. I promised that if he
would complete it Service To Servants would pay to have a quantity printed
up as our service to the Liberian government. I think he is excited and will work to
finish the document soon. Among the
God’s Kids and STS group we discussed the need to have a shared resource
among the Christian ministries operating in Liberia who is an expert in
working containers through the port system. Ridge recommended that we first check with
the larger ministries (World Vision, etc.) and see if they already had
someone. So we’ll likely go that
route first.
The second topic was the
prospect of placing a barge in place to deliver goods and people up and
down the Liberian coast. There was a
tremendous amount of excitement about that prospect and both men were very
helpful in working through the potential difficulties that might be faced. There are 4 ports open along the Liberian
coast at this time which are (from north to south) Monrovia,
Buchanan, Greenville
and Harper. The road situation is
very bad all year around but even more so during the rainy season. Providing a way to move goods from Monrovia to the other
port towns could go a long way in developing the economy of the outlying
areas. There’s a $500 - $1000
docking charge at each port so to hit all 4 ports in a round trip would
cost somewhere between $2,000 and $4,000 in dockage fees. There are also unloading charges that are
based on various things like the volume, weight, etc. We were not able to access the market
demand or pricing at this point but I think it is sufficient to say that
people are looking for a way to move goods around without having to use the
current road system.
We also discussed the
requirements to provide transportation of containers from the port to their
delivery location and there isn’t any requirements at all other than that
the truck be properly registered with the Liberian government. This may also become a revenue opportunity
for us.
The Director then had one of
his people give us a walking tour of the port. I was in the port about 3 years ago and
things have improved dramatically. We
watched a ship full of rice offloading nets full of 110kg bags of rice for
transportation out of the port and we saw a container vessel that was
offloading shipping containers as well.
After leaving the port we
visited 3 different orphanages that God’s Kids supports. Each seemed to be well run and the
children seemed to be happy and cared for. God’s Kids provides varying levels of
support to existing orphanages and start with small monthly amounts,
evaluate the progress and how the support is used and then, if things are
in order, expands the support. That
seems like a good way to work to me.
In every case there was a great need for generators at the
orphanages. I explained to Ridge
that STS was likely to begin a generator repair and sales business this
year and that the generators were very heavy duty and long lived. He seemed excited and is considering
sponsoring the first shipment of 20 units. We would then use this as a training
ground for young Liberian Christians to learn the repair, sales and service
business. We are supposed to spend
time tomorrow discussing some businesses that could develop perpetual
funding for their work in Liberia.
We left the last orphanage
and went through Monrovia
on our way home. God’s Kids – Liberia needed
some office supplies so we went stopped in down town. While they were picking up supplies the
rest of us went and confirmed our flights out on SN Brussels for Sunday. Then we went back to the guest house at
Christine’s
Tonight we had a dinner of
chicken, rice, potato greens with fish, corn casserole, fresh pineapple and
short bread. As usual, everything
was great. The God’s Kids Liberia
board of directors are having a meeting tonight so the rest of us are journaling,
relaxing and writing for the website. It’s about 2:00pm your time as I write
this but, since I will not write to you again tonight, have a very good
night and pray for our wisdom as we plan for the coming year.
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