September 2nd, 2007 Assessment Trip to Liberia and Sierra Leone

Hi Everyone,

It is Sunday night, the 2nd of September. It has been a busy week on Monday I visited another village where we have done some Community Health (CHE) work and some sanitation and well work. It is amazing to see the difference between villages where we have done just one type of work compared to where we have done the combination of CHE, Sanitation/Water and Birthing training. This one village had received all of the training and the English mid-wife (Elizabeth Hunter) had also built a birthing house consisting of one room with a bed, a birthing table and another small wash room for mothers to clean themselves up in. In this village over the last year they reported 12 children being born including twins. No deaths to children or mothers from labor nor children deaths to waterborne diseases. Praise God!!!!! What an impact we can have by simply providing some simple training and tools. This is the type of model I hope we can replicate over and over again. Unfortunately the birthing training can be politically charged depending on what country you are in. On Tuesday I was headed off on a grand adventure south of Monrovia, to Buchanan to meet with 25 major church leaders in the area, who had attended a pastoral conference on church unity in May. What was supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour ride took nearly 6 hours because of the terrible road conditions due to lack of maintenance and the effects of the rainy season. About half way to our destination we stopped for lunch and a bathroom break. The leader for this trip is Winston, a South African man in charge of Church Empowerment, who needed to use the bush bathroom(s). So here we are stopped at a random spot on this road, he picks a random bush to do his business in and he manages to find the local latrine by stepping into it with his dress shoes. I mean these things were covered and wreaked of nastiness. We paid some local boys to clean them in the river and when they brought them back we sprayed them with some air freshener. We all assumed this was a good omen and continued on our way. The trip itself was beautiful with bamboo and rubber tree forests on each side of the road. The bamboo went 40-60 ft up in the air and in some places formed these natural arches that seemed to welcome us to explore, but after Winston’s exciting "find" none of us were too keen to go exploring in the bush. I will definitely post some pictures on the web when I get back. We also saw some locals selling "grass cutters" on the road. These are basically a large beaver or groundhog. Now we have been teaching the locals to raise rabbits, but they just don’t like to eat them. But they just love these giant rodents, especially barbequed! I tried it myself and its not bad…..for a giant rat! Next month the Chinese government will be starting to build a new 4 lane road to Buchanan. The Chinese Ambassador convinced the Liberian President that Monrovia’s port is so bad and corrupt they were better off starting a new port to the South to ship the major resources out of. This was especially true since an iron ore company, Mattell is building a new facility in Buchanan and Firestone could ship there rubber from there once the road was done. To give you an ideal of how corrupt the Monrovian port is, they just replaced the 4th Port Commissioner in 3 years and each one has left their job with a better car and house than when they started their short term there.

Once we got to Buchanan we checked into the "Guest House" For Africa it was what you expected, small dingy well used bed with a mosquito net (with holes in it). We sprayed our rooms with raid and headed into town to introduce ourselves to the Superintendent, Mayor, and Police chief. You are required to do this or you will bring dishonor on to these people of authority. Basically you need permission to be in their city and you definitely need permission to do anything in the city. So we went to the President’s Buchanan residence and we sat in these gilded chairs while we waited. The expensive chairs and sofas are there for the president to entertain people with. In walked the Mayor, a heavy set local man wearing a British pit helmet much like a British officer from World War II might do. He introduced himself, took off his helmet off and cradled it in his arm just like I’d seen officers do in the movies. This hat was obviously the symbol of his authority and he was quite proud of it. He was very cordial and welcomed us, he informed us the Superintendent was

away and he was going to give us the "key to the city." He then stood up raised his hands and said "I give you the key to the city" and that was it. He told us by simply telling people this we could visit any of the culturally sensitive areas of town like the prison or famous leader’s graves. We all thanked him and headed out on our tour of the city. Every where we went police officers would come up to us and we would simply say we had the key to the city and they would simply wave us on. Buchanan is a beautiful small city, it is right on the ocean and it is CLEAN, well in comparison with Monrovia. The streets are made of cement with no potholes and the buildings are painted and for the most part have no trash piled up in front of them. It was easy to see why companies like Mattell and Firestone were willing to invest in this part of the country. We went down to the fish market area and we found ourselves transported to a different time. We were surrounded by fishing canoes and men fixing their nets, it could have easily been 1907 as 2007. One of our team decided he was going to be like apostle Peter and began to preach right their amongst the fishermen. It was awesome!! We just started yelling the message of the Gospel and these men laid down their tools and listened to us. Except for one man who mocked us all of the fishermen said they believed in Christ and prayed with us. I was so impressed that this young man with us had the courage to openly preach with out being asked nor worried about his reception from this crowd. He said he was moved by these men performing their timeless work and there was no way he was going to miss a chance to follow the apostle’s example. I’m not sure I would have had the courage to do that, but now after seeing the result I can’t wait for my next chance to spontaneously preach like that.

That evening we had a traditional meal consisting of some jalaf rice (good stuff) and some fried fish that was great. Now most of you know I love spicy foods, and there were a lot of pepper gravies to go with the food that ranged from hot to "Oh my God don’t let me die." They also served an African pea, which is actually a small egg plant and was one of the most bitter thing I’ve had so far. Not only was it bitter but it had an after taste that I assume would be much like licking an ash tray. It got dark as we ate and we adjourned to our rooms. Mine was at the very back of the house and I was up most the night because there were people outside my window talking most of the night. At one point a small hand of either a woman or child came through a window looking to see if it could reach anything. I turned on my flash light and whoever it was ran away. So I didn’t get much sleep till dawn but at that point I slept for 2 good hours.

The next morning saw the 25 pastors arrive on time, a great sign of their commitment to this program. We began our discussions on what they got out of the course and how they were beginning to work together. They all decided they needed a biblical library, all of their study books and concordances were lost in the war. They were asking who they needed to ask, when Vincent one of our team said that Mark Elliott was the man who would be the face of Mercy Ships for the next 10 years and that I would be the one to ask. Never has a man complicated my life so quickly! I quickly corrected him that I was not the "face of Mercy Ships" and that I was not committing to be here for 10 more years. But I would be glad to look into finding people who would be willing to donate books, if they were willing to work together and either buy or build a building to act as a study library, that all of them and their subordinate pastors could use. They assured me they would, and I informed them it would be good for me to see that when I return in a year to do the assessment for our return to Liberia. Needless to say I have already received multiple emails from these pastors thanking me and offering suggestions on how I can help them. Vincent is a dead man ;-) We enjoyed a thank you lunch that even had some of our local staff looking at a little hesitantly. There were several types of mystery fish and some I wasn’t sure how it was cooked but it appeared be only part done and the fish was still a little slimy. I wasn’t even sure what part of the fish it was, the only thing recognizable was some boiled plantain and yam root (the stuff that fufu is made from) Ship food was starting to look really really really good. Our trip back was uneventful and we shared each others salvation stories and what led us into missions. That vehicle contained 5 people, a Zimbabwian, South African, Sierra Leonian, Canadian, and American. We all came from different backgrounds, economic status and denominations but yet God was able to take what we had in common, a love for the Lord and His children. He brought us together wove our lives, skills, and giftings around each other to make this wonderful tool for His purpose. When you stand in that moment recognizing that you are part of the Master’s much bigger work, it takes your breath away and you realize that you are a piece of the Master’s plan. It is a truly humbling moment.

On Thursday I was notified that my luggage was on the way from Nigeria. Now you may ask why Nigeria, but then again you could ask why it had visited Ivory Coast and Senegal as well. My luggage was definitely well traveled! The funny thing was each tag had "RUSH" on it starting 2 days after I left the states till 2 weeks later. When I finally got it I found my laptop and a pair of shoes had been stolen. The funny thing was that the air line worker was trying to convince me that the crooked Nigerians must have stolen it, I mean no Liberian would ever steal something from my luggage……….yeah right. I just had to laugh as he said it. I’m told SN Brussels may offer me $50 for my loss, welcome to traveling in Africa. The only reason I had the pc in my luggage was that I was already carrying 2 new laptops for our land base and ship in my carry-on. Oh well in the big picture it’s a small thing. At least I have some underwear…it was getting a little difficult to wash and dry my one pair every night.

Saturday saw me back at the orphanage. This time a German film crew came out with us to document what Mercy Ship’s families have been able to do for these 53 children over the last 3 years. The transformation that you have helped to make is amazing; each child is not only doing well but has a future thanks to your gifts to us that we have in turn used on this orphanage. I will be updating the web site when I get back so you can see the difference you have made in these kids lives. The film crew wanted me to lay tiles with our trained boys to show that we help on these projects. Needless to say the guy laying tile had to redo my tiles after the filming was done, I hate to think I was documented laying such uneven tile. You get what you pay for I guess with us old white guys. J Sunday saw me staying with our missionary friends the Gallingers. I had 53 of their movies in my luggage and they were celebrating their safe return with my luggage. They are awesome people when you think they have been here 11 years it blows my mind. They make the rest of us look like amateurs.

Well its bed time; tomorrow starts a week of dozens of meeting with other NGO’s. Please continue to pray for me, I will be flying into Sierra Leone the day after their election and it has been a little violent lately, 20 people were beaten and stabbed on Saturday. So I need to be reviewing my travel plans daily to make sure I’m playing it safe and not "challenging the Lord, my God" with any foolishness.