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Day’s Journal
The night flight from Atlanta
to Brussels is, as always, very tiring with little sleeping due to the
tightness of the seating and general excitement.
We arrive into the Brussels’
airport at about 7am local time. Our
flight out to Monrovia, with a stop in Dakar, Senegal, leaves at 10:40. So we should have plenty of time to make
the flight and get a nap in as well.
(We usually find a spot in one of the gates and lay down on the
floor for a while.) There is one
problem in that Delta did not check Dave’s luggage all the way to Monrovia. His luggage was checked only to Brussels
which means that he has to go out through customs, claim his luggage, take
it back to the ticket counter and then clear back through security. Sometimes you get a lazy check in agent
and they just do enough to get you to the next stop. Beccy, Gayla and my bags were all checked
through to Monrovia.
In the process of getting
David out through customs, I mistakenly go too far and have to clear out
with him (the customs agent would not let me go back). So Gayla and Beccy are left to make their
way to the gate while Dave and I go through the baggage claim and check in
process. It actually goes very well
and takes maybe 30 minutes or so. But
when we make our way back to the gate Beccy and Gayla are nowhere to be
found. So Dave stays with all of our carryon luggage and I start walking around
looking for “the girls”. They are
not in Terminal B where our flight departs so I look around back in the
main hall outside of Terminal B.
They are not to be found.
After some more searching I conclude that they must have gone to
Terminal A by mistake. So I ask some
ladies at the SN Brussels counter how to get to Terminal A. They give me directions but really don’t
want me to go out and miss my flight.
I explain that none of us are going anywhere without the girls. So she suggests that we page them. Sounds good. She puts out a page but when it comes
through over the speaker system it has such a French accent that I hardly
recognize it myself. After a few
more minutes I start over to Terminal A and immediately find them right
where we left them, at the customs area.
So the world is at peace again and we go to Gate B 1 to find Dave.
By the way, at the gate there
are about 10 people from the Carolina’s going into Liberia for some mission
work. I met several of them at a
meeting in South Carolina (I think) several years ago and one of them, Gene
Brooks, writes a blog about missionary work in Liberia at mission-liberia@yahoogroups.com. David, Beccy and Gayla spend some time
getting to know this group while I’m off finding an electrical outlet to
charge my laptop. It takes an
adapter to use European plugs as theirs has two long, round things that you
stick into the wall instead of the 2 short, flat ones that U.S. plugs have.
Finally it’s time to board
and everything goes well. We’re on
an Airbus A330 which has a good bit more legroom and more comfortable
seats. Add into that the fact that
we haven’t slept in 24 hours and everyone takes a nap pretty quickly. As I wake up, the flight attendants are
serving drinks and then following up lunch.
The two choices are beef tips and fish. We’re about half way to the back and they
are out of fish by the time they get to us.
So we have beef tips with cuscus, salad, rolls, cheese and chocolate
mousse. One thing that happens to
you on the flight from the U.S. to Monrovia is that you eat and drink
constantly. I think the airlines
want you full and sleepy so that you’ll leave them alone. So far it’s working.
I’m sitting with Gayla and
Dave is sitting with Beccy. Dave and
I need to spend some time together so we’ve agreed to change seats… as soon
as Beccy wakes up… if Beccy wakes up.
As I type this we are about
half way to Dakar. We stop there to
offload and load passengers but we do not have to deplane. Once we leave Dakar it is about 1hour 40
minutes on into Monrovia. So I’ll
let you know how it goes.
We arrive at Robert’s Field
about an hour late. Most of the
people got off in Dakar so there’re only 50 or so people left and, for my
first time ever, most of them are white.
Normally there are many Liberians on the flight but, for some
reason, not tonight. One interesting
thing that happened as we are deplaning.
The guy in front of me overheard me talking to one of the South
Carolina crowd about what we would be doing during our trip. He asked who we were and I started
telling him a little about Service To Servants. The minute he heard our name his face lit
up. “I’m here doing some mission
work as well and I shipped 30 cartons of books to you guys just before I
left.” He was so thankful for the
shipping service that we provide. He
said that they were told not to even attempt to ship goods over unless they
could send it through us. As it
turns out, he’s here to help Issac Wheiger who heads up the Wesleyan Church in
Liberia. We had dinner with Issac about 2 weeks ago while he was in the U.S. Small world.
It’s dark by the time we land
and we make our way off the plane and into the immigration and customs part
of the building. In every way, this
was the smoothest experience of coming into Liberia. The plane trip was good, the immigration
portion was good and the baggage claim process was great. Laurence had his man inside the baggage
area with a sign that read “Service To Servants”, I connected with him
(Muhammad) and he took care of collecting our bags and working us through
the customs process. We walked
straight through without any opening of our luggage. (I didn’t ask how, I just appreciated
it.)
Upon exiting the terminal
building we were met by Laurence and Robert. Each had a vehicle and collected our
things and the four of us and off we went to Laurence’s for dinner. A special treat was to have Emma, Robert’s
wife, with us. We have never had the
pleasure of spending time with her.
She’s an accountant here and us accounts
have to stick together.
On the ride from the airport
(by the way, tell Bro. Howard that we were picked up by the truck that
Suwannee Baptist provided… complete with the STS logo on the side) we found
that the roads have gotten worse but should be getting better soon. The soccer stadium has been completely
rebuilt by the Chinese complete with powerful lights and a huge high
definition scoreboard. The road from
the airport takes you right by the rebuilt stadium and it was part of the
grand re-opening celebration.
Fortunately we had missed most of the traffic and crowd. You pass the stadium. ELWA and then you
reach ELWA Junction. Turning right
you head toward Red Light but turn off to the left onto Police Academy Road
to get back in to where Laurence and Christine live.
The supper (dinner to those
of you from up north) was wonderful.
Esther is a great cook (a close second to my Mama and my favorite
cook on the African continent) and had yam soup, fresh pineapple, tuna
& macaroni casserole, seasoned rice, and cold water (a favorite while
here). The yam soup is a special
recipe from Christine’s mother. It
is very good.
Ridge Burns, executive
director of God’s Kids, was at Laurence and Christine’s along with 3 other
men. So Ridge and I were able to
reconnect a little. He’s leaves in
the morning but we were able to speak about providing some generators to
orphanages that they support. The
folks at Crossroads Community Church provided funding for generators to go
to orphanages and we want the best orphanage ministry folks we know to
provide the ones that receive the units.
Ridge and his organization also are closely aligned with REAP and
STS is working to help REAP secure property for a youth training facility.
After a great meal and time
spent visiting with the Cuppah’s and Laurence, we
left for the Baptist Compound where we will stay for the first 3
nights. Robert and Emma sat with us
for a while as we unloaded our bags and settled in. Tomorrow we get started in earnest.
I’m writing this on Monday
morning so I can tell you that a rain storm blew through during the night an cooled off an already reasonable temperature until I
was cold during the early part of the morning.
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Day’s Journal
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