|
View Today’s Photos Next
Day’s Journal
Today was a different day. I have spent each day with the God’s Kids
group so far and it’s been great being allowed to trail along with them. They are concerned with quality and
understand that solving today’s immediate needs will not substitute for
making the changes necessary to benefit these children in the future. Today I will be off on my own in order to
catch up with several of the people that I need to see. I do plan to meet back up with the group
at 2:00 this afternoon to spend some time with Laurence’s brother, the
Deputy Minister of Commerce and Industry.
I woke up around 6:00pm (I
said I wouldn’t be up so late again last night but it was almost midnight
when I left Laurence on the porch doing still doing emails and went to
bed. I took my bath this morning
rather than last night (I know honey, I’d sleep
better if I showered before bed).
Christine was nice enough to
schedule her best taxi driver, Matthew, to drive me around today. He showed up around 9:00am and we left
about 9:30. For a taxi driver Matthew
is calm and careful. And the way
people drive has really settled down to an almost survivable situation.
We went first to pick up
Robert Cuppah, a friend who did a wonderful job of marketing on the Crown
Pastors’ Committee last year. Everyone
who has met him is impressed with his desire to get things done right. Robert would stay with me all day.
Since Pastor Wesley’s church
and Equip Liberia
were just around the corner from Robert’s, we stopped there first. Pastor Wesley was not there yet but Robert
showed me the new Crown Liberia
office that Pastor Wesley had provided for the new Crown Liberia
administrator, when chosen. The
office is being freshly painted, has tile flooring and its own bathroom. Thanks Pastor Wesley for your continued
generosity.
Just around the corner from
Greater Love Baptist Church is Equip Liberia. David Waimes was
out but his gracious wife, Audrey (as in Hepburn) was there and we spent
quite a while discussing the businesses that might work good in Monrovia
along with many other items of interest as well.
Upon leaving Equip we went to
ELWA to take care of a couple of things. We saw James Kesselly,
the director of ELWA, and delivered the QuickBooks Pro software that Chuck
had picked up. It was good to see
James again and he was appreciative of our support. We left James and drove a few hundred
yards over to see Dr. Rick Sacra
at their new office (I think it used to be the carpentry shop). It was good to see him, his wife and two
other ladies that help with the work that SIM does.
We left ELWA and went to Red
Light, turned right and went to the Liberian Ministries
cold water and ice business for a little while to see Jeremiah. It looks like they are selling a good bit
of cold water but they haven’t gotten the ice part figured out. They have added an additional compressor
but can’t get the water to freeze. After
talking with Jeremiah I think the problem is that their expecting the first
freeze to happen overnight and with very few bags of water inside. I believe it will take 2 days with a lot
of water inside and not opening the door to get the first true freeze. After that they can take ½ out and leave
the other half in each day to keep the frozen mass that’s necessary to keep
the temperature down. Cooling air is
very difficult.
Jeremiah took us to see the
new rental house (the old landlord doubled our rent because he new Shadrach
had money due to “all the white people who came there”. That’s pretty common in many parts of
Liberian culture right now. We also
saw Shadrach and Gertrude’s new house that has the walls up but no floor or
roof yet. It’s a 3 bedroom, 3 bath with a kitchen and living room. The layout looks serviceable and things
seem to be moving along.
We left Jeremiah at the cold
water business and headed into Monrovia to
visit Providence
Baptist Church.
It’s their 187th anniversary
(I think) this week and they have many things planned. Dr. Reeves was out but we met with
associate pastor James Harris who wants to make the trip to Firestone with
us. He attended both the Pastors’
and Business Leaders’ conferences back in November. We couldn’t get our conference books due
to Dr. Reeves being gone with the only key to the storage closet but pastor
Harris took us down to his office for a soft drink (should I have to say it’s
a “soft” drink?). People here always
try to give you the best they have and he gave me an Extreme Energy Power
Drink. I think it was 60% sugar and
60% caffeine. I may not sleep for 2
days.
I had a meeting with the God’s
Kids folks at the Deputy Minister of Commerce & Industry’s office so
Robert went to take care of a little business up the street while I went to
the meeting. John is the only one
that was able to make it as the rest of the crew were
delayed getting in from the last orphanage/farm that they visited. The deputy minister, Pete Norman, was a
gracious host and provided us with some very good information about his
department’s involvement in the container clearing process. I think we’ll be more competent as we
continue to learn more. He also made
a call to get us to the right person in the Planning Ministry so that we
could “push along” our duty free status process. Robert had to be at a 3:00pm meeting at
the Justice Ministry where his sub-committee of the Crown Liberia committee
was meeting (one of their members is a judge) so I asked our driver to take
him there and return for me. John
and I went to the Planning Ministry and met the other God’s Kids folks
there. You could tell that they had
had a tiring but exciting day. I’ve
never heard so much excitement about a garden before in my life. We finally found the right office and a
young lady pulled out a list that showed Service To Servants had be
processed and sent to the Finance Ministry for payment. We have to go to the Finance Ministry and
make the payment and then return the receipt to the Planning Ministry who
will then issue our Accreditation as an NGO. Following that, I think, we go back to
another department and they actually issue our duty free status. Ben Amos, who we hired when I was there in
July, is supposed to be continuing this process in my absence. God’s Kids’ name was not on the list but
that could mean their attorney has already handled this or that they are
stuck somewhere. I think they will
find out tomorrow what their status is by meeting with their attorney.
Matthew came back for me and
we went over to Alphonso Perkins office who is a special assistant to the
vice president. He is also a church
member and friend with the Minister of Transportation. I dropped off the radio ministry and usher
ministry materials that I had brought for him and he arranged a meeting for
us with Transportation Minister Sulunteh for 9:30
in the morning. We’re going to talk
with him about issues like public transportation in order to find out if
there’s a way for STS to create businesses that will also serve the needs
of the Liberian government. I’m
excited about this meeting.
Matthew and I leave Mr. Perkins’
office and go back to Providence
to get the books for tomorrow’s Crown conference at Firestone. What a great thing when people are asking
you to come and share with their pastors what God wants from us in the area
of finance. Ever since we announced
in July of last year that we were doing a conference in Monrovia, the pastors of Firestone have
been emailing and calling asking us to bring the teaching to them too. They work 6 days per week and can only
come in the evenings. So Robert has
designed a 2 evening format that allows them to be trained.
Finally we leave for home. Matthew drops Robert off at his house
where we will pick him up again at 1:00 pm tomorrow. We proceed to Christine’s where we beat
the God’s Kids group in by 5 minutes. Dinner is served an hour later (redundant
to say excellent again but it was) and then we meet for about an hour as we
discuss next steps. Basically the
God’s Kids folks agree that they will continue on doing what they do best, assist orphanages, and that agriculture will be their
primary focus for the near term. STS
is set to assist them with available generators and to offer shipping and
clearing services as we build the expertise.
Well, once again it’s nearing
midnight and I’m still updating the website. Pray for tomorrow morning’s conference
with the Transportation Minister that it will be totally God filled and
totally not Rodney filled. Also pray
that the first night of the Crown conference at Firestone will be life
changing for those pastors who attend.
Good night.
View Today’s Photos Next
Day’s Journal
|