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Day’s Journal
Today is our last day in Liberia. Breakfast has been pushed back to 9:00am
so that people could sleep in a little.
That doesn’t do me much good since I’m typically an early
riser. Plus it gets hot by 6 or 7
each morning since the generator, which is running our a/c units, goes off
at 3:00am. Dion was voted to go to
Christine and request that it be left on until 6:00am today. She agreed and it stayed much cooler in
the rooms. Don’t get the wrong idea,
it’s not cool like we think of air conditioning but rather it takes some of
the humidity out of the air and takes the temps down into the 70’s where
you’re pretty comfortable.
So Ken and I woke around
6:00am this morning which gave us a little more sleep. But I’ve been tired all day so far. I think it’s the 5 nights of getting to
bed around midnight or after. Maybe
I’ll be able to sleep on the plane some.
We leave tonight at 9:40pm (I believe) and it takes about 8 hours to
get to Brussels. We have a 7 hour layover there but Dion
is talking about getting a couple of rooms so we can all shower and rest a
little during that time. I’ve never
considered that but it does make sense.
I’ve always been too cheap to spend the money I guess.
Our breakfast at 9:00 was
good, as always, and we enjoyed the time together. Ridge, Dion, Katie and Ken have all been
great to be around this past week.
They are not just servants, but intelligent servants. I’d say we will find a way for Service To
Servants to help in some way or another.
We left for church at The
Lord’s Table orphanage. John
Kpaeawon is the pastor as well as the head of the orphanage and director of
God’s Kids in Liberia. He seems to do a good job in all of these
roles. We were warmly greeted, the
church was packed and the singing and message were all good.
We came back to Christine’s
around 1:30pm for our final meal together.
Dion, Ken, Katie and I will be leaving tonight at 9:40pm on the
flight back to Brussels. Ridge will stay another few days to
follow up on work here. I’m missing
my family and it will be nice to be back even though I’ll leave the
following morning for New Orleans
and work. I have a wonderful wife
who tolerates my abandonment with grace.
Alphonso Perkins called and
was unable to join us for lunch but promised to help us locate some
property. He’s recommending the Roberts Field Road
(road to the airport) area as there’s more land available in larger
quantities. I’d like to be closer in
if possible. We were talking to
Laurence about ocean front property and he said it runs $1,000 USD per lot
(1/4 acre). I’m hoping we’ll end up
with 10 acres, close into town with the front on the highway and the back
on the beach. That’s asking for a
lot but, as one of my finance professors used to say, “as long as we’re
wishing we should wish for something big”.
We’re really not in the wishing business and our Boss has unlimited
resources so we will see if what He wants is what we want.
We said our final goodbyes
for this trip and left with Ridge in the Nissan crew cab truck. John met us at the junction and we
transferred bags into his truck. I
road with John and it gave us a little more time to visit before we flew
out. At the airport we had the
easiest time that I’ve ever experienced.
They seem to be getting things under tighter control and the cattle
drive mentality seems to be lessening.
For the first time we were not there 4 hours early. When we arrived people were already going
into the ticket counter. John had a
man in security at the airport that took us on for the check in process. They gathered out luggage while we got in
line, carried it through the bag check area (apparently you can take gallon
bottles of liquids through if you want) and went in with us to the check in
area so we didn’t have to move bags around.
We had our passports validated and then stood in line to check in.
One funny thing, there was a
really big woman (tall and wide) dressed in an attractive, all white outfit
and she had a young child with her.
She had 4 pieces of luggage which would have been allowed (2 each
for her and the little boy) but when the baggage handler managed to lift
them onto the scale they must have weighed double the allowable
weight. Katie was going to move the
smallest one forward for her but almost dislocated her arm and still
couldn’t move it. When the check in
lady told her she was going to have to pay an overweight fee she got all
huffy and tried to refuse but that went nowhere and she finally had to
pay. By the way, did I mention that
she had left her bags in the check in area and then, right when we were
coming up to check in, walked back in and said she was there first? She gets no sympathy from me for her
problems. It’s about time someone
told her no (of course it wasn’t going to be me as I’m certain she could
have squashed me like a bug).
We finally got checked
in. It’s much better than it used to
be but they could still used some improvement. Then you go through the clearance area
where they record, I guess, that you are actually leaving the country. Then through another carry on check. Then into the waiting area. I as was going through the second bag
check they announced that they were boarding our flight and the security
people got all excited and told me to go on without being checked. Needless to say there’s some
inconsistency with the security process.
So we walked right into the seating area and into line to
board. Poor Dion, he’s flying
business class and we’ve teased him incessantly about mingling with us
“little people”. It doesn’t bother
him enough to give up business class however.
One final bag check and metal
detection wanding takes place as you exit the waiting room onto the
tarmac. Katie started to open her
bag but they said, “no, just tell me what’s in it.” “Everything” she asks and begins naming
every item she can remember. He
quickly waives her on.
A second funny thing. The plane is maybe 50 yards away but they
have a bus there that you have to get on and then they drive you over to
the plane. It took 3 times as long
just to get on the bus as it would have to walk to the plane. Even the Liberians thought that was
funny.
Dion’s in business class,
Katie and Ken are in the front of economy with aisle seats and I end up in
the middle near the back. But… it’s
a bulkhead seat so everything is working against me. (I do have to give Katie credit. She offered to take the middle seat and
let me have her aisle seat. Come to
think of it, Ken even made the offer because he was going to sleep. Come to think of it again, Dion didn’t
offer to trade.)
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