Report from Liberia

Sunday, February 17, 2013 – The alarm woke me up at 7 am even though I wasn't quite ready to get up. I did have a restful night's sleep even though I didn't get to bed until around 12:30 am. (I did have to get up in the middle of the night and turn off the A/C. I tried to adjust the temperature setting before I went to bed, but after sleeping a couple of hours, I woke up freezing.)

After I got up, I read my Bible, prayed, and then took a shower. What a great start to the day – we have "hot" water!! This morning I had to apologize to God for forgetting the small blessings of life, like having hot water for my showers. I think that one of the major lessons that God teaches us when we are on a mission trip is to remind us how much we have been blessed. Thank you Lord!

We ate breakfast this morning in the hotel's restaurant. Darryl had the egg breakfast (four fried eggs) and Ernie and I had Spanish omelets. The breakfast was very good AND we had hot coffee! Another blessing!

During our drive to Ganta yesterday, I couldn't help but think back on my past two trips to Uganda and sort of compare the two countries, or at least what I was seeing of them. Liberia is in much worse shape than Uganda, which I thought was a very poor country. Obviously, the many years of civil war and unrest has broken this entire nation and they are a long way from having recovered from its effect. There is no landline telephone anywhere. No functioning electrical grid except in the capital city. Most highways are full of potholes and badly damaged. The people here really live in extreme poverty. Yet, this morning when we worship with them they will most likely rejoice, sing, and praise God from a heart that is truly joyful.

Could we Christians in America "rejoice" like this if all of our "stuff" were taken away? I'm not so sure we could. I believe that our problem is with self-sufficiency. We want to rely on our incomes, our wealth, our possessions, and not on God's provision! We somehow think all of our blessings come from "us" and not from God. Thus, we really don't trust God enough to rejoice in both the good and the bad times. This morning, I read Philippians 4. Here Paul says we are to "Rejoice in the Lord always.." (vs. 4) and then says that "I have learned to be content in all circumstances.." (vs. 11). Let this be my mantra today – to Rejoice! Thank you Lord for everything – the good and the not so good!! Through it all, I will bless your name and rejoice in you.

Ernest, our driver, arrived on time and we left for church at 10:45 am. They were just finishing Sunday school when we arrived. What a great service we had! It started promptly at 11 am and ended at 12:30 pm (very good for most African churches I've been to). They sang, worshipped, danced, and joyfully praised God throughout the service. Ernie preached on "The cost of being a disciple" and he did a fantastic job! I was somewhat surprised though? They took up three (3) separate offerings during the service. I did not find out why, but will ask someone tomorrow about it.

After the service was over, we met with Pastor Alexander Freeman and his wife to go over the plans for our teaching on Monday through Thursday. There has been a slight change of plans. Instead of teaching 2 ½ hours each day, we now will be teaching six (6) hours per day (2 hours to 3 different groups). What they have done is to break down the larger group into three (3) smaller ones. This is actually a better way for the people to learn, ask questions, and it does enable me to do more group activities than I had planned. However, it is not so good for us. Oh, well? We will definitely be tired when we get finished tomorrow afternoon.

After our meeting, we went back to the hotel (around 2 pm or so), ate some lunch, and then Ernest picked us up to go visit with a church that Darryl has been working with for several years. He had bought them some guttering material for their church building last fall but no one from the church knew how to install it. When we left the hotel we (Ernie and I) thought we would only be looking at the project and coordinating with the Pastor about getting some men to help us later on in the week. But, to our amazement, when we arrived the Pastor already had some men there to help do the work. So, we worked on installing gutters until around 7 pm and then came back to the hotel. We did get a lot accomplished, but will have to go back and spend a couple of hours tomorrow evening to finish the job.

After I got back to the hotel, I spent a couple of hours reviewing my lessons and checking my computer, slides, projector, etc., in order to be ready for tomorrow. Ernest will pick us up at 8:15 and we should begin teaching (Lord willing) at 9 am.

Today was a great day! We had a wonderful worship service and we met a lot of very nice people who really love the Lord. Continue to pray for us as we begin our lessons tomorrow. Also, Ernie's bag is enroute (we hope) and should be here sometime tomorrow. It is to arrive in Monrovia at the airport this afternoon and be brought up tomorrow. Pray that it does indeed make it. Ernie really needs his lesson notes that are in it, plus there are also a lot of other items, like phone and laptop chargers, etc., that is in that bag that he needs.

Thanks in advance for your prayers. Blessings from Ganta!

Fred