Mission Trip 2012 Blog 4

Friday, March 9

• Before Rev. Augustine Yeagar was about to leave Monrovia and return to Buchanan, I scheduled an impromptu meeting with him. Rev. Yeagar teaches at the community college in Buchanan. I was connected with him by Rev. Toby Gbeh, the Vice President of the Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary. I asked Rev. Yeagar to use his ministerial connections in Buchanan to help towards getting 100 church leaders to the Buchanan Salt Covenant Conference on March 20–22, starting at 2 PM.

• Rev. Sam Walker came by on a motorcycle, and we drove over to near-by Carver Mission campus to finalize arrangements on guest rooms for two of our mission team members, since ELWA only has rooms for five guests out of seven. Finding Rev. Jarbah we located the lady with the keys to the Carver Mission facility, and I inspected the rough-looking rooms in the really beat-down guesthouse. I decided in favor of two separate rooms with a single bed each, instead of one room with two beds; the cost is $20 per night.

• Elder Martin Curlon picked me up from Carver Mission for a visit to Ricks Institute, the high school I graduated from in 1985 and taught at in 1990 before fleeing the Liberian Civil War in July of that year. My high school classmate, Rev. Edwin Doley, welcomed us and gave us a quick tour of the campus. I asked Rev. Doley to see the apartment where I once lived. My hope was to locate the deeds to land that Ma Ethel Gbapayweah entrusted to me before she left Liberia during the War. She intended to transfer title of the land to me, but the war prevented the transfer. I left the documents at Ricks when I left Liberia in July 1990. According to Rev. Doley, it is useless checking my former apartment, since the rebels who invaded Ricks ransacked every house on campus, leaving no contents in any of them. My next hope is to check with the Ministry of Lands and Mines to check the archives for the name Ethel Gbapaywea for deeds on parcels of land in the Clay Ashland area. (By the way, Clay Ashland is that settlement named after Ashland, Kentucky; the settlement was originally named “Kentucky in Africa”, and it was home to Mr. Moses Ricks, the largest donor to what became Ricks Institute.)

• Though there is still much improvement needed, Ricks Institute seems to be rebounding in many ways, with the cafeteria functioning, separate dormitories for boys and girls reopened, the clinic back in operation, and the annual Ricks Olympics (scheduled for March 29 this year) back in swing. Elder Martin and I made the 25-minute drive back to Monrovia, and met with Liberian businessman, Mohammed Kanneh, President of Orbital Incorporated. Mr. Kanneh is Muslim (which I found out during our meeting), and elder brother to Martin.

• A meeting with Pastors Isaac and Dean closed out the day's business. Both men made it clear to me that CFA Liberia does not have the funds to feed the 200 church leaders expected to attend the Salt Covenant Conference on March 15 through 17. Our mission team should stand ready to foot the bill for our lodging, our food, our communication (cell phone service and internet), and our transportation (gasoline cost is approaching $5 per gallon, not to mention the cost of car rental), as well as cover the cost of feeding 200 conference attendees in Monrovia and 100 conference attendees in Buchanan. Having the minivan shipped in time would have definitely reduced our transportation expenses, but I refuse to keep whining about the gross failure of Mr. Molubah Kamara, the shipper in Louisville! Pray that the Lord will provide every dollar and for the health we will need to get His assignment done on this mission trip.
  
  
• Have I told you yet that driving in Monrovia is the closest thing to crazy? You may have heard of the blind leading the blind. How about the blind driving the sighted? There are probably rules of the road, but it may have something to do with blowing your horn and diving in, nose first, hoping other drivers will yield. Oh, then there are the motorcyclists swarming like bees and flees among the cars. But I'm still alive and blogging; somehow this pseudo race car bonanza works. Hopefully I'm not scaring anyone from coming on a short-term mission trip to Liberia! Enjoy -:) ~ End Blog 4 ~